Maria Cojo

“We still, alas, cannot forestall it-
This dreadful ailment's heavy toll;
The spleen is what the English call it,
We call it simply, Russian soul.”
― Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

“That’s how you get deathless, volchitsa. Walk the same tale over and over, until you wear a groove in the world, until even if you vanished, the tale would keep turning, keep playing, like a phonograph, and you’d have to get up again, even with a bullet through your eye, to play your part and say your lines.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“And here am I ... what did I hope - what did I expect? What rich promise did the future seem to hold out to me, when with scarcely a sigh - only a bleak sense of utter desolation - I took my leave from the brief phantom, risen for a fleeting instant, of my first love?
What has come of it all - of all that I had hoped for? And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memories of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in spring?”
― Ivan Turgenev, First Love

“Şi iar cuprins de trândăvie, Cu suflet gol şi răvăşit, Se-aşază lacom el să fie De minţi străine instruit. Înşiră cărţi pe etajere, Romane seci şi efemere, Cu conţinut şi sterp şi-anost Citeşte mult şi fără rost. Dar un urât de moarte-l paşte: Ici se agită-o pocitură, Colea o nouă secătură. Femei şi cărţi îl fac să caşte; Şi peste tomurile grele, Tronând în praf, a tras perdele. Scăpând de-a lumii grea povară, Ca el, fugind de vălmăşag, M-atrase prietenia-i rară Şi chipul său atât de drag: Cu însuşirea-i spre visare Şi înclinările-i bizare; La minte rece şi tăios, Eu învrăjbit, el neguros, Ne-am potrivit în patimi jocul.”
― Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin