Nikola

“Nothing calmer than that, a visible circle of calm-and yet, something that immediately made me see something else, not so calm, a calm not soothed, shivering, as though it hadn’t reached the point from which there is no longer any return, as though it wasn’t free, yet, from all faces, still desired one, feared being separated from it: sometimes giving me the feeling of wandering desperately around the face, sometimes the hope of drawing near it, the certainty of recapturing it, of having recaptured it, an unforgettable impression of its unity with the face, even though the face itself remains invisible, a marvelous unity, sensed as a happiness, a piece of luck that dispersed shadows, that went beyond the day, something for which one was prepared to sacrifice everything, a thrilling resemblance, the thrill of the unique, a force of a desire that again and again and again recaptures what it once held-but what is happening? resemblance does not cease to be present behind everything, it even imposes itself, becomes more majestic, I divine it as I have never seen it, it is the moving reflection of all space, and the smile also affirms its immensity, affirms the majesty of this resemblance which is almost too vast, the smile seems to lose itself in the resemblance and through the smile the resemblance seems to become a resemblance that strays, without resemblance.”
― Maurice Blanchot, The One Who Was Standing Apart from Me

“Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.”
― Emil Cioran, The Trouble With Being Born

“A ridiculous old age is perhaps the saddest and ultimate surprise human nature may have in store.”
― Machado de Assis, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas

“No greater desire exists than a wounded person's need for another wound.”
― Georges Bataille, Guilty