Valentina

“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“And why are you so firmly, so triumphantly, convinced that only the normal and the positive--in other words, only what is conducive to welfare--is for the advantage of man? Is not reason in error as regards advantage? Does not man, perhaps, love something besides well-being? Perhaps he is just as fond of suffering? Perhaps suffering is just as great a benefit to him as well-being? Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering, and that is a fact.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Sirotinji su svi ratovi isti, jer je sirotinja budalasta pa gine i vjeruje kako je žrtva beskrajnome Bogu mila. A on ustvari okrene glavu na drugu stranu da ne gleda kako mu stvorenja odlaze u štetu. Stvorio je i jedne i druge, krst i polumjesec je stvorio, ljude s obje strane koji jednako vjeruju u jedinoga Boga, stvoritelja Neba i Zemlje, pa kad im sablja odcapari glavu, posljednja misao glavi je da pada u blato na svetome putu i u svetome ratu. I da će duša otići u raj u kojem su valjda, iako se o tome ništa ne govori, razdvojene odaje onih koji padoše pod krstom i nas koje mlad mjesec čuva. Ako nisu razdvojene, pa ako je i džennet udešen da se duše miješaju jedne s drugima, tada smo zalud krvavili sablje.”
― Miljenko Jergović, Inšallah, Madona, Inšallah

“She had a strange, wild beauty, a face that was disconcerting at first, but unforgettable. Her eyes in particular had an expression, at once voluptuous and fierce, that I have never seen on any human face. 'Gypsy's eye, wolf's eye' is a phrase Spaniards apply to people with keen powers of observation.”
― Prosper Mérimée, Carmen