shams

“May I at least carry, to the boundless possibility contained in the abyss of everything, the glory of my disillusion like that of a great dream, and the splendor of not believing like a banner of defeat; a banner in feeble hands, but still and all a banner, dragged through mud and the blood of the weak but raised high for who knows what reason - whether in defiance, or as a challenge, or in mere desperation - as we vanish into quicksand. No one knows for what reason, because no one knows anything, and the sand swallows those with banners as it swallows those without. And the sand covers everything: my life, my prose, my eternity. I carry my awareness of defeat like a banner of victory.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“I only thought
Of lying quiet there where I was thrown
Like sea-weed on the rocks, and suffer her
To prick me to a pattern with her pin,
Fibre from fibre, delicate leaf from leaf,
And dry out from my drowned anatomy
The last sea-salt left in me.”
― Elizabeth Barrett-Browning

“അഥവാ ക്ഷമപോലെ നന്മചെ-
യ്തരുളാൻ നോറ്റൊരു നല്ല ബന്ധുവും
വ്യഥപോലറിവോതിടുന്ന സദ്-
ഗുരുവും മർത്യനു വേറേയില്ലതാൻ”
― Kumaran Asan , ചിന്താവിഷ്ടയായ സീത | Chinthavishtayaya Seetha

“So you heroically undertook to endure the pains of faithlessness, just to be able to write good poems. But you didn´t realise then that when you lost that voice inside you, you´d end up all alone in an empty universe.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow