Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety. - James Baldwin

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty.

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

It was a gesture of great despair and I knew that she was giving herself, not to me, but to that lover who would never come.