“If people lived forever—if they never got any older—if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy—do you think they’d bother to think hard about things, the way were doing now? I mean, we think about its everything, more or less—philosophy, psychology, logic. Religion. Literature. I kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, the complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world.”

“if people lived forever - if they never got any older - if they could just go on living in this world, never dying, always healthy - do you think they'd bother to think hard about things the way we're doing now? i mean, we thing about just about everything, more or less - philosophy, psychology, logic. religion. literature. i kinda think, if there were no such thing as death, that complicated thoughts and ideas like that would never come into the world......people have to think seriously about what it means for them to be alive here and now because they know they're going to die sometime. right? who would think about what it means to be alive if they were just going to go on living forever? why would they have to bother? or even if they should bother, they'd probably just figure, 'oh, well, i've got plenty of time for that. i'll think about it later.' but we can't wait till later. we've got to think about it right this second...nobody knows whats going to happen. so we need death to make us evolve...death is this huge, bright thing, and the bigger and brighter it is, the more we have to drive ourselves crazy thinking about things.”

“Strange combination, isn't it--gratitude and resentment? But this is the way I think. Actually, I think everybody thinks that way. Even the children of the humans who died long ago, I think they lived their lives holding similar contradictory thoughts about their parents. They were raised to learn about love and death, and they lived out their lives passing from the sunny spots to the shady spots of this world.”

“I can't stop thinking about dying the way humans do it. Imagine! If at any moment, you could just stop existing. How different everything would be.." They don't stop existing Lenia said...They have souls that live forever. Even knowing that, they fight so hard to stay alive. I think it's so beautiful. Imagine: being that fragile, that permanent.”

“Things are NEVER what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.”

“I mean, I don’t know how the world broke. And I don’t know if there’s a God who can help us fix it. But the fact that the world is broken - I absolutely believe that. Just look around us. Every minute - every single second - there are a million things you could be thinking about. A million things you could be worrying about. Our world - don’t you just feel we’re becoming more fragmented? I used to think that when I got older, the world would make so much more sense. But you know what? The older I get, the more confusing it is to me. The more complicated it is. Harder. You’d think we’d be getting better at it. But there’s just more and more chaos. The pieces - they’re everywhere. And nobody knows what to do about it. I find myself grasping, Nick. You know that feeling? That feeling when you just want the right thing to fall into the right place, not only because it’s right, but because it would mean that such a thing is still possible? I want to believe that.”