Natasha

“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

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“For Beatrice-
When we were together I felt breathless.
Now you are.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Vile Village

“The fear of death is why we build cathedrals, have children, declare war, and watch cat videos online at three a.m.”
― Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory