The Restless Wanderbird

“A me, il mare ha invaso l’infanzia come invade le spiagge della riviera francese, nelle notti di luna. Sono venuto su con questo spettacolo negli occhi. Allaga ancora adesso ogni ricordo e lo riduce a una finestra spalancata. Lo spazio deserto, il limite che non si può misurare. Il mare ti insegna a fissare il vuoto.
È la terra che io non so guardare: il profilo morbido delle colline, l’ostacolo di una montagna, l’aria rassicurante delle città. Ho bisogno sempre di avere un orizzonte di fronte, ma questa necessità mi espone a molte insidie. Vorrei poter imparare che il paesaggio più necessario è quello dove si fermano le cose, e si possono toccare. Avere l’appiglio contadino di un oggetto, l’ombra di una presenza intorno. E invece ho nella testa sempre questo gioco di correnti, questa esagerazione di sogni e di incubi, tra l’aiuto degli dei e le orche assassine.” (Fabio Stassi, “La lettrice scomparsa”)”
― Fabio Stassi, La lettrice scomparsa

“The hunger of imagination, the desire and pursuit of the whole, take origin from the realization that something is missing, from awareness of incompleteness.”
― Anthony Storr, Solitude: A Return to the Self

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.”
― Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

“All men fear death. It’s a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven’t loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman’s heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal.
I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. Until it returns, as it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it.”
― Woody Allen