Viktor

“That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“Tomorrow I will try to enjoy looking at flowers all day. I will rub away my worries with an alcohol-soaked cottonball. Because my dreams have been so trou­bling, I want to dream a dream filled with blossoming flowers, a dream of gravure of primary hues, like a colorful picture book. I would like to compose a refreshing poem, in a 7-point font, for each illustration of my dreams.”
― Yi Sang, Yi Sang: Selected Works

“I am absent in my dream. In my mirror my counterfeit does not make an entrance. He craves my loneliness despite my uselessness. I have finally made up my mind to recommend suicide to him. I point him toward the viewless window. It is a win­ dow for suicide. But he instructs me that if I do not kill myself then he cannot kill himself either. The me-inside-the-mirror is almost a phoenix.”
― Yi Sang, Yi Sang: Selected Works

“The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead