Ryan Anderson

“If the best we could do was to minimize injustice and human suffering, so that life was not positively bad, there would be no point in living life at all. If human life is not a mistake, there must be some things that matter not because they solve a problem or address a need that we would rather do without but because they make life positively good. They would have what I've called "existential value." Art, pure science, theoretical philosophy: they have value of this kind. But so do mundane activities like telling funny stories, amatueur painting, swimming or sailing, carpentry or cooking, playing games with family and friends—what the philosopher Zena Hitz has called "the little human things." It's not just that we need them in order to recharge so that we can get back to work, but that they are the point of being alive. A future without art or science or philosophy, or the little human things, would be utterly bleak. Since they will not survive unless we nurture them, that is our responsibility, too.”
― Kieran Setiya, Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way

“The world as it is is enough.”
― Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land

“I eat, I perspire, I sleep, I excrete, I regret my choices, I yearn for the past. I have a very full schedule.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Past Is Red

“We can’t go back, not ever, not even for a minute. We are so lucky. Life is so good. We’re going on and being alive and being shitty sometimes and lovely sometimes just the same as we always have, and only a Fuckwit couldn’t see that.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Past Is Red