Zhi

“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 1

“Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“But in grieving for a murderer, thou art not grieving for the monstrous. Thou grievest for the man who failed to reject the monstrous act.”
― Katherine Addison, The Witness for the Dead

“Don’t interrupt,’ one of the boys said. ‘He’ll lose his life.’
Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed toward the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle