Theo Grip

“What a strange thing!
to be alive
beneath cherry blossoms.”
― Kobayashi Issa, Poems

“He'd been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours—arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

“Some pirates achieved immortality by great deeds of cruelty or derring-do. Some achieved immortality by amassing great wealth. But the captain had long ago decided that he would, on the whole, prefer to achieve immortality by not dying.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic