Walt Whitman, The Swimmers

(It seems to me that every thing in the light and air ought to be happy,
Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave let him know he has enough.)

Dwight Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.

Jack London

I would rather be ashes than dust.

Aaron Traister

We talk about our marriages so seriously and with such reverence; we talk about our sex or lack thereof in the same way. Maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't treat the institution and its dirty little companion as some sort of precious Fabergé egg that is either shattered and worthless or pristine, untouchable and priceless. Maybe it's more like Silly Putty and the plastic egg it comes in. Sometimes the egg is open, allowing for hours of stretchy, flexible fun; sometimes the egg is closed and kind of boring, but as long as the Silly Putty remains inside the egg it's still full of as much potential as your imagination allows, and the value of the egg is not diminished no matter how often or vigorously the egg or its contents are fingered or played with. (And yes, I was staring at a Silly Putty egg on my dining room table when I came up with that extended metaphor.)

Wallace Shawn, The Fever

What do you think a human being is? A human being happens to be an unprotected little wriggling creature ... Without a shell or a hide or even fur, just thrown out onto the earth like an eye that's been pulled from its socket! Like a shucked oyster that's trying to crawl along the ground.

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Joan Didion, "Self Respect"

It was once suggested to me that, as an antidote to crying, I put my head in a paper bag. As it happens, there is a sound physiological reason, something to do with oxygen, for doing exactly that, but the psychological effect alone is incalculable: it is difficult in the extreme to continue fancying oneself Cathy in Wuthering Heights with one's head in a Food Fair bag.