He saw it for the first time: on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered e-mails, and in the hovel he called home there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, and unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply and lovers he had not owned up to.

Some of these guys will go on walking long after the laws of biochemistry and handicapping have gone by the boards. There was a guy last year that crawled for two miles at four miles an hour after both of his feet cramped up at the same time, you remember reading about that? Look at Olson, he's worn out but he keeps going. That goddam Barkovitch is running on high-octane hate and he just keeps going and he's as fresh as a daisy. I don't think I can do that. I'm not tired -not really tired- yet. But I will be. The scar stood out on the side of his haggard face as he looked ahead into the darkness And I think... when I get tired enough... I think I'll just sit down

We are all resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to.

What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Things without all remedy Should be without regard; what's done is done.

Gnaw the bone which is fallen to thy lot.

He that cannot get bacon must be content with cabbage.

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.

A man must take the fat with the lean.

Once they've skinned you, there's no point in grieving over the wool.

A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.

It's the great soul that surrenders itself to fate, but a puny degenerate thing that struggles.

Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change!

Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.

What cannot be altered must be borne, not blamed.

The doctrine of Necessity or Destiny is the doctrine of Toleration.

We must like what we have when we don't have what we like.

Resignation, not mystic, not detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.