Varlam Shalamov. The Kolyma tales (№ 171228)

There are people who always know everything and guess all. There are those who want to see the best, and the sanguine temperament in a very difficult situation always finds some kind of formula of agreement with life. For others, on the contrary, developments are for the worse, and any improvement they see in disbelief as some oversight of fate. And this difference in judgments is little affected by personal experience: she'd given as a child - for life...