In the lives of children...

In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that its far more common for human beings to turn into rats.
-Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, x

And it's all over much too quickly...

There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly. The... the other important joke, for me, is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx; but, I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious," and it goes like this - I'm paraphrasing - um, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." That's the key joke of my adult life, in terms of my relationships with women.

-Woody Allen, Annie Hall, 1977

There are times I'd give anything...

Although there are times I’d give anything to have her back, I’m glad she went first. Losing her was like being cleft down the middle. It was the moment it all ended for me, and I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through that. Being the survivor stinks.
-Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, 13

What, now I have no sense of humor?

“I know that,” I say. “What, now I have no sense of humor?”
But I’m grumpy because maybe I don’t. I don’t know anymore. I’m so used to being scolded and herded and managed and handled that I’m no longer sure how to react when someone treats me like a real person.
-Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, 176

Age is a terrible thief...

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you’re getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse.
-Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants, 12

I catch sight of my hands...

I reach for the napkin, and as I do I catch sight of my hands. They are knobby and crooked, thin-skinned, and - like my ruined face - covered with liver spots. My face. I push the porridge aside and open the vanity mirror. I should know better by now, but somehow I still expect to see myself. Instead I find an Appalachian apple doll, withered and spotty, with dewlaps and bags and long floppy ears. A few strands of white hair spring absurdly from its spotted skull.
-Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants