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It's all well and good to have profound thoughts on a regular basis, but I think it's not enough. Well, I mean: I'm going to commit suicide and set the house on fire in a few months; obviously I can't assume I have time at my disposal, therefore I have to do something substantial with the little I do have. And above all, I've set myself a little challenge: if you commit suicide, you have to be sure of what you're doing and not burn the house down for nothing. So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I'd better not miss it, because once you're dead, it's too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

It's all well and good to have profound thoughts on a regular basis, but I think it's not enough. Well, I mean: I'm going to commit suicide and set the house on fire in a few months; obviously I can't assume I have time at my disposal, therefore I have to do something substantial with the little I do have. And above all, I've set myself a little challenge: if you commit suicide, you have to be sure of what you're doing and not burn the house down for nothing. So if there is something on the planet that is worth living for, I'd better not miss it, because once you're dead, it's too late for regrets, and if you die by mistake, that is really, really dumb.

Approximate author period: c. 2000 AD · contemporary

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Muriel Barbery
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 2000 AD · contemporary
Approximate author-period evidence for Muriel Barbery: documented activity in 2000. Wikidata Q235731, inspected 2026-10-08. Not a quotation composition date or independent verification of attribution. Source: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q235731 (accessed 2026-10-08).
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 185046; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.