Pien M

“Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering? That is another question that will remain unanswered: I feel as though I am made of nothing else.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Perhaps what we’re all looking for, my dear Diary, is never truth as revelation, but rather truth as possibility, the gleam at the bottom of the mine in which we’ve been endlessly digging without a headlamp.”
― Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, The Most Secret Memory of Men

“Well, if that's suffering, he thinks, let me suffer. Yes. To love whoever I have left. And if ever I lose someone, let me descend into a futile and prolonged rage, yes, despair, wanting to break things, furniture, appliances, wanting to get into fights, to scream, to walk in front of a bus, yes. Let me suffer, please. To love just these few people, to know myself capable of that, I would suffer every day of my life.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

“Maar misschien dacht ik vooral na over wat leven was. Ik was er nog niet over uit: dagen doorbrengen in kroegen en met anderen de tijd weggooien of hard werken om de ander te bewijzen waartoe je in staat bent. Dat laatste heb ik geprobeerd. Maar het werkte niet.”
― Rajko Disseldorp, Ga niet naar het moeras