From Simon and The Oaks by Marianne Fredriksson, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate (1999):
Once they had left Jönköping behind them and started climbing into the Småland uplands, Simon told Andersson about Iza. “Do you see what a bastard I am?””That’s a bit much,” Andersson commented. “I’d say you were one of those poor devils who go through life paying off old debts of guilt. You must stop that. There’s no guilt except in your imagination.”
“So there’s no point trying to pay it off?”
“You can’t. There’s no valid currency. If the debt of guilt doesn’t exist, there can’t be anything to pay it off with.”
From Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988):
If I had been more independent in my thinking then, I would have thought the matter through to a conclusion. But in those days it was easy for me to leave tangled thoughts knotted, their loose ends hanging. I didn’t want toexplore the treacherous mazes that such thoughts led into. I didn’t want to reach the end of those mazes, because there, I knew, I would find myself and I was afraid I would not recognise myself after having taken so many confusing directions. I was beginning to suspect that I was not the person I was expected to be, and took it as evidence that somewhere I had taken a wrong turning. So to put myself back on the right path I took refuge in the image of the grateful poor female relative. That made everything a lot easier. It mapped clearly the ways I could or could not go, and by keeping within those boundaries I was able to avoid the mazes of self-confrontation.
From Shikasta by Doris Lessing (1979):
This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to sudden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.
This meme via Reeling and Writhing. The one rule is, these three truths must be from works of fiction.