Shifa

“He could think in italics. Such people need watching.

Preferably from a safe distance.”
― Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

“Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I am by nature an inward man, he said silently into the disconnected phone. I have struggled, in my fashion, to find my way towards an appreciation of the high things, towards a small measure of fineness. On good days I felt it was within my grasp, somewhere within me, somewhere within. But it eluded me. I have become embroiled, in things, in the world and in its messes, and I cannot resist. The grotesque has me, as before the quotidian had me, in its thrall”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“And the existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life.”
― Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya