My New Filing System is Unstoppable

I'm not much one for writing down quotations (I greatly prefer capturing the things people say in the every-day), so for the following three to have made it into my book at various points is relatively significant.
Personally, I like the through-lines, despite the large gaps of time between encountering them.

Time, of course, topples everyone in its path equally... But the thrashing we receive is one of frightful gentleness. Few of us even realize that we are being beaten.

A 'Poor Aunt' Story, Murakami

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing. And some things folks do is nice and some ain't so nice, but that's as far as any man got a right to say.

Jim Casy, The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

Our being human made us tragic and comic both... The gods both laughed and wept.

I Know This Much is True, Wally Lamb