Majda

“Lucifer protests he was never to blame for inducing anyone to sin, and that he’s never had an interest in owning souls: 'They die, and they come here – having transgressed against what they believed to be right – and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don’t make them come here… I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No, they belong to themselves. They just hate to have to face up to it.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists

“Jack asked his mum one evening how she could bear to sit beside people when they were dying, in their final hours, without being able to save them.
His mum kissed the top of his head and said: ‘How do you eat an elephant, sweetheart?’ He replied the way a child who’s heard the same joke a thousand times does: ‘One bit at a time, Mom.’ She laughed just as loudly, for the thousandth time, the way parents do.
Then she held his hand tightly and said: ‘We can’t change the world, and a lot of the time we can’t even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to… be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“People with menial jobs conjure up what Nietzsche calls a background world, forcing themselves to believe in an earthly or heavenly paradise. Their mental Eden is as seductive as their job is repugnant.”
― Amélie Nothomb, Stupeur et tremblements

“A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one.”
― Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels