Near to the Wild Heart

by Clarice Lispector

Stealing makes everything more valuable. The taste of evil—chewing red, swallowing sugary fire.

the only truth is that I live.

Let us sleep on God and mystery, a quiet, fragile ship floating on the sea, behold sleep.

Her father had died just as one couldn’t see the bottom of the ocean,

I have my childhood more now than when it was happening . .

“Those who deny themselves pleasure, who act like monks, in any sense, it’s because they have an enormous capacity for pleasure, a dangerous capacity—hence even greater fear. Only he who is afraid of shooting everyone keeps his guns under lock and key.”

the grass is always fresh, someone is going to kiss her, soft little rabbits huddle together with their eyes closed.—She

Stars, stars, I pray.

Because the rain does not fall inside me, I want to be a star. Purify me a little and I will have the mass of those beings that take refuge behind the rain.

If the twinkling of the stars pains me, if this distant communication is possible, it is because something almost like a star quivers within me.