Katie

“Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did not count his work, anyone could have done it. What had he known, but the long, marital embrace with his wife. Curious, that this was what his life amounted to! At any rate, it was something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody, and be proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms, and she was still his fulfillment, just the same as ever. And that was the be-all and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it.”
― D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow

“I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.”
― Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

“The old grief of the great mystery of human life gradually passes into a quiet, tender joy; in place of the boiling blood of youth there comes a meek serene old age: I bless the daily rising of the sun, and my heart sings to it as it did of old, but now I am more enamored of its setting, its long, oblique rays, and the quiet, gentle, tender memories that accompany them, the dear images from the whole of a long and blessed life--and above it all the truth of God, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. ”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex