Ally400

“That was all he had ever aspired to, with a wife thrown into the
bargain, maybe, and a kid or two to go along with her. It had
never felt like too much to ask for, but after three years of struggling
to write his dissertation, Tom finally understood that he
didn't have it in him to finish. Or, if he did have it in him, he
couldn't persuade himself to believe in the value of doing it
anymore.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“It was too small a step,
somehow, too puny a thing to settle for after having lost so
much. So the courtship continued, and the more Tom came to
despise his job, the more stubbornly he defended his own inertia;
and the more inert he became, the more he despised himself.”
― Paul Auster, The Brooklyn Follies

“I know that they're all unhappy because nobody loves the right person the way they should and because they don't understand that it's really their own self that they're mad at.”
― Muriel Barbery, Gourmet Rhapsody

“Yes, our eyes may perceive, yet they do not observe; they may believe, yet they do not question; they may receive yet they do not search: they are emptied of desire, with neither hunger nor passion.(Renee Michel)”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog