On The Pretexts of Nature

“Every major growth is accompanied by a tremendous crumbling and passing away.”

I like stories where women save themselves.

…But only the walls of my room witness the hours of my greatest distress.

I fear your sorrows make your tongue grow wild.

Do you realize that people don’t know how to read Kafka simply because they want to decipher him? Instead of letting themselves be carried away by his unequaled imagination, they look for allegories — and come up with nothing but clichés: life is absurd. (…) You can understand nothing about art, particularly modern art, if you do not understand that imagination is a value in itself.

There is no country for those who despair. But I know that the sea comes before and after me, and I hold my madness ready. Those who love and are separated can live in grief. This is not despair; they know that love exists. This is why I suffer, dry-eyed and exiled.

This very heart which is mine will forever remain undefinable to me. Between the certainty of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance, the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.

I can’t forget a thing; emotions no longer replace each other. They seem to accumulate, to pile up and never heal.