DFZ

“You told me that one of the reasons you couldn't be with me was that you were afraid of my relationship with death, of the responsibility of keeping me alive.

I found that incredibly insulting. No one asked you to keep me alive. No one asked you to be a ventilator, a pair of hands desperate against my sternum, a series of gasping breaths into a slack mouth. You're not qualified. No one is qualified. I am not a person who thinks that anyone is coming to save me except myself. I have been dying my whole life, don't you understand, flirting with death, bargaining, stalling, shifting strategies to stay alive. I am the person who is best at keeping myself alive, there is no singular love responsible for me, there is no one who knows me deeper, you would make a useless life jacket. You will never be better at it than I am. All I wanted was someone for the loneliness, someone to hold my hand and sit in the dark with me.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

“Orion is above the horizon now, and near it Jupiter, brighter than it will ever be ... But i expect you can see it too. Some of our stars are the same.”
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs

“There is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and against in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
― Carl Sagan