Oliver

“... 'I've been doing everything for an awfully long time, and I've seen and lived as hard as I could, and it's been unbelievable, I tell you, unbelievable. But now I have the feeling everything's gliding away from me, and I don't remember, and I don't care, and yet now is right when I need it!'. [pp. 84-85]”
― Tove Jansson

“Have you paused to consider that there is no way out? Each way out of one situation necessarily being the way into another situation.”
― Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Child

“You can't ever be really free if you admire somebody too much.”
― Tove Jansson, Tales from Moominvalley

“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.”
― Tom Stoppard