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“In un’epoca in cui la vita dei singoli individui e di popoli interi non vale più nulla, in cui uccisioni e torture sono la normalità per gli Stati fascisti, in cui un valore come la libertà personale finisce sotto le suole del dogma tedesco-fascista, in quest’epoca come non mai bisogna pretendere una purezza e un’intransigenza morale altissime, inarrivabili, sia in relazione alla vita personale di ciascuno di noi sia a quella degli Stati.”
― Vasily Grossman, Ucraina senza ebrei

“«La vera arte» esclamò allora il Maestro «è senza scopo, senza intenzione! [...]»”
― Herrigel Eugen, Zen in the Art of Archery

“Life is like a pendulum swinging between utter despair and a reluctant acceptance of fate. We live under the bleakness that society imposes on us. If we don’t make an effort to find joy in our daily lives, there’s only depression waiting for us. We live in an odd space where being positive about the future is seen as naïve, whereas expecting the worst is wise. A life where the day starts with exhaustion. Since when have we become used to such misery?
I find myself crying more often. I cry because I am sad, and because I am emotional. Strangely, I’ve become an even more emotional person than before. Darkness seems to blanket life like an algae bloom, and I rub my eyes hard for a glimmer of hope. I turn towards books, as if that’s the most natural thing to do. I collect sentences that speak of hope. I engrave the scenes in my eyes. Over and over again, I keep comforting myself that darkness hasn’t swallowed the entire world.”
― Bo-reum HWANG

“I think of my mother, sitting at the edge of the hospital bed when I was twenty years old. Soon you’ll feel like yourself again. Young. I was so young then. Young enough to think my mother was telling me the truth. But she was pretending, wasn’t she? Always pretending. Though I don’t blame her for it, or for waiting until just the right moment to let me in on the secret. It’s all some vital game, isn’t it? No—more than a game. It’s the long, golden string of insincerity that threads together the entire human race: a shared agreement between women to insist back and forth in endless conversation that this thing we spend our whole lives preparing for—this thing we were born for—is anywhere close to what we thought it would be. And do you know the truth beneath that secret? The water beneath the ice? It never stops. You never age out of it. Your mother lies to you, and then you lie to your children, and then your children lie to their children, and then you are an old woman, looking back at your own life, lying to yourself. A lifetime of drowning, and then you are dead.”
― Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear