Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

Life is so largely controlled by chance that its conduct can be but a perpetual improvisation. – W. Somerset Maugham