Laura Hay

“People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“What is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Through this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity...
Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives there was doubtless a real past, yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.”
― Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth

“Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas