eliana

“Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. The lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glare of the lover’s inward eye.”
― Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

“Cut this tree I'm living in down. Hollow its trunk out.
Make me all over again, with what you scooped out of its insides.
Slide the new me back inside the old trunk.
Burn me. Burn the tree. Spread the ashes, for luck, where you want next year's crops to grow.
Birth me and the tree
Next summer's sun
Midwinter guarantee”
― Ali Smith, Autumn

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“I don't feel particularly proud of myself. But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors