Ali Stinchfield

“he no longer dreams of flight
but of a fall
that draws like lightning
a profile of infinity”
― Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems, 1956-1998

“I wonder if the emphasis might be placed differently, shifted from unconscious reaction to unrealized action: that is, our anxiety is less the mind shielding itself from death than the spirit's need to be.”
― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

“They have the power of description, and we succumb to the pictures they construct.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“That's why we hold onto ideas of things that were and things we need to be: The idea of someone saves something about ourselves. And the more we hold onto those fragments of a person, those soundbite dreams that distract us from the moment, we end up with a few distilled memories that we've turned into life-sustaining hopes, and we piece it all together and place it on the shoulders of the person who we thought loved us enough to make us love ourselves.”
― Brianna Weist