Man must work by the sweat of his brow whatever his class, and that should make up the whole meaning and purpose of his life and happiness and contentment. Anton Chekhov, The Three Sisters
Life isn’t finished for us yet! We’re going to live! ... Maybe, if we wait a little longer, we shall find out why we live, why we suffer. ibid.
Why am I still alive? Eh? Tell me. Why am I alive? What’s the point of it all? Anton Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: A Reluctant Tragic Hero ***** starring Johnny Vegas & Mackenzie Crook, Vegas, Sky Arts 2010
That life believe me I can say in all seriousness I would not wish on my worst enemy. It has made a wreck of me. I am ill. You understand? Physically ill. I suffer from shortness of breath. I have heartburn. My digestion doesn’t function. My vision is blurred. And I live in constant fear of something. You might not believe this, but I have turned into a psychopath. ibid.
I haven’t been much of a success at anything. I’ve gotten old and stupid. I look perfectly happy up here but you know what I’d really like to do is start screaming at the top of my lungs. Or run somewhere where nobody could find me. And there’s nobody I can complain to. There are times when I feel like crying. Anton Chekhov: Comedy Shorts: The Proposal starring Sheridan Smith & Mathew Horne
If only I could forget about it all ... I’m better than all of this. And I’m an honest man. I used to be young. I was smart. I went to university. I had dreams. I wanted to be a decent human being. And now I don’t want anything. The only thing I need is peace and quiet. ibid.
Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. Anton Chekhov
We are like dwarves on the shoulders of giants. Bernard of Chartres 1130, French philosopher
Don’t shed a tear, Momma. I ain’t happy here. Tupac Shakur, music video released day after death
Let’s start a revolution. Let’s get out of here. Let’s do something. Tupac Shakur
Once we get out the hood, where we running to? Tupac Shakur, interview
There is love of course. And then there’s life, it’s enemy. Jean Anouilh, Ardeke, 1949
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is best for man. W H Auden, Death’s Echo, 1937
My life will be sour grapes and ashes without you. Daisy Ashford, 1881-1972, English child author
You’re really lucky to have me so close when it happened. Think if you’d been on your own. Look I mean when one is ill it is good to have somebody close by, friends or relations. Do you have parents, Blondie? A mother? Not even a mother. No-one? You’re all alone, eh. Like me, Blondie. We’re all alone in the world. I have you, you have me. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly [Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo] 1966 starring Clint Eastwood & Lee van Cleef & Eli Wallach & Aldo Giuffre & Al Mulock & Antonio Casas & John Bartha & Claudio Scarchillio & Sandro Scarchilli & Antonio Molion Rojo et al, director Sergio Leone, Tuco at Blondie’s bedside
Life is about losing. We’re all losing: lovers, fathers, mothers, hair, teeth, friends. Take life away. It’s too hard. It’s too difficult. We aren’t any good at it. Martin Amis, Money, BBC 2010
Life is made of fear. Some people eat fear soup three times a day. Some people eat fear soup all the meals there are. I eat it sometimes. When they bring me fear soup to eat, I try not to eat it, I try to send it back. But sometimes I’m too afraid to and have to eat it anyway. Martin Amis, Other People
Now they were all moving to no effect – just moving, just switching things off and switching things on, just picking things up and putting things down and picking things up and stroking the cat and counting the mugs and fighting for air. It seemed that everything they did had already been done and done, and that everything they thought had already been thought and thought, and that this would never end. Excuse me said panic to each of them in turn. They had no mouth and they had to scream. Martin Amis, Dead Babies
My life looked good on paper – where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived. Martin Amis, Experience: A Memoir
It was the tiredness of time lived, with its days and days. It was the tiredness of gravity – gravity, which wants you down in the centre of the earth. Martin Amis