Marie Howe, From “Watching Television”, What The Living Do

“I don’t want to be threatening, just feared enough to never have to make a fist.”

— Hanif Abdurraqib, “Ode to Drake, Ending with Blood in a Field”

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

— Haruki Murakami

“Ten thousand dollars for my fashion style to the boy who wears running shoes everywhere. Where are you even going? Why are you always running there?”

— Alex Dang, “Everything Must Go”

I met a genius on the train today about 6 years old, he sat beside me and as the train ran down along the coast we came to the ocean and then he looked at me and said, it’s not pretty.

(Charles Bukowski)

“I want to be with you, it is as simple, and as complicated as that.”

— Charles Bukowski

“I’m not sentimental — I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last — the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Ocean Vuong, from “Woodworking at the End of the World”, Time Is a Mother

Ocean Vuong, The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation

“How beautiful it is and how easily it can be broken.”

— Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (via the-book-diaries)