Sriya

“As white women ignore their built-in privilege of whiteness and define woman in terms of their own experience alone, then women of Color become "other," the outsider whose experience and tradition is too "alien" to comprehend.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“It had become a habit with him lately to listen to his heart's pulsation while lying in bed. As usual, the palpitation was calm and steady. With his hand still on his chest, he tried to imagine the warm, crimson blood flowing leisurely to this beat. This was life, he thought. Now, at this very moment, he held in his grasp the current of life as it flowed by. To his palm it felt like the ticking of a clock. But it was more, it was a kind of alarm that summoned him to death. If it were possible to live without hearing this bell--if only his heart did not measure out time as well as blood--then how carefree he would be! How thoroughly he would savor life! But--and here Daisuke shuddered involuntarily. He was a man so attached to life that he could scarcely bear to picture his heart calmly beating to the coursing of his blood. There were times when, lying in bed, he would place his hand just below his left breast and wonder, what if someone gave me one good blow with a hammer here. Although he lived in sound health, there were instances when his consciousness awakened to the indisputable fact of his being alive as a near-miracle of good fortune.”
― Sōseki Natsume, And Then

“Sōsuke had never claimed to be the kind of strong man who could be felled only by an abrupt, totally unforeseeable event such as this. He had no doubt that far gentler methods would have been sufficient to dispose of a weakling like himself.”
― Natsume Sōseki, The Gate

“This is how we recognize the man who has tendencies toward an inner quest: he will set failure above any success, he will even seek it out, unconsciously of course. This is because failure, always essential, reveals us to ourselves, permits us to see ourselves as God sees us, whereas success distances us from what is most inward in ourselves and indeed in everything.”
― Emil M. Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born