“Any idiot can face a crisis—it’s day to day living that wears you out.”

Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 23

Source: No Rest for the Wicked

Source: The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), Ch. 16

Source: Gormenghast (1950), Chapter 51, section 5 (p. 667)

Source: Daddy-Long-Legs

Interview on Entertainment Tonight, as quoted in "Oprah Winfrey Offers Words of Wisdom in Wake of Deadly Las Vegas Shooting", KTVB (2 October 2017) http://www.ktvb.com/article/entertainment/entertainment-tonight/oprah-winfrey-offers-words-of-wisdom-in-wake-of-deadly-las-vegas-shooting-exclusive/480587423
Context: I feel like my soul is aching for the country. … There's not a day that goes by where I'm not putting on my shoes, or brushing my teeth, where I just think about the ordinariness of, people who just went to a concert, or the ordinariness of the day from people from 9/11, who were just doing an ordinary thing, and then you never get home. … So, I would say that these days of crisis and tragedy are to remind us all to be present in the ordinariness of our lives, that actually turns out to be extraordinary, when the person you love doesn't come home at night.
I pay attention to things, you know? … This is to make us all more awakened about our own life, and the fact that it shows up this way is a horror. But, as I heard someone say, seeing people coming together, helping each other — whether it's this crisis we're in or what we saw weeks ago in, in Houston, in Florida, and now in Puerto Rico — it shows the humanity of us all. So, it's an opportunity to show the best of ourselves, when the worst shows up.

Millard Parlette's notes, in Ch. 7 : The Bleeding Heart
A Gift From Earth (1968)
Context: Any citizen, with the help of the organ banks, can live as long as it takes his central nervous system to wear out. This can be a very long time if his circulatory system is kept functioning. … But the citizen, cannot take more out of the organ banks than goes into them. He must do his utmost to see that they are supplied. … The only feasible method of supplying the organ banks is through execution of criminals. … A criminal's pirated body can save a dozen lives. There is now no valid argument against capital punishment for any given crime; for all such argument seeks to prove that killing a man does society no good.
Hence the citizen, who wants to live as long and as healthily as possible, will vote any crime into a capital crime if the organ banks are short of material. … Cite Earth's capital punishment for false advertising, income tax evasion, air pollution, having children without a license.
The wonder was that it had taken so long to pass these laws.

2010s, 2015, Address to the United States Congress (March 2015)
Context: I wish I could promise you, Elie, that the lessons of history have been learned. I can only urge the leaders of the world not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Not to sacrifice the future for the present; not to ignore aggression in the hopes of gaining an illusory peace. But I can guarantee you this, the days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over! We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves. This is why; this is why, as a prime minister of Israel, I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. I know that America stands with Israel. know that you stand with Israel. You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history's horrors. Facing me right up there in the gallery, overlooking all of us in this august chamber is the image of Moses. Moses led our people from slavery to the gates of the Promised Land. And before the people of Israel entered the land of Israel, Moses gave us a message that has steeled our resolve for thousands of years.

iii, line 36
Silvae, Book IV