Mad Girl's Love Song

Where are the people?” resumed the little prince at last. “It’s a little lonely in the desert…”
“It is lonely when you’re among people, too,” said the snake.

LE PETIT PRINCE, ANTOINE DE SAINT EXUPERY

Action is transitory - a step, a blow

The motion of a muscle - this way or that -

'tis done and in the aftervacancy

We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed;

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,

And shares the nature of infinity

--William Wordsworth, 'The Borderers'

"Such a head! - Would to heaven! my enemies only saw the inside of it!"

--Laurence Sterne, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy'

"but let us be merry and give our minds to pleasure,

for a man may be sad whenever he wishes"

--'Gawain and the Green Knight'

"For it is really too sad that in life it should be as it is in chess, where one false move may force us to resign the game, but with the difference that we can start no second game, no return-match."

Freud, 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death'