When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904), Russian author, playwright. Letter, September 29, 1886, to M.V. Kiseleva. Complete Works and Letters in Thirty Volumes, Letters, v. 1, p. 264, "Nauka" (1976).
