Fifty Days At Iliam: The Fire The Consumes All Before It

“I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me. The world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign & re-create myself…” 

the tenderness…. 

Look how much sadness you can make from showing sadness restrained.

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

One realizes that human relationships are the tragic necessity of human life; that they can never be wholly satisfactory, that every ego is half the time greedily seeking them, and half the time pulling away from them.

Willa Cather, Not Under Forty

Hope may or may not be a Thing with Feathers. But it is definitely a Thing with Claws.

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

To live in this tragedy without raptures

Alicja Rybałko, Curriculum Vitae tr. Regina Grol

'But you tell me profound loves do not satisfy you. You crave to give and to receive stronger sensations. I understand, but that is only a phase. You can play the game now and then, to heighten passion, but profound loves are the loves which suit your true self, and they alone will satisfy you. The more you act like yourself the nearer you come to a fulfillment of your real needs. You are still terribly afraid to be hurt; your imaginary sadism shows that. So afraid to be hurt that you want to take the lead and hurt first. I do not despair of reconciling you to your own image.'

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

It may be that we have become more interesting to each other at the expense of trust.

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

Beside the river are two things you never forget, that the moment you look at a river that moment has already passed, and that everything is on its way somewhere else.

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

he had eyes like drenched violets,

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando