Aren’t people absurd! They never use the freedoms they do have but demand those they don’t have; they have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.

-Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or.

I remember this sight as a child,
the red clouds that were always
accompanied by
invisible winds.

I remember Mother used to tell me
that the red clouds were the
souls of people ascending into
heaven, and that was where
we
would all go one day.

I remember being astonished,
at how my soul was
actually drenched in the
color of red.
But now I am older,
and I know
that the red clouds only
mean that
a storm is approaching.

Une parole d’elle était une faveur, et sa conversation vous couvrait de baisers.

-Marcel Proust, «À la recherche du temps perdu»; «Le Côté de Guermantes».

J’estompe les peurs, je lime les rêves, je rogne les désirs.

-Simone de Beauvoir, «Les mandarins».

Je ne suis personne, c’est facile à dire: je suis moi. Qui est-ce? où me rencontrer ? Il faudrait être de l’autre côté de toutes les portes, mais si c’est moi qui frappe, ils se tairont. J’ai senti soudain mon visage qui me brûlait, j’aurais voulu l’arracher.

-Simone de Beauvoir, «Les mandarins».

‘Oh!’
‘Ah!’
They came and fell together in a heap of crushed cardboard and spilled books.

-David Lodge, Small World.

“I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?” his soul repeated it again and again.

-Rudyard Kipling, Kim.