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... if there was anything consistent with the way she raised us, it was in her refusal to allow any of us to indulge in self-pity of any kind. She achieved this through a maddening style of argument, in which the following three statements were repeated in various sequences:

A. It's your life + social commentary.
B. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.
C. No one ever said that life was fair.

For example, an argument I had with her when I was eleven:

"I want to go out for the football team," I said. " ... all my friends are playing."

"It's your life," she answered." But I don't want to be responsible for you hobbling around on crutches your whole life because you blew out your knee as a kid. And besides, we don't have the money for it."

"But I want to."

"What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things."

"That's not fair. You always say that."

She shrugged. "No one ever said that life was fair."

I paused, trying another approach.

"I won't get hurt, if that's what you're worried about."

She looked me over. "Someone your size? You'd definitely get hurt. I've seen football players. You'd be nothing more than a bug on the windshield to them. You're too small."

She had a point there. I was small.

"I wish I was bigger. Like my friends are."

She put a consoling hand on my shoulder. "Oh sweetie, no one ever said that life was fair."

"I know, but still ..."

"Just remember this, okay?" she'd offer, her voice softening with maternal affection. "It'll help you later in life when you're disappointed about anything. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe I should try another sport."

My mom would smile tenderly, as if finally conceding the argument. "Hey, do what you want. It's your life."

The older I get, the more I hated these arguments, because I lost every one of them. But still, deep down, I could never escape the feeling that my mom was probably right about most things. After all, she spoke from experience.

~ Nicholas Sparks, "Three Weeks with My Brother"

Your last name stays put. The garage is all yours. Wedding plans take care of themselves. Chocolate is just another snack. You can be President. You can never be pregnant. You can wear a white T-shirt to a water parka. You can wear NO shirt to a water parka. Car mechanics tell you the truth.

The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky. You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt. Same work, more pay. Wrinkles add character. Wedding dress $5000. Tux rental-$100. People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them. The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected. New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet. One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat. You know stuff about tanks.

A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase. You can open all your own jars. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack. Three pairs of shoes are more than enough. You almost never have strap problems in public. You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

Everything on your face stays its original color. The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades. You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life. Your belly usually hides your big hips. One wallet and one pair of shoes one color for all seasons. You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look. You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife. You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

No wonder men are happier.

What Crake had to say was this: "Homo sapiens ... is one of the few species that doesn't limit reproduction in the face of dwindling resources. In other words - and up to a point, of course - the less we eat, the more we fuck."
"How do you account for that?" said Jimmy.
"Imagination," said Crake. "Men can imagine their own deaths, they can see them coming, and the mere thought of impending death acts like an aphrodisiac. A dog or rabbit doesn't behave like that. Take birds - in a lean season they cut down on the eggs, or they won't mate at all. They put their energy into staying alive themselves until times get better. But human beings hope they can stick their souls into someone else, some new version of themselves, and live on forever."
"As a species we're doomed by hope, then?"
"You could call it hope. That, or desperation."
"But we're doomed without hope, as well," said Jimmy.
"Only as individuals," said Crake cheerfully.

~ Margaret Atwood, "Oryx and Crake"

... the fact is that there is one extremely pertinent quality about life on Earth: it goes extinct. Quite regularly.

For all the trouble they take to assemble and preserve themselves, species crumble and die remarkably routinely. And the more complex they get, the more quickly they appear to go extinct. Which is perhaps one reason why so much of life isn't terribly ambitious.

~ Bill Bryson, "A Short History of Nearly Everything"

When I was young, 50 seemed like a very big number. I once believed I'd never live a long life and that my future would be different. But now I am right in the middle of my own future, and I have not found any real change in myself. My dream is as far as it was during my childhood. The only difference is that I have already lost my plan to realize it.

~ Wang Shuo

- What do you think faith is?
- Faith is the belief in something that can't be proven to exist.
- And why don't you have it?
- I think God is something People use to avoid reality. I think faith allows People to reject what is in front of our eyes, which is that this thing, this life, this existence, this consciousness, or whatever word you want to use for it, is all we have, and all we'll ever have. I think People have faith because they want to need to believe in something, whatever that something is, because life can be hard and depressing and brutal if you don't.
- You may be right, but what about accepting the idea that faith can make your life better. I know my faith makes my life better, and whether what I believe in exists or not, because I have faith in it, I get the benefits of that faith ... You can't prove love or friendship exist, but you still have faith in them. I'm asking you to apply the same principle to someething greater than yourself.
- I can feel love and friendship. I can see and touch and talk to the People I love and the People I choose to make my friends. The idea of God doesn't make me feel anything and I can't see God or touch God or talk to God.
- Have you ever tried to open yourself up to the idea of faith? ... I want you to stop intellectualizing it and try to open yourself to it.
- I've never believed in God, not even as a little Kid. I'm not going to start now.

~ James Frey, " A Million Little Pieces"

Does everyone feel this way? When I was young, I was perpetually overconfident or insecure. Either I felt completely useless, unattractive, and worthless, or that I was pretty much a success, and everything I did was bound to succeed. When I was confident, I could overcome the hardest challenges. But all it took was the smallest setback for me to be sure that I was utterly worthless. Regaining my self-confidence had nothing to do with success; every goal I set myself, every recognition I craved made anything I actually did seem paltry by comparison, and whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.

~ Bernhard Schlink, "The Reader"

One is often told it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told, I have not noticed it ...

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward dimunition of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world ...

My own view of religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilization. It helped in early days to fix the calendar; and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they become able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any other.

~ Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not A Christian"
taken from Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven"