Mike K

“And the further he departed from childhood and the nearer he came to the present the more worthless and doubtful were the joys.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilych

“People came to him, but in the end they always left. They came, seeking something, but either they couldn’t find it, or were unhappy with what they found (or else they were disappointed or angry), and then they left.”
― Haruki Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

“When he couldn’t help he stayed clear, praying, at first, conventionally to God, first time since the other Blitz, for life to win out. But too many were dying, and presently, seeing no point, he stopped.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

“It took me no time at all to notice that this nothing, this hole where a head should have been was no ordinary vacancy, no mere nothing. On the contrary, it was very much occupied. It was a vast emptiness vastly filled, a nothing that found room for everything - room for grass, trees, shadowy distant hills, and far above them snow-peaks like a row of angular clouds riding the blue sky. I had lost a head and gained a world.”
― Douglas E. Harding, On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious