But_i_thought_

“I had hoped that here in the country I would experience the turn of the seasons differently, with less apprehension, I might come to see the form and plan of the world. Not to frame it within systems of understanding, of domination, no, I would work to allow the world its right to illegibility, to move in darkness. To take shape in its contact with people but to remain essentially itself. In the country, I would overcome this final difficulty at last, renounce my will to knowledge, give up my attachment to expression, and in this way come to understand the meaning of things.”
― Sarah Bernstein, Study for Obedience

“He knew that [his work] embodied change, and he wasn’t interested in change. He was interested in the fragments that change leaves behind in its storming passage toward the future.”
― Rachel Cusk, Parade

“For a writer, exile is prison, a severing from the source, and so, courageous or not, he dies in front of our eyes.”
― Hisham Matar, My Friends

“A vast distance exists between a protester and his slogan; the entire history of politics exists in that gap.”
― Hisham Matar, My Friends