Elena

“I loved the physical objects that are books too and still do. The codex, the box that is a bird, the door into a world, still seems magical to me, and I still walk into a bookstore or a library convinced that I might be on the threshold that will open up onto what I most need or desire, and sometimes that doorway appears. When it does, there are epiphanies and raptures in seeing the world in new ways, in finding patterns previously unsuspected, in being handed unimagined equipment to address what arises, in the beauty and power of words.

The sheer pleasure of meeting new voices and ideas and possibilities, having the world become more coherent in some subtle or enormous way, extending or filling in your map of the universe, is not celebrated enough, not is the beauty in finding pattern and meaning. But these awakenings recur, and every time they do there’s joy.”
― Rebecca Solnit

“That was part of being a girl--you were resigned to whatever feedback you'd get. If you got mad, you were crazy, and if you didn't react, you were a bitch. The only thing you could do was smile from the corner they'd backed you into. Implicate yourself in the joke even if the joke was always on you.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls

“So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love. We spoke of our desperate need for them with rote and familiar words, like we were reading lines from a play. Later I would see this: how impersonal and grasping our love was, pinging around the universe, hoping for a host to give form to our wishes.”
― Emma Cline, The Girls

“Sprache in all ihren Facetten - ihr Lexikon, ihre Wortarten, ihre Zeitformen - ist für Menschen wie Wasser für Fische. Der Stoff unseres Denkens und Lebens, der uns formt und prägt, ohne dass wir uns seiner in Gänze bewusst wären. Wenn ich dieses Bewusstsein herstelle, wenn ich die Grenzen meiner eigenen Wahrnehmung spüre, dann löst das Demut in mir aus. Demut vor der Welt, die ich nur aus meinem eingeschränkten Blinkwinkel betrachte. Ich bin dafür dankbar für das Bewusstsein um die Existenz dieser Grenzen - ich hoffe sie bewahren mich davor, mit unwandelbaren Prämissen und Grundannahmen durch die Welt zu gehen. Das Bewusstsein für unsere Grenzen relativiert die Dinge, die wir ignorant voraussetzen. Die Dinge, die wir als universal postulieren - definieren sie doch nichts mehr als die Grenzen unseres Horizonts.”
― Kübra Gümüşay, Sprache und Sein