Bart Van Overmeire

“Ik plofte naast haar neer. Het liep tegen de avond, de grond geurde naar warm vlees en onder mijn vingers trilden de grassprietjes. Ik keek naar doña Bárbara; langs haar wang gleed een doorzichtige, ronde traan die omgekeerd de rondheid van de wereld weerspiegelde.
‘Waarom huilt u?’ informeerde ik.
‘Omdat ik me dit alles in mijn laatste ogenblikken zal herinneren.’
Ik begreep haar niet, want hoewel ik toen al had ontdekt wat de dood betekende, was ik dat op die prachtige middag vergeten.”
― Rosa Montero, Bella y oscura

“But you will be back, and you will always be here. Don’t think that in death you go far from the earth; you remain down here with everything—the part of you that loved, which is the most important part. That part of you will patiently be here as the earth changes colour, exhausts itself, breathes in fresh life again, and revives. That part of you will be here all along, through that whole entire time, while the slugs make their sluggish art, beautiful little swirls in the mud, and whatever will populate the sea, and the greatest beasts that will ever be; slippery with green gills and lots of scales, feathers and fur. Even the swimming creatures will have their own ways of moving which will be radically new. And you will be here for that, too! Why am I so stuck in the art of the past? Because you are stuck in this situation, thinking it is the only one. There will be a second draft, and the part of you that loves, which is the best part of you, and the most eternal part, will be in the bears, the lizards, the mammoths, and the birds, there in the second draft of life.”
― Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

“This is a female text, composed by folding someone else's clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores.

This is a female text, born of guilt and desire, stitched to a soundtrack of nursery rhymes.”
― Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

“Practise losing small things, so you're better at losing bigger things.”
― Amy Arnold, Slip of a Fish