Mark Zhang

“The melancholy of the antique world seems to me more profound than that of the moderns, all of whom more or less imply that beyond the dark void lies immortality. But for the ancients that ‘black hole’ is infinity itself; their dreams loom and vanish against a background of immutable ebony. No crying out, no convulsions—nothing but the fixity of the pensive gaze.

With the gods gone, and Christ not yet come, there was a unique moment, from Cicero to Marcus Aurelius, when man stood alone. Nowhere else do I find that particular grandeur.”
― Flaubert Gustave

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Give me a daughter with your stubborn heart, or your even temper. Give our children your dark-bright eyes, or your enchanted smile. So that even when we are gone, the world will find within them all of the reasons why I loved you”
― Nizar Qabbani

“I have late night conversations with the moon; he tells me about the sun, and I tell him about you.”
― S.L. Gray, Skin, Bones, and Too Much Love