In this base world, full of poverty and misery, for the first time I thought a ray of sunshine had shone on my life. But alas, it was not a sunbeam, rather it was only a transient beam, a shooting star, which appeared to me in the likeness of a woman or an angel. The Blind Owl

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself. The Karamazov Brothers

But our attention is limited. There’s no way we can process the tidal waves of information flowing past us constantly. Therefore, the only zeroes and ones that break through and catch our attention are the truly exceptional pieces of information (…) This flood of extreme information has conditioned us to believe that exceptionalism is the new normal (…) the deluge of exceptional information drives us to feel pretty damn insecure and desperate. The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*Ck

 Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.  Guns, Germs And Steel