Elana

“Do you know that old song about Orpheus, how he played his lyre on the mountainside, and found a lion had crouched at his feet to listen? I’m no Orpheus, I know; but sometimes I see the lion’s eyes. Where did it go, after the music, what became of it? The story doesn’t say.”
― Mary Renault, Fire from Heaven

“Mother told her she looked just like the duchess of York, but younger. Lucille returned the compliment by remarking that Mother looked just like Queen Alexandra, but younger. And Dad wondered aloud what was wrong with good American people:
“You look right miserable, Dad,” I told him.
“So do you, Alexander, but younger,” he replied.”
― Richard Peck, The Ghost Belonged to Me

“Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing like dogs.”
― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

“Throughout the earth there are ancient forms, forms incorruptible and eternal; any one of them could be the symbol I sought. A mountain could be the speech of the god, or a river or the empire or the configuration of the stars. But in the process of the centuries the mountain is levelled and the river will change its course, empires experience mutilation and havoc and the configuration of the stars varies. There is change in the firmament. The mountain and the star are individuals and individuals perish. I sought something more tenacious, more invulnerable. I thought of the generations of cereals, of grasses, or birds, of men. Perhaps the magic would be written on my face, perhaps I myself was the end of my search.”
― Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings