Arkasha

“Dramatic tension is the real curse of the novel, because it transforms everything, even the most beautiful pages, even the most surprising scenes and observations merely into steps leading to the final resolution, in which the meaning of everything that preceded is concentrated.”
― Milan Kundera, Immortality

“If we were to draw her childhood wanderings on a map, represent her discoveries and destinations in topographic form and trace her winding way through them, we would see her as a girl solving a maze from the center outward, a Minotaur working her way free.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January

“It was like the dark inverse of the sun. Whenever he tried to look at it he had the feeling of turning uncontrollably away from it, as in his unremembered dreams. All he knew was that once he let it out, it wouldn't be just the world that was drowned, but himself.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World

“I don't want to be great, Zhu repeated. Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did? "I want to be the greatest.”
― Shelley Parker-Chan, He Who Drowned the World