T. Aching

“Each individual is made up of what he has lived and the way he lived it, and no one can take this away from him. Anyone who has lived in suffering is always made of that suffering; if they try to take it away from him, he is no longer himself.”
― Italo Calvino, Mr Palomar

“Men and women live with a heart-deep uncertainty every morning when they wake. It is why they go to war, why they write poems, fall in and out of love, plan thefts on dark nights, or try to forestall them. Why they pray. Or refuse to pray. It is the uncertainty that shapes and defines our lives. The tears of the world, a longing for joy. Or even just safety. Just that.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, Written on the Dark

“Sometimes we retain the quiet moments that come in the midst of chaos, of ager it. The city, my city in the night. Our lives, written on the dark.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, Written on the Dark

“At this point the only thing Palomar can do was erase from his mind all models and the models of models. When this step is also taken, then he finds himself face to face with reality – hard to master and impossible to homogenize – as he formulates his 'yesses' and his 'noes', his 'buts'. To do this, it is better for the mind to remain cleared, furnished only by the memory of fragments of experience and of principles understood and not demonstrable. This is not a line of conduct from which he can derive special satisfaction, but it is the only one that proves practicable for him.”
― Italo Calvino, Mr Palomar