Clavain

“I no longer thought about the fire under us and the endless cold above us, nor about how thin this crust is which divides the fiery porridge from outer space. I only felt that the night was dark and full of life, of snails and moths, of growing plants, and I knew that there were trout and frogs in the brook. Sometimes the frogs here croak all night long, in a great chorus.
There are bats and owls, and deer roam the neighboring forests.
The flowers have closed. From the hospital there was not a sound. All was silence.
Then a great golden tone rose through the night, and it was followed by new tones. The nightingale had begun, and now filled the world with its abnormal voice.”
― Jens Bjørneboe, Kruttårnet

“They’re afraid because we exist, she says. There’s nothing we did to provoke their fear, other than exist. There’s nothing we can do to earn their approval, except stop existing – so we can either die like they want, or laugh at their cowardice and go on with our lives.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“If they were all identical, there would be reason to throw up your hands and lose hope. But they were still people, the bearers of the spark of reason. And here and there in their midst, the fires of the incredibly distant and inevitable future would kindle and blaze up. They would kindle despite it all. Despite all their seeming unworthiness. Despite the oppression. Despite the fact that they were being trampled with boots. Despite the fact that no one in the world needed them, and that everyone in the world was against them. Despite the fact that at best, they could expect contemptuous, puzzled pity.

They didn't know that the future was on their side, that the future was impossible without them. They didn't know that in a world belonging to the terrible ghosts of the past, they were the only manifestation of the future”
― Arkady Strugatsky, Hard to Be a God

“Since her words have to be dead words, I only mumble back. I live in my own world of playgrounds trees animals books. I will never be intruded upon again. Or touched again. In the distance here, the river of my adoration flows long dull murky, all the way to the right and light. Lambs bleat on either side. Outside the icy air hardly impresses my flesh, for inside I'm all dissatisfactions. A cell-like shell bottles up the dissatisfactions.
'Unable to know any outside, I don't know where I am. Here's a red brick building. Here's a low, dullish brown brick edifice. Beyond's my river. Nothing's real because nothing has meaning for me because no one's touching me. No one tells me what means what. There's no schooling here. Where there's no language, there's no reality.
'This,' explained the dog, 'is why my heart is breaking.
'Cold. Wet. Dead. Low moors sitting over hidden rivers. Earth so heavy it could sink and is, into its lower geographical stratum of mud. Human heaviness heavier than death.”
― Kathy Acker, Don Quixote