Maria

“It was exciting to feel so much spite for somebody. It inspired me; I almost felt like dancing. If I was an artist, I thought, I would paint a huge black-and-red canvas, stabbing with my brush in a frenzy until I fell down on the floor in a heap, sweating and dizzy, the world spinning above me. I wished I could be breathless like that, and for so long I'd believed I couldn't.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Death in Her Hands

“Life was persistent. There it was, every day. Each morning it woke me up. It was loud and brash. A bully. A lounge singer in a garish sequin dress. A runaway truck. A jackhammer. A brush fire. A canker sore. Death was different. It was tender, a mystery.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, Death in Her Hands

“I spent three full days after that all but walking on the bottom of the sea. I could hardly hear what people said to me, and they had just as much trouble catching anything I had to say. My whole body felt enveloped in some kind of membrane, cutting off any direct contact between me and the outside world. I couldn't touch "them", and "they" couldn't touch me. I was utterly helpless, and as long as I remained in that state, "they" were unable to reach out to me.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Ich kann mich ans Fenster stellen und über den alten großen Parkbäumen den Himmel sehen und Wolken, so­viel ich will. Das ist der Vorteil, wenn man lebt, vielleicht kein sehr großer Vorteil, aber immerhin.”
― Christa Wolf, Der geteilte Himmel