Sam Small

“But every gasp strips my heart bare. The dying man is the master of these hours, he has an invisible dagger to stab me with: the dagger of time and my thoughts.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“Always it was the same, Furlong thought; always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things? Might their lives be different or much the same - or would they just lose the run of themselves?”
― Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

“Maybe the Man isn't able.' 'I suppose.' She reached over and sighed, turned out the light. 'Always there's one that has to pull the short straw.”
― Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

“Here, too, the further back he went the more life there was. More goodness in life, more of life itself. The two things were merging. 'It's like the pain getting worse and worse - all of my life has been getting worse and worse,' he thought. There was one point of light back there at the beginning of life, but after that everything had been getting blacker and blacker. ' In inverse proportion to the square distance from death,' he thought.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych