i am no bird; and no net ensnares me: i am a free human being with an independent will.

• jane eyre — charlotte brontë

a cage, [éowyn responds when asked her fear] to stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.

• the lord of the rings — j. r. r. tolkien

há tantos anos me perdi de vista que hesito em procurar me encontrar. estou com medo de começar. existir me dá às vezes tal taquicardia. eu tenho tanto medo de ser eu. sou tão perigoso. me deram um nome e me alienaram de mim.

• um sopro de vida — clarice lispector

i want to be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.

• the lord of the rings — j. r. r. tolkien

the world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

• the lord of the rings — j. r. r. tolkien

what horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.

• the unabridged journals — sylvia plath

i can never read all the books i want; i can never be all the people i want and live all the lives i want. i can never train myself in all the skills i want. and why do i want? i want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. and i am horribly limited.

• the unabridged journals — sylvia plath

i am jealous of those who think more deeply, who write better, who draw better, who look better, who live better, who love better than i.

• the unabridged journals — sylvia plath

everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

• the unabridged journals — sylvia plath

i have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. or i can go mad by ricocheting in between.

• the unabridged journals — sylvia plath

não quero ter a terrível limitação de quem vive apenas do que é passível de fazer sentido. eu não: quero uma verdade inventada.

• água viva — clarice lispector

i remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitments, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.

• jane eyre — charlotte brontë

well, i am so sensitive and i am very fragile but so is everything else, and living with a dangerous amount of sensitivity is sort of what i have to do sometimes, and it is so very much better than living with no gusto at all. and i’d rather live with a tender heart, because that is the key to feeling the beat of all of the other hearts.

• little weirds — jenny slate

as the image of myself becomes sharper in my brain and more precious, I feel less afraid that someone else will erase me by denying me love

• little weirds — jenny slate

i was a romantic and sentimental creature, with a tendency towards solitude.

• the house of spirits — isabel allende

things need not have happened to be true. tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

• sandman (vol. 3) — neil gaiman

what win i if i gain the thing i seek? a dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? or sells eternity to get a toy?

• the rape of lucrece — william shakespeare

sou um monte intransponível no meu próprio caminho.

• o livro dos prazeres — clarice lispector

from my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.

• private journals — edvard munch

from the moment of my birth, the angels of anxiety, worry, and death stood at my side, followed me out when i played, followed me in the sun of springtime and in the glories of summer. they stood at my side in the evening when i closed my eyes, and intimidated me with death, hell, and eternal damnation. and i would often wake up at night and stare widely into the room: am i in hell?

• private journals — edvard munch

my fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. without anxiety and illness, i am a ship without a rudder. my art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. my sufferings are part of my self and my art. they are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. i want to keep those sufferings.

• private journals — edvard munch

look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.

• macbeth — william shakespeare

o único milagre que podemos fazer será o de continuar a viver, disse a mulher, amparar a fragilidade da vida um dia após outro dia.

• ensaio sobre a cegueira — josé saramago