Dearest,
no news today.
— Franz Kafka
(on a postcard addressed to Felice Bauer, 1916)
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
— Graham Greene, Ways of Escape
My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are, it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams -- like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves.
— Hermann Hesse, Demian
Logophile
(n.) a lover of words.
(Henri Matisse, Femme assise au livre ouvert)
In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.
— Frank O‘Hara, Meditations in an Emergency
(ph. Mario Schifano)
I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.
— Frank O’Hara