Brian Iniguez

“Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“In short, know this: Human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash. To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it up without complaint. Like an olive that ripens and falls. Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“My dear Brás Cubas, don’t let yourself be overcome by these vapors. The deuce! You must be a man! Be strong! Fight! Win! Shine! Influence! Dominate! Fifty is the age for wisdom and government. Take heart, Brás Cubas; don’t go soft. What have you to do with the passage from ruin to ruin, flower to flower? You must try to savor life; and know that the worst philosophy is that of the sniveler who lies on the riverbank to bemoan the never-ending flow of the waters. It is their business to never come to rest; come to terms with that law, and try to make the most of it.”
― Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas