Ryan Cain

“He had never regarded other men as anything but puppets of a sort, created to fill up an empty world. He divided them into two classes: those he greeted because some chance had put him in contact with them, and those he did not greet. But both these categories of individuals were equally insignificant in his eyes.

("An Old Man")”
― Guy de Maupassant

“Well, as you can plainly see, the possibilities are endless like meandering paths in a great big beautiful garden.”
― William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch: The Restored Text

“There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“But destiny will be accomplished, and the best man will hold his ground while the undeserving one will vanish into his back-alley for ever - his filthy back-alley, his beloved back-alley, where he is at home and where he will sink in filth and stench at his own free will with enjoyment.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov