Dan-Ha Le

“Cyrus thought of the other people standing in line to speak with the dying artist, how desperate they now seemed in his recollection, and how Orkideh still welcomed them, grinning, probably a little stoned. The performance of certainly seemed to be at the root of so much grief. Everyone in America seemed to be afraid and hurting and angry, starving for a fight they could win. And, more than that even, they seemed certain their natural state was to be happy, contented, and rich. The genesis of everyone's pain had to be external, such was their uncertainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls, barring citizens of there from entering here. "The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves", said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the uncertainty. But the next day they'd wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“Standing in my mother's greenhouse that night, surrounded by mounds of wormy seeds and chaff, I feel the brittle coat around my heart crack open at the hopeless beauty and fragility and loss of all that is precious on earth. He was right, we are responsible. Intimately connected, we're liable for it all. I had to take responsibility for myself and for my kids, but also for Geek and Elliot, and for Charmey and Lloyd, too, and yet at the same time I realized I was powerless to forecast or control any of our outcomes.
But maybe that was the trick--to accept the responsibility and forgo the control? To love without expectation?
A paradox for sure, but such a relief.”
― Ruth Ozeki, All Over Creation

“You were. Listen, Alice, I've been there. I've spent years trying to justify him. Everything you just said, I've been down that road. I've considered it all. So please trust me when I tell you there's nothing more to it. Some people just are that cruel. There is no design. They are not giants. They don't do it for any reason, they just like it. And the rest of us just have to survive them."
"I know that," Alice said tiredly, "I only mean---"
"We weren't special for it. We weren't---worthy of it, or handpicked for it, or anything like that, can't you understand?" Elspeth's hand moved again in that lecturing staccato. Harsher this time. "He did not care. It was completely random. We were just there”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis

“How good it felt when she seemed to abandon her body altogether--when she became fully incorporeal, drifting happily in a universe of ideas. She was very proud of the days that she forgot to eat. Not because she had any revulsion for food, but because it was some proof that she had transcended some basic cycle of need. That she was not just an animal after all, held captive by her desires to fuck and shit. That she was above all a mind, and the mind was capable of miraculous things.
Sometimes she would jolt, and feel suddenly that she was standing still on a spinning plane while abstract shapes swirled about her, calling to her, revealing themselves in full. The mundane world faded away and she was alone in a field of black, except for the brilliant spots--revelations, directions, connections--dancing in the corners of her vision. Everything else was so insubstantial!”
― R.F. Kuang, Katabasis