Aida

“Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there, licking the grass flat upon the ground, not caring whether the soil is at a freeze or thaw, for it will freeze and thaw again, and soon your bones, now hot with blood and thick-juicy with marrow, will be dry and brittle and flake and freeze and thaw with the weight of the dirt upon you, and the last moisture of your body will be drawn up to the surface by the grass, and the wind will come and knock it down and push you back against the rocks, or it will scrape you up under its nails and take you out to sea in a wild screaming of snow.”
― Hannah Kent, Burial Rites

“And blood-black nothingness began to spin. A system of cells interlinked, within cells interlinked, within cells interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

“When all of this music sounds like you know what you want to say, then it will have been of all worth, ever. You will be something complete unto yourself, present and unique.”
― Jeff Buckley

“Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I'll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky