“There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.”
Source: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
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Susanna Clarke 29
British author 1959Related quotes

Milton Friedman: The Rise of Socialism is Absurd and There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKhfR8WC4Eo, Grand opening speech at Cato Institutes’ headquarters in Washington, D.C. (May 1993)
Hakol omrim sh'yesh olam hazeh v'olam haba. V'hine, ba'olam habah anu ma'aminim sh'yeshno, efshar sh'yesh olam hazeh b'eize olam, ki kan nir'a sh'hu ha'geheinom, ki kulam m'le'im yisurim gedolim tamid, v'amar she'ein nimtza shum olam hazeh klal.
אין שום יאוש בעולם כלל
Attributed

Part Three, Ch. 11
Source: On the Road (1957)
Context: In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchements on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.

Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

“It is easy to live for others; everybody does. I call on you to live for yourselves.”
May 3, 1845
1820s, Journals (1822–1863)