Juan

“You are born into a family and those are your people, and they know you and they love you, and if you are lucky they even on occasion manage to understand you. And that ought to be enough. But it is never enough. Abe had not been dressing up, styling himself, for all these years because he was trying to prove how different he was from everyone else. He did it in the hope of attracting the attention of somebody else—somewhere, someday—who was the same. He was not flying his freak flag; he was sending up a flare, hoping for rescue, for company in the solitude of his passion.

“You were with your people. You found them,” I said.

He nodded.

“That’s good,” I said. “You’re early.”
― Michael Chabon, Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces

“The pursuit of love seemed to need the cultivation of indifference.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

“My capacity for having a good time exists. It surfaces, however, on odd occasions.”
― Renata Adler, Speedboat

“You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.
So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments
But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God