How Deeply Faithless We Are, Which Is

of burning but unwasting fire

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando

Remains of colour on temple columns.

if the grief is unbearable is there another way to live with it that is not the same as bearing it?

- Judith Butler

since you were unable to take all the bad you were given learn now to fight with your nails for every inch of ground under your foot

Anna Czekanowicz, A Polish Mother tr. Regina Grol

I am only as much as I'm not.

Dagna Ślepowrońska, tr. Regina Grol

the poet paralyzed with fear lying in a hammock on a beautiful day—unhappy man in a happy world—does not suffer any less when he looks around him; he does not cease to suffer, he only ceases to try to understand.

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

I would count the number of times we had made love. I felt that each time something new had been added to our relationship but that somehow this very accumulation of touching and pleasure would eventually draw us apart. We were burning up a capital of desire. What we gained in physical intensity we lost in time.

Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

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

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

'I'll go.' But he doesn't go. He uses the future not the present tense

Niall Williams, History of the Rain

‘It is equally vain,’ she thought, ‘for you to think you can protect me, or for me to think I can worship you.’

- Virginia Woolf, Orlando