28
" The problem, Paulinus, is not that we have a short life, but that we waste time. Life is long and there is enough of it for satisfying personal accomplishments if we use our hours well. But when time is squandered in the pursuit of pleasure or in vain idleness, when it is spent with no real purpose, the finality of death fast approaches and it is only then, when we are forced to, that we, at last, take a good hard look at how we have spent our life- just as we become aware that it is ending. Thus the time we are given is not brief, but we make it so. We do not lack time; on the contrary, there is so much of it that we waste an awful lot "
― Seneca
29
" I, too, had set out to be remembered. I had wanted to create something permanent in my life- some proof that everything in its way mattered, that working hard mattered, that feeling things mattered, that even sadness and loss mattered, because it was all part of something that would live on. But I had also come to recognize that not everything needs to be durable. the lesson we have yet to learn from dogs, that could sustain us, is that having no apprehension of the past or future is not limiting but liberating. Rin Tin Tin did not need to be remembered in order to be happy; for him, it was always enough to have that instant when the sun was soft, when the ball was tossed and caught, when the beloved rubber doll was squeaked. Such a moment was complete in itself, pure and sufficient. "
― Susan Orlean
32
" Sylvia rarely flattered the men in her life- she envied them. She was far more likely to compete with a man than a woman. In her journal she describes this jealousy of which she is painfully aware; " It is an envy born of the desire to be active and doing, not passive and listening." She craved the " double life" of men, who could enjoy career, sex, and family. " I can pretend to forget my envy," she writes, " no matter, it is there, insidious, malignant, latent. "
