1
" On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past. "
― Stanisław Lem , Solaris
8
" He finally pulled it all back into his heart, sucking in the painful tide of his misery. In the Glade, Chuck had become a symbol for him—a beacon that somehow they could make everything right again in the world. Sleep in beds. Get kissed goodnight. Have bacon and eggs for breakfast, go to a real school. Be happy.
But now Chuck was gone. And his limp body, to which Thomas still clung, seemed a cold talisman—that not only would those dreams of a hopeful future never come to pass, but that life had never been that way in the first place. That even in escape, dreary days lay ahead. A life of sorrow.
His returning memories were sketchy at best. But not much good floated in the muck.
Thomas reeled in the pain, locked it somewhere deep inside him. He did it for Teresa. For Newt and Minho. Whatever darkness awaited them, they’d be together, and that was all that mattered right then. "
― James Dashner , The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)
15
" He knew that, from now on, every day would be alike, that they would all bring the same sufferings. And he saw the weeks, the months, the years that awaited him, gloomy and implacable, coming one after the other, falling on him and suffocating him bit by bit. When the future is without hope, the present takes on a vile, bitter taste. "
― Émile Zola , Thérèse Raquin
17
" Perhaps I have misjudged you, Christopher,” Erienne commented as he whirled her about in a wide sweep of the ballroom.
“How so, my love?” He searched her face for some hint of her meaning.
“You watch over me as closely as Stuart,” she stated and grew thoughtful. “Perhaps more so.”
“I have not given up hope that you will someday become mine, madam, and I choose to safeguard against those who would take you from me.”
“What of Stuart?” She raised a lovely brow as she awaited his answer. It was a long moment before he gave a reply. “In the ways of love, I do not consider Stuart as much a threat as an inconvenience.”
“An inconvenience?” she queried.
“I shall have to deal with him in time, and that will be the difficult part. I cannot dismiss the man without rousing your hatred again. ’Tis a most perplexing problem.”
“You amaze me, Christopher.” Erienne shook her head, somewhat shocked by his casual disregard of her husband. “You truly amaze me.”
“The feeling is mutual, my love.” His voice came as a soft caress and sent an eddy of sensations spiraling down through the core of her being.
-Erienne & Christopher "
― Kathleen E. Woodiwiss , A Rose in Winter
