Ardra

“She opened her curtains, and looked out towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures moving - perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish complaining.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Some things come with their own punishments.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“A million years of evolution," Eric said bitterly, "and what are we? Animals.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar