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“Now my blood
is drying on the pillow. Now the man

who held the knife is gone, elsewhere
and undiminished. I can hardly remember

anything about him. It can be difficult
telling the size of something

when it’s right above you—the average
cumulus cloud weighing as much

as eighty elephants. The things I’ve thought I’ve loved
could sink an ocean liner, and likely would

if given the chance. From my window,
the blinking windmills seem

further away than ever before. My beard
has matted itself into a bloody poultice,

and a woman’s voice on TV is begging for charity.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Calling a Wolf a Wolf

“how difficult it is to be simple”
― Vincent van Gogh

“Remember the things others do for you, not the things you do for others. Only when people don't hold so much in their hearts would they finally feel free.”
― Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, 魔道祖师 [Mó Dào Zǔ Shī]

“A justly or unjustly ruined reputation, poverty, disastrous circumstances, misfortune, they all turn you into a prisoner. You cannot always tell what keeps you confined, what immures you, what seems to bury you, and yet you can feel those elusive bars, railings, walls. Is all this illusion, imagination? I don't think so. And then one asks: My God! will it be for long, will it be for ever, will it be for eternity?

Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.”
― Vincent van Gogh