Andrew Bourne

“[H]e was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“When I look at small things, I think I shall go on living: drops of rain, leather gloves shrunk by being wet...When I look at something too big, I want to die: the Diet Building, or a map of the world...”
― Kobo Abe, The Box Man

“One day a man invited him into a richly furnished house, saying 'be careful not to spit on the floor.' Diogenes, who needed to spit, spat in his face, exclaiming that it was the only dirty place he could find where spitting was permitted.”
― Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

“The shrill voices of those who give orders
Are full of fear like the squeakings of
Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses
Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs....
Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but
The rulers too.”
― Bertolt Brecht