People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five
To be alive at all is to have scars.
— John Steinbeck; The Winter of Our Discontent (via finickymuse)
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.
— J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
