Anna Vaa

“I know that the external, visible, tangible tokens and symbols of happiness and success first appear only after things have in reality gone into decline already. Such external signs need time to reach us, like the light of one of those stars up there, which when it shines most brightly may well have already gone out, for all we know.”
― Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family

“Literary critics make natural detectives,” said Maud. “You know the theory that the classic detective story arose with the classic adultery novel—everyone wanted to know who was the Father, what was the origin, what is the secret?”
― A.S. Byatt, Possession