Rubicon

“Rumi said the two most important things in life were beauty and bewilderment
This is likely a mistranslation”
― Kaveh Akbar

“For years, for most of my recollected life, I'd walked carefully over a subterranean well of boredom and hopelessness that lay just beneath the thin outer layer of my imagination. If I'd stood still too long, if I'd given in to repose, I'd have fallen through. So I'd made things, gone to clubs and movies. I'd kept changing my hair.”
― Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World

“I think I know what frightens Clare - a certain ability to invent our own future has been lost. ... Now the good things are the predictable ones, and surprises mean bad news.”
― Michael Cunningham, A Home at the End of the World

“sometimes paradise happens
too early and leaves us shuddering in its wake”
― Kaveh Akbar