Xen

“The thing which does surprise me is my own optimism. Surely I ought to recognize now that my number is up. Where do I always find enough courage for one more last hope? I am the enemy of this indestructible, pitiless hope which prolongs and intensifies all my pain. I would like to lay hold of hope and strangle it once and for all.”
― Anna Kavan, Machines in the Head: The Selected Short Writing of Anna Kavan

“We're revolutionaries, my friend. Suffering made us. Suffering for the people is what we chose because we sympathized so much with their suffering.”
― Viet Than Nguyen

“They are honourable and precious to me, these books, in proportion to their great heroism. They are like members of a suicide squad who do not hesitate to engage the enormously superior enemy, life, upon my behalf.”
― Anna Kavan, Machines in the Head: The Selected Short Writing of Anna Kavan

“I feel such sorrow when I think how horror imitates beauty.”
― Silvina Ocampo, Thus Were Their Faces