A J

“I just read, the letter, your essays, again and again, convinced that such prose does not exist merely for its own sake, but serves as a signpost on the road to a human being, a road one keeps following, happier and happier, until arriving at the realization some bright momentthat one is not progressing, simply running around inside one's own labyrinth, only more nervously, more confused than before.”
― Franz Kafka

“People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between the two real- ities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what's left. Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“I think she wants to eat me. I think she would inhale me if she could. I think she'd crawl herself inside of me if she thought that's where she'd find something that I've kept hidden from her. God help me. Would I let her? I would let her. God help me she looks at me. God help me I don't want her to look away.”
― Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep

“There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?