robin friedman

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.”
― Voltaire

“It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.”
― William Carlos Williams, Asphodel, That Greeny Flower & Other Love Poems