he does credit Pascal

The sole cause of Man’s unhappiness is his inability to sit quietly in his room.

If I can make things seem fun, then maybe they’ll be fun.

-Scott Hutchins, A Working Theory of Love

three from the dark side

Sometimes the truth is so perfect that it leaves you speechless, simply because there is nothing to be added or subtracted, nothing to do but admire its terrible beauty even as it rips out your still-beating heart and sterilizes the bleeding cavity.

People can get used to anything .... If you do something often enough and for long enough, no matter how trivial or painful or useless or self-defeating or just plain stupid, it changes you. It becomes part of you, part of who you are, and you keep doing it, because that's who you are now.

Utopias are delicious! Taste like chicken.

-J. Stanton, The Gnoll Credo

contrariwise

Nobody falls in love under normal circumstances. Love isn't in the category of normal things.

All I want to hear from a doctor is, 'If you had come in six months ago we could have done something about this.' .... What's the use of knowing anything?

-Tim Powers, "A Soul in a Bottle" and "The Hour of Babel," The Bible Repairman and Other Stories

Nae point in writin' stuff down if ye dinna want it read!
-Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

The closer you get to any goal, the more it looks like a false goal.
-Antoine Wilson, Panorama City

I have proven that many times in my life

Stubbornness in the service of a mistaken notion is a vanity and a sin.
-Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue

not an aphorism, but true

Continuously, unnoticeably, at the rate of one second per second, the world turned from what it had been and into what it was to be.
-John Crowley, The Solitudes

forrest was wrong

Reality is like a fruitcake: Pretty enough to look at but with all sorts of nasty things lurking just beneath the surface.
-A. Lee Martinez, Gil's All Fright Diner