∬

“understand, I'll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd when I see the pale stars rising, blooming, over the oaks. I'll pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilight meadows, with only this one dream: you come too.” — rainer maria rilke

“she is not the stardust but the steady wick, the one who burns low and quiet. you do not see her by the way she lights up the sky but by the way she steadies herself against the darkness, alone, at night, beside a window while the world sleeps around her.” — marie lu

“the love I've known is the love of two people staring not at each other, but in the same direction.” — frank bidart

“so if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me because I, too, am fluent in silence.” — r. arnold

“here is my hand. I am not afraid of the night.” — sonia sanchez

“books, for me, are a home. books don't make a home - they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space. there is warmth there too - a hearth. I sit down with a book and i am warm.” — jeanette winterson

“and it's inside myself that I must create someone who will understand.” — clarice lispector

“lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” — virginia woolf