Yann Martel

"My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity -- it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud."

--Life of Pi

Bingham's Mission President

There's no growth in the comfort zone and no comfort in the growth zone.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of "Eat, Pray, Love"

"If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... A prudent insurance policy. I'm not interested in the insurance industry. I'm tired of being a skeptic, I'm irritated by spiritual prudence and I feel bored and parched by empirical debate. I don't want to hear it anymore. I couldn't care less about evidence and proof and assurances. I just want God. I want God inside me. I want God to play in my bloodstream the way sunlight amuses itself on water."

ALBERT GRAY

"Successful people have the habit of doing things failures don't like to do. They don't like donig them either necessarily but their dislike is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

Neil Postman

... The great strength of the science-god, is, of course, that it works ... The science-god sends people to the moon, inoculates people against disease, transports images through vast spaces so that they can be seen in our living rooms. It is a mighty god and, like more ancient ones, gives people a measure of control over their lives, which is one of the reasons why gods are invented in the first place. Some people say the science-god gives more control and more power than any other god before it.

Nonetheless, like all gods, it is imperfect. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, How did it all begin?, science answers, Probably by accident. To the question, How will it all end?, science answers, Probably by an accident. And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living.

Peter Johnson

The problem is not that this is boring. The problem is that you are not interested.
(paraphrase)

Agnes Repplier

WE CANNOT HOPE TO SCALE GREAT MORAL HEIGHTS BY IGNORING PETTY OBLIGATIONS.