Ivan K. Wu

“Every man hangs by a thread, any minute the abyss may open under his feet, and yet he must go and invent for himself all kinds of troubles and spoil his life.”
― Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons

“No daring is fatal. The whole logic of the universe is contained in daring, in creating from the flimsiest, slenderest support.”
― René Crevel

“I had had a feeling of freedom because of the sudden change in my life. By comparison to what had come before, I felt immensely free. But then, once I became used to that freedom, even small tasks became more difficult. I placed constraints on myself, and filled the hours of the day. Or perhaps it was even more complicated than that. Sometimes I did exactly what I wanted to do all day—I lay on the sofa and read a book, or I typed up an old diary—and then the most terrifying sort of despair would descend on me: the very freedom I was enjoying seemed to say that what I did in my day was arbitrary, and that therefore my whole life and how I spent it was arbitrary.”
― Lydia Davis, Can't and Won't

“For fear you will be alone
you do so many things
that aren’t you at all.”
― Richard Brautigan