“I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.”

“And I think that you do not understand that sometimes the only choice is between acceptance and madness.”

“Instead of reality being passively recorded by the brain, it is actively constructed by it.”

“We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we have stopped saying “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.””

“Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.”

“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”

“I left home, and I wasn’t going back until I could make a living on manga. I’m happy that my wish was granted and that I’ve gotten a series, but now I’m busy and have no time to go home. I’m kind of happy and kind of sad.”

“I could see no reason for being sad. It´s just that it makes me unhappy not to feel happy.”

“i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me. those seem to be the two choices. everything else is just killing time.”

“[I]f we demonstrate this moving principle, if we show that matter, far from being as indifferent as it is supposed to be, to movement and to rest, ought to be regarded as an active, as well as a passive substance, what resource can be left to those who have made its essence consist in extension?”