Steven Rainer

“He was not a practical joker nor was he a fool but he was determinedly original and had a vague and modest idea of himself as a legendary figure.”
― John Cheever, The Swimmer

“The older I grow the less Christ's teaching says to me. I am sometimes very conscious that I am following the path of a leader who died when He was less than half as old as I am now. I see and feel things He never saw or felt. I know things He seems never to have known. Everybody wants a Christ for himself and those who think like him. Very well, am I at fault for wanting a Christ who will show me how to be an old man? All Christ's teaching is put forward with the dogmatism, the certainty, and the strength of youth: I need something that takes account of the accretion of experience, the sense of paradox and ambiguity that comes with years!”
― Robertson Davies, Fifth Business

“There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship...”
― Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head

“The Sloth would sit on his couch, paralyzed by all the things he wasn't taking care of. Then one day, a Wednesday, he just said, 'Fuck it!' He threw his hands up into the air and said, 'Fuck it!' This was the day that the sloth discovered his superpower, an amazing ability to say 'Fuck it' and really, truly mean it.”
― Andrew Kaufman, All My Friends are Superheroes