Marilena

“But people didn’t understand what I meant, as usual—when I say something, they don’t understand it, for what I say doesn’t mean that I said what I said, he said, I thought. I say something, he said, I thought, and I’m saying something completely different—thus I’ve spent my entire life in misunderstandings, in nothing but misunderstandings, he said, I thought. We are, to put it precisely, born into misunderstanding and never escape this condition of misunderstanding as long as we live—we can squirm and twist as much as we like, it doesn’t help. But everyone can see this, he said, I thought—for everyone says something repeatedly and is misunderstood, this is the only point where everybody understands everybody else, he said, I thought.”
― Thomas Bernhard, The Loser

“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“There are certain memories that remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.”
― Han Kang, 흰

“What's friendship's realest measure?
I'll tell you. The amount of precious time you'll squander on someone else's calamities and fuck-ups.”
― Richard Ford