“Then, for the first time in my life, I was really aware of another person’s body, of another person’s smell. We had our arms around each other. It was like a holding in my hand some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird which I had miraculously happened to find.”
“For as soon as one recognizes vulnerability, which is so different from weakness or the tragic, one experiences a sense of tenderness. Without tenderness, pleasure means nothing. You need only look at animals to see the truth of that. It is gentleness that distinguishes their playing from the actions they constantly take to ensure their survival.”
james baldwin from “giovanni’s room” // anne carson, autobiography of red // marya hornbacher // the golden notebook by doris lessing // the eclipse the series // john berger, a painter of our time: a novel