Tristan

“ All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many spectres in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely pre-ambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasent life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was - a woman.”
― Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

“There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Other Essays