Life

The stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

— Tao Te Ching 76 (Feng/English)

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

— Samuel Butler, Note-Books

Life teaches us who we are.

— Salman Rushdie (quoted in Ledoux 2002)

My life has a superb cast but I can’t figure out the plot.

— Ashleigh Brilliant

All the charictures in the drame!

— Finnegans Wake, 302

Who knows whether the present speaker is awake or dreaming?

— Chuang-tzu 6 (Cleary)

How bootifull and how truetowife of her, when strengly forebidden, to steal our historic presents from the past postpropheticals so as will make us all lordyheirs and ladymaidesses of a pretty nice kettle of fruit. She is livving in our midst of debt and laffing through all plores for us (her birth is uncontrollable!), with a naperon made to mask and her sabboes hikkikking arias (so sair! so solly!) if yous ask me and I saack you. Hou! Hou! Gricks may rise and Troysirs fall (there being two sights for ever a picture) for in the byways of high improvidence that’s what makes lifework leaving and the world’s a cell for citters to cit in.

— The Restored Finnegans Wake, 9-10