How is it possible
that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes,
such enchanted musical instruments as the ears,
and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain
can experience itself anything less than a god.
Alan Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
To be part of something one doesn't in the least understand is,
I think, one of the most intriguing things about life.
I like living.
I have sometimes been wildly despairing,
acutely miserable, racked with sorrow,
but through it all I still know quite certainly
that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny.
I have never sold myself short.
I have never judged myself by other people’s standards.
I have always expected a great deal of myself,
and if I fail, I fail myself.
So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me
because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.
Sophia Loren, Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story