*

Then, I don't know how it was, but something seemed to break inside me, and I started yelling at the top of my voice. I hurled insults at him, I told him not to waste his rotten prayers on me; it was better to burn than to disappear. I'd taken him by the neckband of his cassock, and, in a sort of ecstasy of joy and rage, I poured out on him all the thoughts that had been simmering in my brain. He seemed so cocksure, you see. And yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman's hair. Living as he did, like a corpse, he couldn't even be sure of being alive. It might look as if my hands were empty. Actually, I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming. That, no doubt, was all I had; but at least that certainty was something I could get my teeth into—just as it had got its teeth into me. I'd been right, I was still right, I was always right. I'd passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I'd felt like it. I'd acted thus, and I hadn't acted otherwise; I hadn't done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean? That, all the time, I'd been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn, tomorrow's or another day's, which was to justify me. Nothing, nothing had the least importance and I knew quite well why. He, too, knew why. From the dark horizon of my future a sort of slow, persistent breeze had been blowing toward me, all my life long, from the years that were to come. And on its way that breeze had leveled out all the ideas that people tried to foist on me in the equally unreal years I then was living through. What difference could they make to me, the deaths of others, or a mother's love, or his God; or the way a man decides to live, the fate he thinks he chooses, since one and the same fate was bound to "choose" not only me but thousands of millions of privileged people who, like him, called themselves my brothers. Surely, surely he must see that? Every man alive was privileged; there was only one class of men, the privileged class. All alike would be condemned to die one day; his turn, too, would come like the others'. And what difference could it make if, after being charged with murder, he were executed because he didn't weep at his mother's funeral, since it all came to the same thing in the end? The same thing for Salamano's wife and for Salamano's dog. That little robot woman was as "guilty" as the girl from Paris who had married Masson, or as Marie, who wanted me to marry her. What did it matter if Raymond was as much my pal as Céleste, who was a far worthier man? What did it matter if at this very moment Marie was kissing a new boy friend? As a condemned man himself, couldn't he grasp what I meant by that dark wind blowing from my future?...

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

Gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

Thus, I always began by assuming the worst; my appeal was dismissed. That meant, of course, I was to die. Sooner than others, obviously. "But," I reminded myself, "it's common knowledge that life isn't worth living, anyhow." And, on a wide view, I could see that it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten—since, in either case, other men and women will continue living, the world will go on as before. Also, whether I died now or forty years hence, this business of dying had to be got through, inevitably.

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there's always something to be thankful for.

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

I have never liked being taken by surprise. When something happens to me I want to be ready for it.

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

You've hardly time to get used to the idea that someone's dead, before you're hauled off to the funeral.

—The Stranger.
Albert Camus.
[Translated by Stuart Gilbert]

*

Travelling is what makes a journey.

— Devil on the Cross.
Ngũgĩ.

*

A borrowed necklace may make a person lose his own.

—Devil on the Cross.
Ngũgĩ.

*

How can we cover up pits in our courtyard with leaves or grass, saying to ourselves that because our eyes cannot now see the holes, our children can prance about the yard as they like?
Happy is the man who is able to discern the pitfalls in his path, for the can avoid them.
Happy is the traveller who is able to see the tree stumps in his way, for he can pull them up or walk around them so that they do not make him stumble.

— Devil on the Cross.
Ngũgĩ.

*

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL

BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL

THAN OTHERS.

—Animal Farm.

George Orwell.

*

You made me exist for the first time. I began to be when I loved you, I saw the world for the first time, the beautiful world full of things and animals that I'd never seen before.

—The Sandcastle.
Iris Murdoch.

*

No one tells you it's all about to change, to be taken away. There's no proximity alert, no indication that you're standing on the precipice. And maybe that's what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you're least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.

—Dark Matter.

Blake Crouch.

*

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened.

—Burnt Norton.

T. S. Eliot.

*

Demoyte was a connoisseur of books. Mor, who was not, had long ago been barred from the library. Mor liked to tear a book apart as he read it, breaking the back, thumbing and turning down the pages, commenting and underlining. He liked to have his books close to him, upon a table, upon the floor, at least upon open shelves. Seeing them so near and so destroyed, he could feel that they were now almost inside his head. Demoyte's books seemed a different kind of entity. Yet he liked to see them too, elegant, stiff and spotless, gilded and calved, books to be held gently in the hand and admired, and which recalled to mind the fast of which Mor was usually oblivious that a book is a thing and not just a collection of thoughts.

—The Sandcastle.
Iris Murdoch.

*

Wherever I hang me knickers - that's me home.
 

—Wherever I Hang.
Grace Nichols.

*

Home. Home. Home is a house in a photograph.

—The House on Mango Street.
Sandra Cisneros.

*

Don't write in English, they said,

English is not your mother tongue. Why not leave

Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,

Every one of you? Why not let me speak in

Any language I like? The language I speak

Becomes mine, mine, mine alone.

—An Introduction.

Kamala Das.

*

This is the world ends

This is the world ends

This is the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper

—The Hollow Men.

T. S. Eliot.

*

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

—The Second Coming.

William Butler Yeats.

*

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

—The Second Coming.

William Butler Yeats.