dostoelover

“Order for order's sake castrates man of his essential power, which is to transform both the world and himself. Life creates order, but order does not create life.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Letter to a Hostage

“Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion - you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.”
― Lydia Davis, Essays One

“You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.”
― James Baldwin, Conversations with James Baldwin

“I exist.’ In thousands of agonies — I exist. I’m tormented on the rack — but I exist! Though I sit alone in a pillar — I exist! I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov