Fate stalks us with depressing monotony from womb to tomb, and, when we are least expecting it, deals us a series of crushing blows from behind. – Hesketh Pearson, The Whispering Gallery

There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread, natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I do not believe in revealed religion — I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life, without speculating on another. – Lord Byron, 1778-1824, letter to Rev. Francis Hodgson, 1811