Timothy Ma

“The Rat spent many tranquil afternoons settled in his rattan chair. When he began to drift off, he could feel time pass through his body like gently flowing water. As he sat, hours, days, weeks went by.
Occasionally, ripples of emotion would lap against his heart as if to remind him of something. When that happened, he closed his eyes, clamped his heart shut, and waited for the emotions to recede. It was only a brief sensation, like the shadows that signal the coming of night. Once the ripple had passed, the quiet calm returned as if nothing untoward had ever taken place.”
― Haruki Murakami, Pinball, 1973

“Vice is punished, but virtue is not rewarded”
― George Orwell, Inside the Whale and Other Essays

“Consider him well.—Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here’s three on ’s are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself.
Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.—”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots,
Ay, and laying autumn’s dust.”
― William Shakespeare