Raya

“When I say forever,' Koschei whispered, 'I mean until the black death of the world. An Ivan means just the present moment, the flickering light of it, in a green field, his mouth on yours. He means the stretching of that moment. But forever isn't bright; it isn't like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“Dionysus does not

explain or regret
anything. He is
pleased

if he can cause you to perform,
despite your plan,
despite your politics,

despite your neuroses,
despite even your Dionysian theories of self,
something quite previous,

the desire
before the desire,
the lick of beginning to know you don’t know.

If life is a stage,
that is the show.
Exit Dionysus.”
― Anne Carson, The Bacchae

“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

“And I do not want a stranger - unsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kidred: those with whom I have a full fellow-feeling.”
― Charlotte Brontë