Deeply, he felt the love for the run-away in his heart, like a wound, and he felt at the same time that this wound had not been given to him in order to turn the knife in it, that it had to become a blossom and had to shine. , the wound was not blossoming… Continue reading Hermann Hesse
If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery—isolation.… Continue reading Charles Bukowski
There is no greater sorrow then to recall our times of joy in wretchedness. ― Dante Alighieri, Inferno (The Divine Comedy). (Modern Library, December 9, 2003) Originally 1320.
The heart, if it could think it would stop beating. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet. (Penguin Modern Classics, 2002)
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd. ― Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Tales. (Penguin Classics, May 1, 1999) Originally published 1911.
Sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep because of what I’m leaving behind. — Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall. (HarperCollins; Reprint edition, March 8, 2016)
Come sleep with me: we won’t make love. Love will make us. — Julio Cortázar, Hopscotch. (Pantheon; 1st Pantheon pbk. ed edition, February 12, 1987) Originally published 1963.
