Ich saß in einem großen Wartesaal, der hieß Europa. Acht Tage später fährt der Zug. Das wusste ich. Aber wohin er fuhr und was aus mit werden sollte, das wusste kein Mensch. Und jetzt witzen wir wieder im Wartesaal, und wieder heisst er Europa! Und wieder wissen wir nicht, was geschehen wird. Wir leben wieder provisorisch, die Krise nimmt kein Ende!

Erich Kästner, Fabian - Die Geschichte eines Moralisten (1931)

Die Zukunft war ein angenehmer und sonniger Nachmittag.

John Steinbeck, Das Tal des Himmels (1969)

Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it's a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. to suffer fifty years of the year for the sake of a two-week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors, with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still - that's how you build a future.

Arthur Miller, Death of A Salesman (1949)

So many of the moderns we see are such very poor stuff. If they're the children of the future we're willing to die young.

Henry James

Each day must be spent, in a sense, apart from any other; on each day there would be sun and cheerfulness or rain and sorrow or quiet contemplation of life. Each day must be past, present and future, with dancing and wine-making and drinking and as few regrets as possible. Her future must be the day she lived in.

Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)