Pleasure is continually disappointed, reduced, deflated, in favor of strong, noble values: Truth, Death, Progress, Struggle, Joy, etc. Its victorious rival is Desire: we are always being told about Desire, never about Pleasure. – Roland Barthes
I wanted to end my life so bad and was in my car ready to go down that ramp into the water, and I did go part way, but I stopped. I went again and stopped. I then got out of the car and stood by the car a nervous wreck. – Susan Smith
One of my confreres sketched an explanation that attracted me: since the process of digestion is under the control of the brain, its cessation gave repose to the brain, allowed it a vacation. – Adalbert de Vogüé, To Love Fasting: The Monastic Experience
Just as the Russians and the Soviets didnt manage to wipe out languages in Lithuania, neither have they managed to wipe out religion to the extent that we had feared. – Jeane Kirkpatrick