Petra

“To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
"Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories

“My manners, abominable at times, can be sweet. As I grew older I became a drunk. Why? Because I like ecstasy of the mind. I'm a wretch. But I love, love.”
― Jack Kerouac, Satori in Paris & Pic

“All thinking men are atheists.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms