Khalid Abdul-Mumin

“A book doesn't come alive until it is being read.”
― Kevin Ansbro

“Earth Breathes in Us.”
― Matthew Edward Hall

“Tomorrow you’ll forget
that I have crowned you,
that I burned my flowering soul with love,
and the whirling carnival of trivial days
will ruffle the pages of my books…
Would the dry leaves of my words
force you to a stop
gasping for air?
At least let me
pave with a parting endearment
your retreating path.

—Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter),” Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry Of Vladimir Mayakovsky. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform April 18, 2008)”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky, Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry

“And I went to bed and hugged the memory of his attention until the roof seemed to lift off the hotel and the walls to fall away and the huge starry darkness to embrace me with the implications of what I felt. Why do we live so painfully in our fictions? Why do we suffer so, from the things we ourselves have invented? Do you understand it, Jeffers? I have wanted to be free my whole life and I haven’t managed to liberate my smallest toe.”
― Rachel Cusk, Second Place: A Novel