This, it occurred to me, this was the undisciplined human community that, fired by its dull collective wit, now drove the armed nation towards it knew-not-what sort of epic martial cataclysm: a massive flailing organism with all the rectitude and foresight of an untrained puppy.--In the private letters of Albert Sloane, by permission of the Sloane family.

~ George Saunders

George Saunders Human Failings Human Foibles Human Nature Humans Lack Of Discipline Life People War

no one is as they seem, and most of life, apart from honest betrayal, is lies and deceit. And the day we discover we are no different is the day we no longer want to live.

~ Jo Nesbø

Jo Nesbø Betrayal Death Deciet Human Failings Lies

They loved him, or loved the thought of him, what they thought he was: a man who could easily have had a good life who chose instead their life: spite and bitterness and age-fogged glasses of watery whiskey in dark, cobwebbed country bars, shit-smeared toilets, blood-streaked piss, and early death. He could have helped it but didn't. They couldn't help it and loved him for being worse than them. He was the king of the wasters.

~ Donal Ryan

Donal Ryan Deadbeats Drunks Fathers Human Failings Human Nature Lifestyle Losers

his legacy, if there is one, is that I try to do my best to see people whole, for who they are and what they've been through. especially those who matters to me

~ Richard North Patterson

Richard North Patterson Human Failings Human Nature