m.

“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentleman whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.”
― George Eliot

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven