Mina Herz

“Nothing is easier than to sit, like Father Matthew,[17] in the seat of judgement and condemn drunkenness, while you are yourself intoxicated with sobriety;”
― Aleksandr Herzen, The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen, Parts I and II: Enriched edition. Revolutionary Insight: A Memoir of 19th-Century Russia

“Silence reigned; and any sound, such as the fluttering of birds or the rustling of fallen leaves, struck one as being unnaturally loud, and caused a shuddering start, which soon died away into that torpid stillness which seemed to encompass the earth and cast a spell over the heart. In such moments as these are born thoughts of a peculiar purity--ethereal thoughts, thin, transparent as a cobweb, incapable of being expressed in words. They come and go quickly, like falling stars, kindling a flame of sorrow in the soul, soothing and disturbing it as at the same time; and the soul is, as it were, on fire, and, being plastic, reveives an impression which lasts for all time.”
― Maxim Gorky, My Childhood

“Euripides is showing us how the place of The Woman is, ultimately, an empty one. Behind the ideal image of Helen there is, literally, nothing. Hence it is the endeavour of each woman to find a way of making sense of this void and of constructing something in its place. If you have a hundred Chanel dresses, you can still say 'I've got nothing to wear': the one dress you don't have is the uniform of what it is to be The Woman, the definitive answer to the question of femininity. And since the place of The Woman is ultimately an empty one, there will always be a dress missing.”
― Darian Leader, Why Do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?

“Why, you may ask, am I telling you all these abominations? So that you should know, my dear sirs, these are not things of the past — far from it! I know that you prefer beautifully told, fictitious horrors: the fantastic and the terrifying give you an agreeable thrill! But I know what is really terrifying, the horrors of everyday life, and I claim the indisputable right to shock you with stories about it, to make you take stock of your own lives and the world in which you live. We all live vile dirty lives — that's the point of these stories! I love people and I would not wish to horrify them. But I will not be sentimental nor conceal the terrible truth with the tinsel words of a beautiful lie. We must go forward with life! We must take from it into our hearts and heads everything that is good and humane so that it becomes a living part of us.”
― Maxim Gorky, My Apprenticeship