David

“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”
― Stephen King, It

“Merlyn held up his hand. “Give him the humble earth-worm,” he said majestically. So the animals recited in unison: “The naturalist Darwin has pointed out that there are about 25,000 earth-worms in every field acre, that they turn over in England alone 320,000,000 tons of soil a year, and that they are to be found in almost every region of the world. In thirty years they will alter the whole earth’s surface to the depth of seven inches. ‘The earth without worms,’ says the immortal Gilbert White, ‘would soon become cold, hard-bound, void of fermentation, and consequently sterile.’​”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Conclusion to the Once and Future King

“they told me my job description but i think i’ve got it wrong. they said i was supposed to man the lighthouse and save lost ships from going down.
but every time i saw the ships i forgot about the light. i dove headfirst into the sea and swam to save their life.
  i drowned us both in the process; the ships never found the shore. i ended up helping less when i meant to be helping more.
  i think when they told me to save people with my light, i mistook their words and tried to save people with my life.
  i know i should have turned the light on, i know i should have taken their advice, but i don’t know what love is if it is not sacrifice.”
― Whitney Hanson, Climate

“If there is a thing I truly despise, it is being addressed as "dearie." When I write my magnum opus, A Treatise Upon All Poison, and come to "Cyanide," I am going to put under "Uses" the phrase "Particularly efficacious in the cure of those who call one 'Dearie.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie