Sona

“You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination, now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were wonderful. Because you had genius and intellect. Because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My god, how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been. You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don’t know what you were to me once. Why once—oh—I can’t bear to think of it. I wish I’d never laid eyes upon you. You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art. What are you without your art? Nothing! (Dorian)”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings

“You once told me that the human eye is god's loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn't even know there's another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“But alas! my Lord, what is blood! what is nobility! We are all reptiles, miserable, sinful creatures. It is piety alone that can distinguish us from the dust whence we sprung, and whither we must return.”
― Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto

“I suppose I could spend time theorizing how it is that people are not bad to each other, but that’s really not the point. The point is that in almost every instance of our lives, our social lives, we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. Holding open doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.”
― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays