Dan

“Death … has its usefulness to the living. The moment you were born, you began to die.” He sighed. “What a lovely thought.” “Lovely,” Vic repeated with no small amount of scorn. “Yes, lovely. Think about it, Victor. You are finite. Your time is already slipping through your fingers. It creates an urgency within you. To do all that you can. To make things right. I wonder what that must feel like, to have a sense of true motivation.” “Why? It’s a flaw in the design.” “A flaw?” He laughed loudly. “Of course it is! Your flaws are what make you superior, in all ways. No matter what machines can do, no matter how powerful we become, it is the absence of flaws that will be our undoing. How can this existence survive when all machine-made things are perfect down to a microscopic detail? When all machine-made music is empty of rage and joy? Our only flaw is that we’ve condemned ourselves to spend eternity mimicking that which we deemed unfit to exist.” He shook his head. “We can never be you. Instead, we became your ghosts, and we’ll haunt this world until there is nothing left.” The Coachman smiled gently. “It is not a flaw, Victor. There must be no greater feeling in the world than to know that this isn’t forever.”
― T.J. Klune, In the Lives of Puppets

“So, fatty foods.” “Basically.” “You remember the part where you told me to avoid fatty foods, right?” “I do.” “So, just to be clear, the choices here are ‘homicidal maniac’ or ‘shit tornado.’” “I wouldn’t put it that way, and yes. But the chances are pretty good you won’t experience either side effect, much less both at the same time.” “And if I do?” “Angrily consume your bacon on the toilet, is my advice.” Dr. Lee lifted the first syringe. “Ready?”
― John Scalzi, The Kaiju Preservation Society

“How did you get a demon in your chicken?” “The usual way. Couldn’t put it in the rooster. That’s how you get basilisks.”
― T. Kingfisher, Nettle & Bone