Esha

“One can say what one likes about death, but I now understand that it is above all a physical need, like hunger or thirst.”
― Agustin Gomez-Arcos, The Carnivorous Lamb

“Thus, I too look at my life and stare at its blind spots: scents I never discovered; bottles I haven’t stumbled on and don’t know exist; selves I haven’t been but can’t claim to miss; pockets in time I should have but never did live through; people I could have met but missed out on; places I might have visited, gotten to love, and ultimately lived in, but never traveled to. They are the blank tiles, the “rare-earth” moments, the roads never taken.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere

“One death is heavier than ten and a hundred are weightless.”
― Stuart Turton, The Devil and the Dark Water

“Great books, like great cities, always let us find things we think are only in us and couldn’t possibly belong elsewhere but that turn out to be broadcast everywhere we look. Great artists are those who give us what we think was already ours. Never mind that we’ve never seen, felt, or lived through anything remotely similar. The artist converts us; he steals and refashions our past, and like songs from our adolescence, gives us the picture of our youth as we wished it to be back then—never as it really was. He gives us our secret wishfilm back.”
― André Aciman, Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere