Ann

“He used his delicate sorrows as a battering ram, smashing his way into people’s hearts, where he could reside until he was bored, taking what he wanted.”
― Donal Ryan, The Queen of Dirt Island

“The fame she had described was what all mortals yearn for. It is their only hope of immortality”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“We’re always rationally explaining and articulating things. But we’re at our most intelligent in the moment just before we start to explain or articulate. Great art occurs—or doesn’t—in that instant. What we turn to art for is precisely this moment, when we “know” something (we feel it) but can’t articulate it because it’s too complex and multiple. But the “knowing” at such moments, though happening without language, is real. I’d say this is what art is for: to remind us that this other sort of knowing is not only real, it’s superior to our usual (conceptual, reductive) way.”
― George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

“Sow the wind and reap the maelstrom.”
― Richard Powers, Playground