Current Mood: melencholy

A not admitting of the wound (1188) by Emily Dickinson

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"I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. Today, wrapped in the complacent armor of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one lightly and are soon forgotten, but then—how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself."

Albert Camus, from a notebook entry featured in The Complete Notebooks of Albert Camus

Sara Torres, from her novel titled "X Is Where I Am," orginally published in March 2026

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Sara Torres, from her novel titled "X Is Where I Am," orginally published in March 2026

Pierre Mousset (detail)

Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry featured in The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 3. (1923-1927)

Marisa Walz, from her book titled "Good Intentions," originally published in February 2026

Anaïs Nin, from a letter to Henry Miller written c. January 1933, featured in A Literate Passion