Luc De Coster

“There are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn't, because there aren't enough skulls!”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“The history of the world? Just voices echoing in the dark; images that burn for a few centuries and then fade; stories, old stories that sometimes seem to overlap; strange links, impertinent connections. We lie here in our hospital bed of the present (what nice clean sheets we get nowadays) with a bubble of daily news drip-fed into our arm. We think we know who we are, though we don't quite know why we're here, or how long we shall be forced to stay. And while we fret and write in bandaged uncertainty - are we a voluntary patient? - we fabulate. We make up a story to cover the facts we don't know or can't accept; we keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Our panic and our pain are only eased by soothing fabulation; we call it history.”
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

“It is all just the universe doing its stuff, and we are the stuff it is being done to.”
― Julian Barnes, Levels of Life

“Most people wait for their parents to die with a mixture of tremendous sadness and plans for a new swimming pool.”
― Edward St. Aubyn