Aaron

“A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer better fantasies... And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World

“You know what I’m doing right now?” I say, watching the muddy liquid rush toward the edge of the table. “I’m thinking: Oh no! The coffee’s going to spill onto the floor! I’m so worried! Let’s keep talking about it!” And then the coffee waterfalls over the side of the desk, splashing on Andreas’s shoes and pooling on the ground beneath the desk. “Oh, look at that,” I say. “It happened anyway.” *”
― Ben H. Winters, The Last Policeman

“You are a laughable incident or a terrifying one as you happen to be less powerful or more powerful than some other form of life which crosses your path; but as a rule you are of no moment whatsoever to anything but yourself. You are a comic little figure, hopping from the cradle to the grave. Yes, that is our trouble — we take ourselves too seriously; but Caprona should be a sure cure for that.” She paused and laughed. “You have evolved a beautiful philosophy,” I said. “It fills such a longing in the human breast. It is full, it is satisfying, it is ennobling. What wondrous strides toward perfection the human race might have made if the first man had evolved it and it had persisted until now as the creed of humanity.” “I don’t like irony,” she said; “it indicates a small soul.” “What other sort of soul, then, would you expect from `a comic little figure hopping from the cradle to the grave’?” I inquired. “And what difference does it make, anyway, what you like and what you don’t like? You are here for but an instant, and you mustn’t take yourself too seriously.”
― Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot

“And that's when I learned that far-off gods are fine for prayer, and I judge no person who seeks comfort in the infinity of the heavens. But here below, when the demons come in close, you're better off just relying on the staunch will of a good woman.”
― Tom King, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow