Joseph Kauffman

“We didn’t want to be reminded of how little we counted, how quickly, simply, and anonymously death came. Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn’t know, nor how, except by taking a look around at the little I would be leaving.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American

“I take no sides. I am interested in the shape of ideas. There is a wonderful sentence in Augustine: "Do not despair; one the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." That sentence has a wonderful shape. It is the shape that matters.”
― Samuel Beckett

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”
― Samuel Beckett

“From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year...death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.”
― Graham Greene, The Quiet American