“𝘉𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳, I told myself. 𝘋𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘱 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘴𝘭𝘪𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴. 𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.”— Margaret Atwood, from “The Penelopiad,” written c. October 2005
“The people we truly love either leave or die.”— Margarita Karapanou, tr. by Karen Emmerich, from “Rien ne va Plus,”
“November night. Brief note to self: Time to take myself in hand. To build into myself, to give myself backbone, however much I fail.”— Sylvia Plath, from a journal entry featured in “The Unabridged Journals,”
“Τhis is only a dream letter and needs no answer,”— Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Lytton Strachey written c. December 1931
“what is a body except a bad party”— Emma Bolden, from “Lost Footage,” published in Wyvern Lit
“She dreams and reads, aloud because it is good aloud, with only the sun listening in a great core of golden silence.”— Sylvia Plath, from a letter to Gordon Lameyer wr. c. February 1954
“For so many years my arms have been speechless.”— Anne Sexton, from The Complete Poems (1999); “Despair,” wr. c. 1971
“Grief is a hiding place for light.”— Nelly Sachs, tr. by Eric Plattner, from The Seeker: “And Unwraps, as though it were Linen Sheets,”
“Everything about me is unfinished, insufficient.”— Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Lou Salomé written c. December 1905
“I only found words or emptiness.”— Jean-Paul Sartre, tr. by Lloyd Alexander, from “The Wall,” published c. 1939
“I am what you will have me, weak or strong, light or dark, warm as ice, cold as flame. I burn, I burn.”— Dylan Thomas, from Early Prose Writings & Stories; “Spajma & Salnandy”
“I desire, Occasionally, some backtalk From the mute sky,”— Sylvia Plath, from Collected Poems; “Black Rook in Rainy Weather,”
