I’ll have a slice of happiness, thank you, and a cup of joy on the side

“To despair was to wish back for something already lost.  Or to prolong what was already unbearable.  How much can you wish for a favorite warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father inside of it?  How long can you see in your mind arms and legs hanging from telephone wires and starving dogs running down the streets with half-chewed hands dangling from their jaws?  What was worse, we asked among ourselves, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces?  Or to choose our own happiness?” — Amy Tan, “The Joy Luck Club”