Keka

“Naaliyah was more comfortable with insects than people: they were more chemically predictable, more elegantly designed. Ten billion insects for every square kilometer of land surface—a million ants for every person—and humans, she scribbled in the margin of a textbook, think they dominate Earth.”
― Anthony Doerr, About Grace

“I decided then to tell Artichoke to be ugly. To make herself as ugly as possible and not worry too much about beauty or what anyone thought of her. To be unpainted, to live in the breeze and stand under waterfalls and not be worried over the height of mountains, of quiet trails deep in the woods. To not be scared of roads slick with rain, of valleys dry in drought. I'd tell her 'no fear' and she'd know it was the deepest truth and she would be everything I was not. She would be wild and free. And I wouldn't worry because I knew the secret. That through all of her ugliness, all her hiking and running and jumping and falling and getting back up and saying no and saying what she wanted, her scraped hands, her freckled skin, her smart brain, she would of course be beautiful.”
― Chelsea Bieker, Godshot

“Down the side streets, old ladies lined the buildings in rows, shelling peas and gossiping as they sat on upturned baskets. From the apothecary shops drifted both the strange and familiar smells of herbs and spices and concoctions for gout, pastilles for putrid sore throats, creams and ointments, and possets and infusions. The coppery tang of meat and the stench of livestock reeked in the poultry market where fowl of every variety hung with their heads arrowing down. Glassy eyed ducks and geese swung gently in the breeze as it ruffled feathers no longer fit for flight. Here and there, dogs snuffled and snarled, growling over a discarded scrap and scenting the air with hopeful noses.”
― Emma V. Leech, To Steal a Kiss

“Down here everything is symbol and mystery.”
― Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Manuel Alvarez Bravo