Justin •••

“My dad was blown up by a tank in Poland, but he left us the car. You want a ride?”
― Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“A farmhouse was blazing away right before us. It took an incredibly long time to burn to the ground. One could almost see the history of that house going up in flames along with its roof and pillars.”
― Osamu Dazai, Early Light

“So I had to... I had to leave my country, my family, and first become the wife of a charming person, then by sheer chance meet Nazim--an immigrant or exile (I still don't know which) and a real man--for me to not only escape my sad story, but also experience love, true love, the one that gives you shivers, staggers you, makes you vulnerable, transparent, ready for anything. I hadn't known that state in which the body, when it is so desired and so well loved, climbs to the heights and gazes out over the city with an appetite for trying everything, for consuming and embracing everything.”
― Tahar Ben Jelloun, Leaving Tangier

“When I lie in the grass and look for a long time at a bug that was born yesterday and doesn't understand anything, it seems to me that its whole life consists of nothing but horror, and I see myself in it... I'm frightened mainly by the common place, which none of us can escape from. I'm unable to tell what in my actions is true or false, and they bother me; I'm aware that the conditions of life and my upbringing confined me to a narrow circle of lies, and that my whole life is nothing but a daily worry about deceiving myself and others and not noticing it, and I'm frightened by the thought that till death I won't get out of this lie.”
― Anton Chekhov, Fifty-Two Stories