Marissa

“To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost."
So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions."
An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“Futility is the defining characteristic of life.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, Lord Foul's Bane

“[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“It struck me that the chief obstacle to marital contentment was this perpetual gulf between the well-founded, commendable pessimism of women and the sheer dumb animal optimism of men, the latter a force more than any other responsible for the lamentable state of the world.”
― Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys