Joshua Short

“In one of them I am sixteen or seventeen years old. I am wearing, under a jacket of the Assistance Publique, a torn sweater. My face is an oval, very pure; my nose is smashed, flattened by a punch in some forgotten fight. The look on my face is blasé, sad and warm, very serious. My hair was thick and unruly. Seeing myself at that age, I expressed my feelings almost aloud: “Poor little fellow, you've suffered.”
― Jean Genet, The Thief's Journal

“But it's not easy. I've been thinking it over for years. While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. But people don't love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me, only I couldn't.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, and thou no breath at all?”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear