She was broad and tall, and though her skin was the skin of a child, there could be seen coming, early in her life, the design that was to be the wea… - Djuna Barnes

«Noi ci volgiamo all'Oriente in cerca di una saggezza che non useremo, e al dormiente in cerca del segreto che non scopriremo. E allora vi chiedo: com'è la notte, la notte terribile? L'oscurità è il rifugio dove va ad appollaiarsi il cuore dell'amata, ed è l'uccello notturno che gracchia contro il suo spirito e il vostro, lasciando cadere in mezzo a voi l'orrenda estraneità delle sue viscere. Il gocciolio delle vostre lacrime è il suo pulsare implacabile. Gli abitanti della notte non seppelliscono i loro morti, la creatura mondata del guscio dei suoi gesti essi l'appendono al collo a voi, sveglia, che siete la loro beneamata. E dovunque andiate, la creatura vi seguirà, voi coi vostri vivi, l'amata coi suoi morti, e non morirà mai, verso la luce del giorno, verso la vita, verso il dolore, fino a che non sarete entrambe carogne.»

There is always more surface to a shattered object than a whole.

You’ve got to listen! She would come back to me after a night all over the city and lie down beside me and she would say, ‘I want to make everyone happy,’ and her mouth was drawn down. ‘I want everyone to be gay, gay. Only you,’ she said, holding me, ‘only you, you mustn’t be gay or happy, not like that, it’s not for you, only for everyone else in the world.’ She knew she was driving me insane with misery and fright; only,” she went on, “she couldn’t do anything because she was a long way off and waiting to begin. It’s for that reason she hates everyone near her. It’s why she falls into everything, like someone in a dream. It’s why she wants to be loved and left alone, all at the same time. She would kill the world to get at herself if the world were in the way, and it is in the way. A shadow was falling on her — mine — and it was driving her out of her wits.