Phil Ruse

“God, am I like the rest after all?” — So he used to think starting awake at night — “Am I like the rest?”
This was poor material for a socialist but good material for those who do much of the world’s rarest work. The truth was that for some months he had been going through that partitioning of the things of youth wherein it is decided whether or not to die for what one no longer believes. In the dead white hours in Zurich staring into a stranger's pantry across the upshine of a street-lamp, he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

“A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair, ...”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

“I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.”
― Anne Tyler, The Accidental Tourist