madeleine

“They must live outside class, without relations or money; they must work and stick to each other till death. But England belonged to them. That, besides companionship, was their reward. Her air and sky were theirs, not the timorous millions' who own stuffy little boxes, but never their own souls.”
― E.M. Forster, Maurice

“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.”
― Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

“If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty.”
― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows