Georges Simenon: The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien

The poor are used to stifling any expression of their despair, because they must get on with life, with work, with the demands made of them day after day, hour after hour.

Georges Simenon: Pietr the Latvian

What he sought, what he waited and watched out for was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent . . . 

"Good Lord! Is this the way you search for someone?" she snapped, turning to Maigret. "I'm told you're from the police. My husband may have been killed.... What are you waiting for?"
The heavy gaze that he turned on her was a hundred percent Maigret. Utterly calm. Utterly indifferent. As though he had just heard a fly buzzing. As though he were looking at some completely commonplace object.

Laszlo Kraznahorkai: The Last Wolf and Herman

The love of animals is the one true love in which one is never disappointed.


... for how could he describe what so weighed him down, how could he explain how long ago he had given up the idea of thought, the point at which he first understood the way things were and knew that any sense we had of existence was merely a reminder of the incomprehensible futility of existence, a futility that would repeat itself ad infinitum, to the end of time and that, no, it wasn't a matter of chance and its extraordinary, inexhaustible, triumphant, unconquerable power working to bring matters to birth or annihilation, but rather the matter of a shadowy demonic purpose, something embedded deep in the heart of things, in the texture of the relationship between things, the stench of whose purpose filled every atom, that it was a curse, a form of damnation, that the world was the product of scorn, and god help the sanity of those who called themselves thinkers.


... and whereas our techniques—having realized in the wake of our sorry experiences that we were not questing heroes but merely dumb victims of the thinking mind—were based on paraphiliac fulfillment, unbridled pursuit of pleasure, the ceaseless apocatastasis of an eden missing from primal imagination, and took refuge in transgression, herman's deliberately paltry means were called into being by hubris, a hubris that believed in the invincibility of weakness.


He couldn't write about anything, for really, what could he possibly do with his hopelessly complex, labyrinthine thoughts and sentences, but never mind.

Cixin Liu: Death's End

“Weakness and ignorance are not barriers to survival, but arrogance is.”


“If we lose our human nature, we lose much, but if we lose our bestial nature, we lose everything.”


“And now we know that this is the journey that must be made by every civilization: awakening inside a cramped cradle, toddling out of it, taking flight, flying faster and farther, and, finally, merging with the fate of the universe as one. The ultimate fate of all intelligent beings has always been to become as grand as their thoughts.”


“Hide yourself well; cleanse well.”


“Because the universe is not a fairy tale.”


On the day of the universe's Last Judgment, two humans and a robot belonging to the Earth and Trisolaran civilizations embraced each other in ecstasy.


“Even Coca-Cola probably tasted medicinal the first time you tried it. Anything addictive is like that.”


“Time is the cruelest force of all.”


“The universe is but a corpse puffing up.”


"Mere existence is already the result of incredible luck. Such was the case on Earth in the past, and such has always been the case in this cruel universe. But at some point, humanity began to develop the illusion that they’re entitled to life, that life can be taken for granted.”


“A bottomless abyss exists in every inch”