this tremendous world i have inside of me. how to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces…

and rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.

the diaries of Franz Kafka

if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.

 Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

if she isn’t to be noticed she’ll disappear from the room and perhaps never return. she’ll evaporate like morning mist. 

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire

you live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. the symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. the second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. that is all. it appears like an innocuous illness. monotony, boredom, death. millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. they work in offices. they drive a car. they picnic with their families. they raise children. and then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. some never awaken. -Anaïs Nin

they blur as they run; they blur as they grow and change so fast; and they blur to keep us from loving them too deeply.

Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

with me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. this second is life. and when it is gone it is dead. but you can’t start over with each new second. you have to judge by what is dead. it’s like quicksand… hopeless from the start. a story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. nothing is real except the present, and already, i feel the weight of centuries smothering me. some girl a hundred years ago once lived as i do. and she is dead. i am the present, but i know i, too, will pass. the high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. and i don’t want to die.

Sylvia Plath 

the heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.

Willa Cather 

Locke: Sometimes I wish that I had a garden to rip apart. 

Sun: I don’t think I have ever seen you angry. 

Locke: Oh, I used to get angry. All the time. Frustrated, too. 

Sun: So you are not frustrated anymore? 

Locke: I’m not lost any more. 

Sun: How did you do that? 

Locke: The same way anything lost gets found. I stopped looking.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.

Stephen Chbosky