“The one thing any of us really cared about was living for one more hour, one more hour is a big deal in a world where everything has reduced itself to murder.”

The Glass Bead Game (1943)
Context: It is a pity that you students aren't fully aware of the luxury and abundance in which you live. But I was exactly the same when I was still a student. We study and work, don't waste much time, and think we may rightly call ourselves industrious — but we are scarcely conscious of all we could do, all that we might make of our freedom. Then we suddenly receive a call from the hierarchy, we are needed, are given a teaching assignment, a mission, a post, and from then on move up to a higher one, and unexpectedly find ourselves caught in a network of duties that tightens the more we try to move inside it. All the tasks are in themselves small, but each one has to be carried out at its proper hour, and the day has far more tasks than hours. That is well; one would not want it to be different. But if we ever think, between classroom, archives, secretariat, consulting room, meetings, and official journeys — if we ever think of the freedom we possessed and have lost, the freedom for self-chosen tasks, for unlimited, far-flung studies, we may well feel the greatest yearning for those days, and imagine that if we ever had such freedom again we would fully enjoy its pleasures and potentialities.

The steely gray eyes were narrow and sad when next he looked up at Gordon. “I found out something, you know. I discovered that the big things don’t love you back. They take and take, and never give in return. They’ll drain your blood, your soul, if you let them, and never let go.
“I lost my wife, my son, while away battling for big things. They needed me, but I had to go off trying to save the world.” Powhatan snorted at the last phrase. “Today I fight for my people, for my farm—for smaller things—things I can hold.”
Source: The Postman (1985), Section 3, “Cincinnatus”, Chapter 9 (p. 229; see also p. 305)

Variant: There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.

Source: Ghost Story

(1825-2) Antony and Cleopatra. An Anecdote from Plutarch
The Monthly Magazine

Source: This Lullaby

The Color Purple (1982)

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Twelve, Human Connections: Relationships Changing