“He not busy being born is busy dying” – Bob Dylan
“Only there are always / Interlopers, dreams, / Who let no dead dog lie nor death be final; / Suggesting, while he spins, that to-morrow will outweigh / To-night, that Becoming is a match for Being” – Louis MacNeice
“…perhaps the whole goal mankind strives for on earth consists just in this ceaselessness of the process of achievement alone, that is to say, in life itself, and not essentially in the goal, which, of course, is bound to be nothing other than two times two is four—that is, a formula; and two times two is four is no longer life, gentlemen, but the beginning of death” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The lesson? Oh, the lesson. I guess that if the writing’s good enough, brevity is nothing to be proud of. But really good brevity is really, really good.
