Erna > Erna's Quotes

“It's a funny thing about the modern world. You hear girls in the toilets of clubs saying, "Yeah, he fucked off and left me. He didn't love me. He just couldn't deal with love. He was too fucked up to know how to love me." Now, how did that happen? What was it about this unlovable century that convinced us we were, despite everything, eminently lovable as a people, as a species? What made us think that anyone who fails to love us is damaged, lacking, malfunctioning in some way? And particularly if they replace us with a god, or a weeping madonna, or the face of Christ in a ciabatta roll---then we call them crazy. Deluded. Regressive. We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”
― Zadie Smith, White Teeth

“Be not afraid of whirlpools,
of strong winds, and murky waves.
Fear the creature that dwells
in the darkest depths,
the ice-shackled Kraken,
that threatens to surface
and your soul to keep.”
― Erna Grcic, Beneath the Surface

“Maggots gnaw on time
Glistening ghostly in dark crevices
As I wait, resigned”
― Erna Grcic, Beneath the Surface

“Don’t be a poet, my darling
The taxidermist for ideas and lost dreams”
― Erna Grcic, Beneath the Surface

“You can hear it in the midst of the night
While your gaze roams the vast plains on the ceiling”
― Erna Grcic, Beneath the Surface

“A man writes to separate himself from the common history. A woman writes to try to join it.”
― Sara Collins, The Confessions of Frannie Langton

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?”
― Terry Pratchett, Mort

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“To be neutral does not mean to be indifferent or insensitive. You don't have to kill your feelings. It's enough to kill hatred within yourself.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Krew elfów

“Mistakes,’ he said with effort, ‘are also important to me. I don’t cross them out of my life, or memory. And I never blame others for them.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

“You’ve mistaken the stars reflected on the surface of the lake at night for the heavens.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

“It’s better to die than to live in the knowledge that you’ve done something that needs forgiveness.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves

“No, no—there are depths, depths! The more I go over it, the more I see in it, and the more I see in it, the more I fear. I don’t know what I don’t see—what I don’t fear!”
― Henry James, The Turn of the Screw

“Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one.”
― Henry James, The Turn of the Screw