“...he felt a queer little pang of bitterness because reality seemed so different from the ideal”

“Life seemed ideal to him right then, and he was happy for the first time in a long time, and it felt like the sun was shining from his heart." - from the novel Brainjob by David Sloma.”

“He watched the aperture of the young women's lovely face close ever so slightly and felt a pang in his heart.”

“But the great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness.”

“At the simplicity of the gesture, he felt a pang: the raw nerve of his loneliness exposed.”

“It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”