Pradipa P. Rasidi

“They had him. Far down the platform we heard the sudden fifing shrill of the engine whistle. The guard cried warning; all up and down the platform doors were slammed. Slowly the train moved from the station. We rolled right past him, very slowly. They had him. They surrounded him. He stood among them, protesting volubly, talking with his hands now, insisting all could be explained. And they said nothing. They had him.”
― Thomas Wolfe, I Have a Thing to Tell You

“The young fellow took out an expensive-looking cigarette case, and, smiling amiably, asked the lady if she objected to his smoking. She immediately answered, with great friendliness, that she minded not at all. I myself received this welcome information with considerable relief, took a package of cigarettes from my pocket and was on the point of joining my unknown young companion in the luxury of smoke when old Fuss-And-Fidget opposite me rattled his paper viciously, glared sourly at us and then, pointing at a sign upon the wall of the compartment, croaked dismally, 'Nicht Raucher.”
― Thomas Wolfe, I Have a Thing to Tell You

“He clicked his heels together and bowed formally; and then closed the door. And I stood there for a moment, with that nameless feeling of affection and regret, knowing that I should never see him again.”
― Thomas Wolfe, I Have a Thing to Tell You

“Apparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures capable of what human moral experience has in all eras condemned. Apparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of unselfishness; and power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or to lust. There may be no gods; but the forces that shape and dissolve all forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than gods. To prove a "dramatic tendency" in the ways of the stars is not possible; but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every human system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.”
― Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things