Rublar

“And the years came and went, the decades. But now it's no longer possible to put it off any more: either now or never. The one final opportunity must be taken, for the hour is late and nobody will come upon me.”
― Ivan Bunin

“... but any writer who adopts the totalitarian outlook, who finds excuses for persecution and the falsification of reality, thereby destroys himself as a writer. There is no way out of this. No tirades against 'individualism' and 'the ivory tower', no pious platitudes to the effect that 'true individuality is only attained through identification with the community', can get over the fact that a bought mind is a spoiled mind”
― George Orwell, Books v. Cigarettes

“Suppose you are walking in a thunderstorm, and you say to yourself, “I am not at all likely to be struck by lightning.” The next moment you are struck. but you experience no surprise, because you are dead.”
― Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

“And she said such strange things! To her own mother she had said—without warning “Woman! do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!” she had cried sinking down again and staring at her plate, “Malebranche was right: we are not our own light. We are not our own light!”
― Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find