Uta

“The point is: his life was not centered around the place where he lived. His house was just one of many stopping places in a restless, unmoored existence, and this lack of center had the effect of turning him into a perpetual outsider, a tourist of his own life. You never had the feeling that he could be located.”
― Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude

“Never touch your idols: the gilding will stick to your fingers."

(Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles: la dorure en reste aux mains.)”
― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

“pity was insatiable—a false virtue that always craved more suffering to show how limitless and magnificent it could be.”
― Hernan Diaz, In the Distance

“The revelation of kindness hurts worse than cruelty. There is no way to equal it. Nowhere to put her gratitude, and so it thrashes in her body.”
― Emily Ruskovich, Idaho