“Thank God!” said Unk. Redwine raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Why?” he said. “Pardon me?” said Unk. “Why thank God?” said Redwine. “He doesn’t car… - Kurt Vonnegut

"I wish I had been born a bird instead," he said.
"I wish we had all been born birds instead."

During my three years in Vietnam, I certainly heard plenty of last words by dying American footsoldiers. Not one of them, however, had illusions that he had somehow accomplished something worthwhile in the process of making the Supreme Sacrifice.

Rumfoord had known that Constant would try to debase the picture by using it in commerce. Constant’s father had done a similar thing when he found he could not buy Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa” at any price. The old man had punished Mona Lisa by having her used in an advertising campaign for suppositories. It was the free-enterprise way of handling beauty that threatened to get the upper hand.