The truth of the world is exhausting

Well, I may understand something about the forces within the atom, but I really don't have a clue about human beings.

- Vasily Grossman

Magellanic Clouds

Robert Mapplethorpe for Helmut Lang

I had a passion for sleep. For those twelve hours of absolute immobility. For those twelve hours of absolute distance from the world. Twelve hours of gentle, o so sweet burial. My body does not dream. It is not there.

— Fleur Jaeggy

An excerpt from a speech by Paul Celan delivered on the occasion of receiving the Georg Büchner Prize, October 22, 1960. (from Breathturn into Timestead: The Collected Later Poetry: A Bilingual Edition, trans. Pierre Joris)