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)

Misfortune is a test of people's fidelity.

A film set on the Lena River during the filming of 'Khara Khaar' (Black Snow) directed by Stepan Burnashev, in March 2019.

The distinction that lies in being unhappy (as if to feel happy were a sign of shallowness, lack of ambition, ordinariness) is so great that when someone says, "But how happy you must be!" we usually protest.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human