— Franz Kafka // Richard Siken

I am not meant for casual love. I was born for soul consuming love and obsession.

Franz Kafka, from a letter to Felice Bauer written in 1912, featured in Letters To Felice

Dostoevsky is one of those writers who, after showing you your fragmental vileness and natural disfigurement, teach you why you need to learn to love yourself.

Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating.”

— Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

— October 16, 1921 / Franz Kafka diaries

— Anaïs Nin, from The Voice

“We are reduced to asking others what we are. We never dare to ask ourselves.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality

Wuthering Heights (2011) dir. Andrea Arnold // by georges bataille, literature and evil (1957, tr. Alastair Hamilton) // The glass essay, Anne Carson