John Vanhara

“I will begin with this: Do not roam among the haggard and the meek. Do not fight for scraps of food that are moist with stagnant rains. Do not enter the crucible of egoistic men who compete over dime and dollar. Rise, my student. And insist First upon the glory of Freedom. So that no arena can contain you. And no man can equal you. For your journey is unlike any other man in the field.”
― Kapil Gupta, A Master's Secret Whispers: For those who abhor the noise and seek The Truth about life and living

“From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value.”
― Haruki Murakami, After the Quake

“You must participate in competition, in struggle, in the life of the world. If you stop, you no longer exist. If you fall behind, you’re dead.’ Denying any notion of eternity, defining itself as a process of permanent renewal, advertising aims to vaporize human subjects, to transform them into obedient phantoms of becoming. And this skin-deep, superficial participation in the life of the world is supposed to take the place of the desire for being.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Interventions 2020

“Affirmative. A hard-and-fast rule in business is to never accept the first offer. Remember that, and you will never go wrong.”
― Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore