About
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.
— Anaïs Nin
People were the worst of gods and the worst of animals combined. Perhaps this kind of violence was the only message they would ever really understand. Something so terrible they would never want to see it happen again. Maybe they would be less warlike now, because they had finally become frightened of themselves. It would be so human of them, wouldn’t it? To be thrust into goodness by something vast and evil.
— Michael Poore, Up Jumps the Devil
Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.
— Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha