# Leben

"...We are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried."

"Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpredictable soil of medieval Europe, modern populations have nonetheless shown a remarkable capacity to feel that neither who they are nor what they have is quite enough."

"Perhaps because my town was so naturally gothic in its architecture and relative isolation - the roads often closed in winter - my stories tended toward the ghostly and the creepily suspenseful right from the get-go."

"I vividly remember watching women in films when I was nine or 10, picturing them being what I'd be like as an adult. I had these real female crushes on certain actresses. And I'd watch them, thinking, 'One day, I'll be that. One day I'll be a woman.'."

"In trench warfare five things are important: firewood, food, tobacco, candles, and the enemy. In winter on the Zaragoza front they were important in that order, with the enemy a bad last."

"I knew I'd never have another moment like this. Just a single place in time where everything had come together to breathe in harmony. Time slowed and I had gathered all her restless strands in my hands; where I had come from, where I was and where I was going was one long thread as I emerged to make my way into the world."

"To my own demise, I rarely ask why I’m hungry because I’m focusing all of my energies on getting fed. And if I persist in such a diminishing cycle, in all probability I will eventually starve to death because I have chosen to gorge myself on the very things that will keep me empty."

"We live in the hope that life will be different. Just a little more substance perhaps in the intrinsic frailty of the days. Such resignation frightens me. Between gunshots I get drunk. In secret, all knowledge becomes anxiety."

"[on Martin Freeman playing Bilbo Baggins] It was great. I got to hang out with him, and I kept a straight face for a bit and then I started giggling because I know Martin, I don't know Bilbo. For Martin to be sitting there playing Bilbo is amazing. He's going to be amazing, he's going to be fantastic in this film."

"But the purpose and nature are never clearly revealed. Human behaviour is a series of lunges, of which, it is sometimes sensed, the direction is inevitable."