Jaqueline

“What do you want? What do you want?” he repeated to himself. “What do I want? To live and not to suffer,” he answered. And again he listened with such concentrated attention that even his pain did not distract him. “To live? How?” asked his inner voice. “Why, to live as I used to—well and pleasantly.” “As you lived before, well and pleasantly?” the voice repeated. And in imagination he began to recall the best moments of his pleasant life.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

“Always the same. Now a spark of hope flashes up, then a sea of despair rages, and always pain; always pain, always despair, and always the same.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

“and Ivan Ilyich was left alone with the consciousness that his life was poisoned and was poisoning the lives of others, and that this poison did not weaken but penetrated more and more deeply into his whole being. With”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death Of Ivan Ilyich

“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea