James

“You know, it's quite a job starting to love somebody. You have to have energy, generosity, blindness. There is even a moment, in the very beginning, when you have to jump across a precipice: if you think about it you don't do it.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

“Most men will not swim before they are able to.” Is that not witty? Naturally, they won't swim! They are born for the solid earth, not for the water. And naturally they wont think. They are made for life, not for thought. Yes, and he who thinks, what’s more, he who makes thought his business, he may go far in it, but he has bartered the solid earth for the water all the same, and one day he will drown.”
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

“I want to venture a hypothesis that, roughly expressed, goes like this: you cannot learn to love yourself until you find something in the world to love; no matter what it is. A dog, a garden, a tree,a flight of birds, a friend...Because what we love in ourselves is ourselves loving.”
― John Burnside

“The trembling increased, a moan of grief was heard, nothing articulate - as a bird in the night sometimes laments alone.”
― Hans Fallada