Carter

“Twenty-four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying class, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care.”
― Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

“This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path- the my-isn't-that-impressive path- and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people's high regard can feel too costly...Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstances will you underperform. You live, as you always have, by the code of effort/result, and with it you keep achieving until you think you know the answers to all the questions- including the most important one. Am I good enough? Yes, in fact I am.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“They thought I was stubborn. In the strict sense of the word there is no such thing as a stubborn insane person...When one possessed of the power of recognizing his own errors continues to hold an unreasonable belief-that is stubbornness. But for a man bereft of reason to adhere to an idea which to him seems absolutely correct and true because he has been deprived of the means of detecting his error- that is not stubbornness. It is a symptom of his disease, and merits the indulgence of forbearance, if not genuine sympathy.”
― Clifford Whittingham Beers

“To permit irresponsible authority is to sow disaster; to hold a man responsible for anything he does not control is to behave with blind idiocy.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers