chedathedog

Joe, a young man from Pittsburg, came up to me with one request: “Please tell me it will all be okay.” “Welcome to Earth, young man,” I said. “It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, Joe, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of: Goddamn it, Joe, you’ve got to be kind!” - A Man Without a Country (Kurt Vonnegut)

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. - This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life (Wallace, David Foster)