"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (Idylls of the King and a Selection of Poems)

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us."
— Franz Kafka

"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning."
— Jean-Paul Sartre

""And then I felt sad because I realized that once people are broken in certain ways, they can't ever be fixed, and this is something nobody ever tells you when you are young and it never fails to surprise you as you grow older as you see the people in your life break one by one. You wonder when your turn is going to be, or if it's already happened." "
— Douglas Coupland

"No. No, first comes boyhood. You get to play with soldiers and spacemen, cowboys and ninjas, pirates and robots. But before you know it, all that comes to an end. And then, Remo Williams, is when the adventure begins."
— Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man Vol. 10: Whys And Wherefores)

"Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in night.

Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later. Born from oblivion; bear children, hell-bound as ourselves, go into oblivion. There is nothing else.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. Streets stank of fire. The void breathed hard on my heart, turning its illusions to ice, shattering them. Was reborn then, free to scrawl own design on this morally blank world.

Was Rorschach.

Does that answer your Questions, Doctor?"
— Alan Moore (Watchmen)

"But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget ... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away. Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg,-- the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes. And let's go home."
— Alan Moore (Absolute Watchmen)

"Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it."
— Jorge Luis Borges (Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings)

"It doesn't matter that you didn't believe in us," said Mr. Ibis. "We believed in you."
— Neil Gaiman (American Gods)

"The squirrel has not yet found the acorn that will grow to the oak that will be cut to form the cradle of the babe that will grow to slay me."
— Neil Gaiman

"Touched by her fingers, the two surviving chocolate people copulate desperately, losing themselves in a melting frenzy of lust, spending the last of their brief borrowed lives in a spasm of raspberry cream and fear."
— Neil Gaiman (The Sandman Vol. 7: Brief Lives)

"Rules and responsibilities: these are the ties that bind us. We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves. I will do what I have to do. And I will do what I must."
— Neil Gaiman (The Sandman: Book of Dreams)

"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
— Neil Gaiman (The Sandman Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)

"You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime."
— Neil Gaiman (The Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes)