hard lives Quotes

“Your life is not going to be easy, little Melody . . . If I could switch places with you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You know that, don’t you?”

“When matter is put aside, all creation becomes exclusively mental, that’s all.”

“Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can’t cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It’s just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it.”

“What condemnation could possibly be more harsh than one’s own, when self-pretense is no longer possible?”

″You can always change your plan, but only if you have one. I’m a big believer in to-do lists. It helps us break life into small steps. I once put “get tenure” on my to-do list. That was naïve. The most useful to-do list breaks tasks into small steps. It’s like when I encourage Logan to clean his room by picking up one thing at a time.″

“Oh, they were so tired of their lives. To die like this was better than to live as they had been doing, going nowhere but where Owl led them, always in darkness, scraping their feet raw for a few grains.”