James

“It was chiefly his ears that expressed the young man's ability to keep track of the present along with the absent. While registering every sound in the moving bus, they were equally aware of the glacier that was calving at the same time, of the blind feeling their way in the cities of every continent, or of the brook flowing now as always through his native village.”
― Peter Handke; Ralph Manheim [trans, Repetition

“But who on earth had ever found the world the pleasanter and sweeter a place to bid good-bye to simply because it was obviously 'substantial', whatever that may mean? Simply because it did nothing you wanted it to do unless you paid for it pretty handsomely; or unless you accepted what it proffered with as open a hospitality as Jimmie had bestowed on his pilgrims of the night. Not that he much wanted – however pressing the invitation – to wander off out of his body into a better world, or, for that matter, into a worse.”
― Walter de la Mare, Out of the Deep

“There was a curious provocative reserve in that impassive melancholy face. It seemed to be haunted by some tragic influence of which she herself was unaware.”
― Walter de la Mare, Out of the Deep: And Other Supernatural Tales

“Affairs are by definition, precarious, elusive, and ambiguous. The indeterminacy, the uncertainty, the not knowing when I'll see you again–feelings we would never tolerate in our primary relationship–become kindling for anticipation in a hidden romance.”
― Esther Perel, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity