Will Bangs

“I am uncertain of the future, but have achieved total liberty toward my past and toward myself. Here lies my poverty, and my sole wealth. It is as if I were beginning the game all over again, neither happier nor unhappier than before. But aware now of where my strength lies, scornful of my own vanities, and filled with that lucid fervor which impells me forward toward my fate.”
― Albert Camus

“The city had beat the pants off me. Whatever is required to get ahead, I didn't have it. I didn't leave the city in disgust- I left it with the respect plain, unadulterated fear gives. New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it- once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theater, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy.”
― John Steinbeck

“If those whom we begin to love could know us as we were before meeting them … they could perceive what they have made of us.”
― Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951

“My theory is - we don't really go that far into other people, even when we think we do. We hardly ever go in and bring them out. We just stand at the jaws of the cave, and strike a match, and quickly as if anybody's there.”
― Martin Amis, Money