RedSycamore

“It's a very bad habit, but one I find hard to break.”
― Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

“There are problems we solve and problems we live with, and when we see people who have learned to live with terrible problems, the ordinary way they have about them makes it easy for us to forget, or never to notice, the merciless persistence of the problem, the way its agony has made itself into the root and stone of an ordinary life. We want to think that adaptation is a cure, when in reality it isn’t even a palliative; it’s usually nothing more or less than the difference between death and being able to live in pain.”
― Michael Cisco

“On hearing such tales [of destruction of rural Italian homes by Italian troops], my mother said she could not believe such things could have been done by our own people; and we were unable to draw any other moral except this: that for the conquering soldier every land is enemy territory, even his own.”
― Italo Calvino, Into the War

“If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad