“Competitiveness always rests on the assumption of a life-and-death struggle.”
“Let the best of your competition take out the rest of your competition, while you rest and then take out only that one guy.”
“Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.”
“I challenged that assumption by returning to a full, productive life. I had behaved, Nichols said, "as if death was an option".”
“Lonely's like any other organism; competitive and resourceful in the struggle to perpetuate itself.”
“Had she ever enjoyed anything? Had every day been a struggle? Perhaps death would be a release, a rest for the weary.”