Have you noticed that life, real honest-to-goodness life, with murders and catastrophes and fabulous inheritances, happens almost exclusively in the newspapers? – Jean Anouilh, The Rehearsal, 1950

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe. – Peter De Vries, Let Me Count the Ways, 1965

Choice of attention – to pay attention to this and ignore that – is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. – W. H. Auden