Risa

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours—arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

“I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.”
― Daphne duMaurier, Rebecca

“Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace