Philip Rankin

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Why is it we want so badly to memorialize ourselves? Even while we're still alive. We wish to assert our existence, like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. We put on display our framed photographs, our parchment diplomas, our silver-plated cups; we monogram our linen, we carve our names on trees, we scrawl them on washroom walls. It's all the same impulse. What do we hope from it? Applause, envy, respect? Or simply attention, of any kind we can get?
At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
― haruki murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running