John Knofla

“it was like any other
relationship, there was
jealousy on both sides,
there were split-ups and
reconciliations.
there were also fragmented moments of
great peace and beauty.

I often tried to get away from her and
she tied to get away from me
but it was difficult:
Cupid, in his strange way, was really
there.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Our personal demons come in many guises. We experience them as shame, as jealousy, as abandonment, as rage. They are anything that makes us so uncomfortable that we continually run away. We do the big escape: we act out, say something, slam a door, hit someone, or throw a pot as a way of not facing what’s happening in our hearts. Or we shove the feelings under and somehow deaden the pain. We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. All over the world, people are so caught in running that they forget to take advantage of the beauty around them. We become so accustomed to speeding ahead that we rob ourselves of joy.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast