“The first words that are read by seekers of enlightenment in the secret, gong-banging, yeti-haunted valleys near the hub of the world, are when they look into The Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised.

The first question they ask is: 'Why was he eternally surprised?'

And they are told: 'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.'"

~ Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time



"Everyone was outside and I was in this hallway by myself, and I just kept thinking, I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.”

~ Michelle Williams



“I want to feel like I exist and I want everyone else who wants to feel that way to feel that way too."

~ Rebecca Sugar



"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people who do."

~ Angus, Night In The Woods


“One always hopes, of course, even now—to be collected, to be verified, annotated, to have variant versions, even to have one’s authenticity doubted .

~ Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn



“Nor had he, as far as he knew, ever believed in anything. It had been embarrassing, because he quite wanted to believe in something, since he recognized that belief was the lifebelt that got most people through the choppy waters of Life. He'd have liked to believe in a supreme God, although he'd have preferred a half-hour's chat with Him before committing himself, to clear up one or two points. He'd sat in all sorts of churches, waiting for that single flash of blue light, and it hadn't come. And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that. And every single political party had seemed to him equally dishonest. And he'd give up on ecology...Then he'd tried to believe in the Universe, which seemed sound enough until he'd innocently started reading books with words like Chaos and Time and Quantum in the titles. He'd found that even the people whose job of work was, so to speak, the Universe, didn't really believe in it and were actually quite proud of not knowing what it was or even if it could theoretically exist.”

~ Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch



'But by this earth, and by the sky above,
and by the waters of the Styx below,
which is the strongest oath for blessed gods,
I swear I will not plot more pain for you.'

~ The Odyssey (Homer; E. Wilson translation)


"There's cultists hailing desperately at that insentient rock
as well, either to pass us by or hurry up, obliterate
and free us from this confluence of dooms.
I wouldn't waste my time, if I were you. The asteroid
will come, regardless, when it comes."

~Margarita Tenser, End-Times Tables



"I'd rather have the snake than the snake oil salesman."

~ Abigail Thorn



"With long sobs
The violins
Of autumn
Wound my heart
With languorous
Monotony.

All choking
And pale, when
The hour sounds,
I remember
Departed days
And I weep;

And I go
Where ill winds blow,
Buffeted
To and fro,
Like a
Dead leaf."

~ Paul Verlaine 1866, Chanson d’ Automne (English Translation)


“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”

~ Vincent van Gogh

"Under the present brutal and primitive conditions of this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being."

~ Robert Anton Wilson

"It is true we are weak and sick and quarrelsome, but if that is all we ever were, we would, millenniums ago, have disappeared from the face of the earth. A few remnants of fossilized jawbone, some broken teeth in strata of limestone, would be the only mark man would have left of his existence in the world."

~ John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.”

~ Kait Rokowski

‘Levels, eh?’ [Granny] said. ‘Well, I suppose I’m level one.’
‘Just starting?’ said Diamanda.
(. . .)
‘Oh, yes,’ said Granny, quietly. ‘Just starting. Every day, just starting.’”
~ Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

"Revenge is not redress. Revenge is a wheel, and it turns backwards. The dead are not your masters.”
~ Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

~ Vincent Van Gogh