'Why am I trying to become what I don't want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.'

'And I knew that it was better to live out one's absurdity than to die for that of others.'

-Ralph Ellison, from "Invisible Man" (1913-1994)

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

'I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.'

- Author Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

'I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.'

-Comedian George Burns (1896-1996)

'Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.'

- Pablo Picasso

'Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.'

- Author Philip Roth (1933-2018)

'We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.'

- Playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

'Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.'

- Author James Baldwin (1924–1987)

'You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.'

- Hollywood legend Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

The Faustian Bargain is a classic trope about cutting a deal with the devil

Goethe's "Faust," Broadway's "Damn Yankees," and the American folktale about Robert Johnson all embrace the familiar details of the Faustian Bargain, in which a young, eager striver is offered their wildest dreams in exchange for the rights to their soul.

'Fear of life closes off more opportunities for us than fear of death ever does.'

- Actress Agnes Moorehead (1900–1974)

Author David Foster Wallace's 'This Is Water' speech provides guidance for adulthood

A quote by Lucille Ball

"Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."

'You can't be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.'

- Actress and comedian Tina Fey (1970-present)

Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' dramatizes existential absurdity

The play, originally staged in 1953, is notorious for its lack of action. For the most part, its two principal characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend the majority of the play wondering whether a mysterious Godot will ever appear. By the end, Godot has still not arrived, yet Vladimir and Estragon do not move, a choice that reflects the existential notion that humans often hope in vain for meaning that does not exist.

Sartre believed those who deny their own freedom are operating in 'bad faith'

In "Existentialism is a Humanism," Sartre argues that humans are "condemned to be free"—they are not confined to a divine fate, which means they must take the responsibility of creating their own destinies. Those who reject this freedom, by his estimation, are living in "bad faith."

Poet Robert Lowell encouraged O'Connor to turn away from commercial appeal

When O’Connor secured a publisher for “Wise Blood,” her publisher envisioned it as a broad, commercial comedy, something Lowell—the accomplished poet whom she met after graduate school at Yaddo, an artist colony in upstate New York—suggested she avoid, encouraging her to lean into her more esoteric and darker interests. This interview with O’Connor biographer Brad Gooch elaborates on that advice.

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.'

- Poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

Dylan was called 'the voice of his generation,' but rejected the title

By the mid-60s, Dylan made it clear he had no desire to be a spokesman for anyone but himself. He found the title stifling and believed it would prevent him from creating authentic art.

Nike’s slogan was inspired by a death row inmate’s last words

Advertising superstar Dan Wieden of legendary advertising agency Widen+Kennedy said he got inspiration for Nike’s “Just do it” from an inmate’s last words on death row. Wieden said the way the inmate talked about facing uncertainty inspired him.

A Camus scholar believes 'The Stranger' is often misread as a role model

The writer and philosopher Jonathan Rée notes that part of the reason why the book was so popular was that it was an easy pick for students learning French to translate. What's often lost in translation, though, is that the book's narrator, Meursault, who murders a man, is not intended to be a role model.

Understanding Thoreau's critique of American work

John Kaag, a coauthor of "Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living," explains how the writer is often mischaracterized as a layabout who avoided responsibilities. Kaag, though, notes that Thoreau was a jack-of-all-trades—working as a schoolteacher and a handyman, and even for his father's pencil-manufacturing company—who came to believe that relentless striving was getting in the way of authentic living.

'Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.'

- Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (1946-1991)

How to find happiness at work

Can someone be happy at work? Harvard Business School professor and co-author (with Oprah Winfrey) of “Build the Life You Want” attempts to answer the enduring question in this video. Brooks strays from measuring one’s power, income, or title and instead emphasizes the importance of believing in one’s work and positively impacting others.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

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Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

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