David Lapin

“If a thing is to have a market value, it must be detachable or alienable so that it can be put on the scale and compared. I mean this in a particular sense: we who do the valuation must be able to stand apart from the thing we are pricing. We have to be able to conceive of separating ourselves from it. I may be fond of my wristwatch but I can put a value on it because I can imagine parting with it. But my heart has no market value (at least not to me!), for to detach it is inconceivable. (I address below the interesting question of value in relation to body organs used for transplant.) We feel it inappropriate, even rude, to be asked to evaluate in certain situations.”
― Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

“For if ever any man were deeply and unconsciously sure that his future would be no better than his past, he might deeply wish to cease to live.”
― John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

“The moment or hour of leave-taking is one of the pleasantest times in human experience, for it has in it a warm sadness without loss.”
― John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez

“No matter how long I linger with any being, I cannot exhaust the dynamic enigma of its presence.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal