T J

“am not using wonderful as a blank superlative. I mean, actually, they are full of wonder: they wonder about things, they themselves are a wonder, they produce wonders. When you ask such a person a question, you get something back that was already yours, something you had forgotten—or you get something new, something you have never encountered. In a moment it is an old friend. Really we are all like this, can all be like this. It is only our sad grasping protectiveness that makes us monsters.”
― Jesse Ball, Autoportrait

“SOLEMNLY OVER THE FERTILE LAND Solemnly over the fertile land The brief and futile white cloud passes, And for a black instant the fields are touched By a cold breeze. So too in my soul the slow thought soars And darkens my mind, but I, like the field That returns to itself, return to the day, The surface of life. 31 MAY 1927”
― Fernando Pessoa, Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems

“Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you.”
― Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.”
― Sarah Kendzior