Roy

“thereby forfeiting the juicy solo in Peter and the Wolf (the duck’s theme) to the demonstrably inferior Evelyn Oh, whose rendition of it did, appropriately enough, sound like a quacking fucking duck, as did everything that came out of Evelyn Oh’s quacking fucking Oh-boe.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician King

“I consider the myth of Sisyphus to be an inspirational tale. It’s an idea I obviously adapted from Camus. In the eyes of the gods, Sisyphus’s endless task of pushing a boulder up a hill is a punishment. But by accepting his fate as unchangeable and continuing to do the task, Sisyphus can reject the gods’ view of him and thus be happy. Not happy in other people’s eyes—only his own. In other words, we may not be able to reject our fortune or fate, but we can reject how we approach it. Every day, we have the chance to kill the way the world sees us and push the boulder up the hill with a big, fat smile on our faces. To live life without amends.”
― David Chang, Eat a Peach

“To oppose something is to maintain it.
They say here "all roads lead to Mishnory." To be sure, if you turn your back on Mishnory and walk away from it, you are still on the Mishnory road. To oppose vulgarity is inevitably to be vulgar. You must go somewhere else; you must have another goal; then you walk in a different road.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“On the other side of the boy was a fireplace with a small fire burning in the grate. It was a much smaller fire than all the smoke outside suggested, but then this was obviously only a back room in the castle. Much more important to Sophie, this fire had reached the glowing rosy stage, with little blue flames dancing on the logs, and placed beside it in the warmest position was a low chair with a cushion on it. Sophie pushed the boy aside and dived for that chair. “Ah! My fortune!” she said, settling herself comfortably in it. It was bliss. The fire warmed her aches and the chair supported her back and she knew that if anyone wanted to turn her out now, they were going to have to use extreme and violent magic to do it.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle