Kirabo

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
― Franz Kafka

“To read is to cover one's face. And to write is to show it.”
― Alejandro Zambra, Formas de volver a casa

“Against Fate

Hey, Fate! When you fail a man, you spend
all your time digging a well to trap him.
Then you untie the well's wheel rope so that it can roll.
And you keep the poor mortal struggling up, only to fall back.
You show him a bushel of means and say
"This is it. Worry about it, and dream."

Meanwhile you spin the wheel of fortune and fill
the house of the wicked with jewels,
while you force the just and scrupulous
to sweep up the pieces.
And the man who should not even tend pigs
rides a horse as a cavalier.
And without a shovel, you scoop ruin onto the house
of the honorable and the just.

Fate, if I speak evil of you, you'll claim
the man is jealous and confused
But why do you look crossly at the learned
and make the ignorant the landlord?
Hey, why toss the bread of the wise
so far down the valley?

And why should I believe in your justice
When you don't serve it to anyone important?
Not that you keep either oath or bargain, treacherous one.
Whomever you love today and who is raised to a golden throne,
tomorrow may be sitting in ashes.
How can such a fraudulent judge make a just decision?
Fate, friend of the deceitful and devious, you are harsh to the honest.
What more can I say except that someday I expect
you to mix up sky and earth and sea.”
― Frik

“I pop a beautiful sentence into my mouth and suck it like a fruit drop.”
― Bohumil Hrabal