Brief Lives

Sandman Neil Gaiman.

"So every life, being no more or less than a lifetime, is brief: every life, being brief, is equal."

"What is of brief duration, is to be embraced, valued, reluctantly surrendered. Only the mad and the stupid throw their lives away."

"Wisdom is a matter of recognizing that nothing stands still. that everything is hurtling toward its own conclusion. Wisdom is in the celebration and memorialization of the temporal. So "wisdom" consists of the ability to observe, "This is a beautiful day.")"

"The concept of change, of drastic change to come and unalterable changes that have already occured, haunts BRIEF LIVES."

"Of course the truth is that no one likes change. Peoplple in hell not only refuse to leave it, they invite you in, too. Even people who have blasted the other lives that touched their own blasted lives proudly declare in old age that they would not change a thing - all that cursing and screaming was their life, by God, and it is not possible to imagine any other."

"Change introduces unpredictability, uncertainty, a universe of disorder."