Venus

“He wished to be within earshot when Aimée emerged from her sleep, since each time she did so she would find herself deeper in what seemed like a nightmare.
‘You comprehend, signora? Reversal of waking from bad dreams. For this child such dreams begin then.”
― William Trevor, Two Lives

“It had to do with making a place for fear as a way of controlling it. He knew the smell of death and was terrified of it, for he could not anticipate it. It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“Qué necesario será, amigo mío, que sufras con minucia de la profundidad de cada cosa, de su repercusión, de su perspectiva… Qué triunfo si triunfas, si restituyes, solidificado en palabras, ese doble que se entrevé detrás de la vida. Imagino que al leerte uno tendrá un escalofrío –al sentir que algo tan oscuro se ha vuelto tan inmediatamente presente, tan urgente… ¿Por qué no habría de existir ese paisaje que yo discierno, que yo siento detrás de toda apariencia? ¿Por qué habría de ser menos real?”
― Victoria Ocampo, Victoria Ocampo Virginia Woolf Correspondencia

“They did not believe death was accidental--life might be, but death was deliberate. They did not believe Nature was ever askew--only inconvenient. Plague and drought were as "natural" as springtime. If milk could curdle, God knows robins could fall. The purpose of evil was to survive it and they determined (without ever knowing they had made up their minds to it) to survive floods, white people, tuberculosis, famine and ignorance. They knew anger well but not dispair, and they didn't stone sinners for the same reason they didn't commit suicide--it was beneath them.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula