It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.

Married life had taught him the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.

— Isaac Asimov

I am alive again, now that I can no longer stand to live.

— Albert Camus

“The nobility of age is that it conceals from the young the futility of effort.”

— Yeo-tze

“Dabbling in the sandbox gives Rabbit a small headache. Over at the pavilion the rubber thump of Roofball and the click of checkers call…

— John Updike

Death is the only monastery; the tomb is the only cell, and the grave that adjoins the convent is the bitterest mock of its…

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility.

— Joseph Conrad

A mature artist is at the same time aware of the futility of his achievement and the validity of the pursuit.

— Jean Helion

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred,…

— Lauren DeStefano

“She strives, understanding the futility of it, for perfection.”

— Robert Coover

“Uite, daca-mi strang sufletul, nu se prinde nimic in el. Oricum, am ajuns departe, foarte departe. O mai fi ceva? Arborii cresc, le dau…

— Marin Sorescu

“There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains…

— Joseph Conrad

“    In a thousand years or ten thousand, no one would remember my nation. It, too, would share in oblivion and prove to not matter,…

— Miller Rory

“...he arrived late at the office, perceived that his doing so made no difference whatever to any one, and was filled with sudden exasperation…

— Edith Wharton

Automobiles are often conveniently tagged as the villains responsible for the ills of cities and the disappointments and futilities of city planning. But the…

— Jane Jacobs

The fatal futility of Fact.

— Henry James