C

“We were utterly alone. The hot-springs hotel where we'd had lunch, and the iron bridge, lay hidden in the shadow of the mountains. Every once in a while, as if remembering its duty, the sun showed its face through a break in the clouds. All we could hear were the screeches of crows and the rush of water. Someday, somewhere, I will see this scene, I felt. The opposite of deja-vu - not the feeling that I'd already seen what was around me, but the premonition that I would someday.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“It’s a dark place, not knowing.
It’s difficult to surrender to.
But I guess it’s where we live most of the time. I guess it’s where we all live, so maybe it doesn’t have to be so lonely. Maybe I can settle into it, cozy up to it, make a home inside uncertainty.”
― Nina LaCour, We Are Okay

“All her life, she had learned that passion, like fire, was a dangerous thing. It so easily went out of control. It scaled walls and jumped over trenches. Sparks leapt like fleas and spread as rapidly; a breeze could carry embers for miles. Better to control that spark and pass it carefully from one generation to the next, like an Olympic torch. Or, perhaps, to tend it carefully like an eternal flame: a reminder of light and goodness that would never - could never - set anything ablaze. Carefully controlled. Domesticated. Happy in captivity. The key, she thought, was to avoid conflagration.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“On the water, I can see Sukey’s ships, dark cities of their own. They are objects I will never touch, places I will never stand, sleeping giants that would not be disturbed even if all the shimmering lights and pretty buildings on land crumbled and fell down. Maybe we all need ships to hold our dreams, to be bigger and steadier than we ever could be, and to guard the mystery when we cannot, to keep it safe even when we have lost everything.”
― Hilary T. Smith, Wild Awake