“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)
Source: Kafka on the Shore
“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)
“In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.”
Nam in omni adversitate fortunae infelicissimum est genus infortunii fuisse felicem.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century
Prose IV, line 2
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book II
“It is a kind of happiness to know how unhappy we must be.”
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs
C’est une espèce de bonheur, de connaître jusqu’à quel point on doit être malheureux.
Maxim 8 of the Maximes supprimées.
Later Additions to the Maxims
“A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”
Peter S. Beagle book The Last Unicorn
The Last Unicorn (1968)
Context: The true secret in being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. … Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.