Elijah Brook

“To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing -- the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one's hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

“It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?" "For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment...”
― C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard