We read to know we're not alone

This is a free space for everyone. Martina, 21, Italy. INFJ-T.

[coloredsmarties]

Lost in the solitude of his immense power, he began to lose direction.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Màrquez

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Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez

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'Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can'.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez

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There is always something left to love.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind.

Peter Cameron, Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You

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I wish the whole day were like breakfast, when people are still connected to their dreams, focused inward, and not yet ready to engage with the world around them. I realized this is how I am all day; for me, unlike other people, there doesn't come a moment after a cup of coffee or a shower or whatever when I suddenly feel alive and awake and connected to the world. If it were always breakfast, I would be fine.

Peter Cameron, Someday This Pain Will Be Usefull For You

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I have not the pleasure of understanding you.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

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There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know  what kind, that glimmers  by mid-May  in the forest, just  as the pink mocassin flowers  are rising.  If you notice anything,  it leads you to notice  more  and more.  And anyway  I was so full of energy.  I was always running around, looking  at this and that.  If I stopped  the pain  was unbearable.  If I stopped and thought, maybe  the world  can’t be saved,  the pain  was unbearable.  Finally, I noticed enough.  All around me in the forest  the white moths floated.  How long do they live, fluttering  in and out of the shadows?  You aren’t much, I said  one day to my reflection  in a green pond,  and grinned.  The wings of the moths catch the sunlight  and burn  so brightly.  At night, sometimes,  they slip between the pink lobes  of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,  motionless  in those dark halls of honey.

Mary Oliver

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It is not that we have so little time but that we lose so much. ... The life we receive is not short but we make it so; we are not ill provided but use what we have wastefully

Seneca, On The Shortness of Life

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You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

Seneca, On Shortness Of Life

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All cruelty springs from weakness.

Seneca, Seneca's morals: Of a happy life, Benefits, Anger and Clemency.

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That's what art is: escaping everyday normality, which wants to eat you alive.

Stefano Benni, Margherita Dolcevita

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If you meet an angel, you will have not peace, but a fever.

Stefano Benni, Margherita Dolcevita

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The world’s full of details, have you noticed? And since no detail is ever repeated in exactly the same shape and always sets off other details, there’s no end to it.

Fred Vargas, The Ghost Riders Of Ordebec

[coloredsmarties]

I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

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We always fear losing our memory, yet it’s the source of our troubles. Happy people forget.

Jean-Michel Guenassia, The Incorrigible Optimists Club

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You, too, are cut out for failure; not that you’d fight the world. You’d let it chew you up and spit you out, and you’d lie there wondering what was wrong. Because you’d always expect the world to be something it wasn’t, something it had no wish to be. The weevil in the cotton, the worm in the beanstalk, the borer in the corn. You couldn't face them, and you couldn't fight them; because you’re too weak, and you’re too strong. And you have no place to go in the world.

John Williams, Stoner