Marilena

“Waiting, we say, is long. We might just as well — or more accurately — say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. We may compare him who lives on expectation to a greedy man, whose digestive apparatus works through quantities of food without converting it into anything of value or nourishment to his system. We might almost go so far as to say that, as undigested food makes man no stronger, so time spent in waiting makes him no older. But in practice, of course, there is hardly such a thing as pure and unadulterated waiting.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“I thought to myself that only now had she begun to sell her
children. When she started telling about them. Without a story, it was
all nothing but business.
Telling stories is part of Judgment Day, because it makes people understand. But what the point of understanding is remains unclear. I
put these stories in the box, too.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, The Physics of Sorrow

“Old age is getting used to things.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, The Physics of Sorrow

“As though there has never been a time when the only comfort lay in the impossibility of forever.”
― Han Kang, The White Book