Luck's just another word for destiny...either you make your own or you're screwed. - John le Carré

I read a story once about a poet who bathed himself in cold fountains so that he could recognise his own existence in the contrast.

Each of us has only a quantum of compassion. That if we lavish our concern on every stray cat, we never get to the centre of things. What do you think of i?

The monstrosity of this, reaching Smiley through a thickening wall of spiritual exhaustion, left him momentarily speechless.