1
" Don't go far off, not even for a day,
because I don't know how to say it - a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in
an empty station when the trains are
parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then
the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
on the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
into the empty distance. Don't LEAVE me for
a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll
have gone so far I'll wander mazily
over all the earth, asking, will you
come back? Will you leave me here, dying? "
― Pablo Neruda
2
" Essas duas histórias - a do lado de dentro e a do lado de fora - podem ser contadas sobre cada um de nós. Ao chamá-las de 'histórias' não pretendo diminuí-las. Algumas são, apesar de tudo, verdadeiras. O problema é que temos muita dificuldade em ver como ambas as histórias que contamos sobre nós podem ser verdadeiras. O efeito da segunda história, aquela contada do lado de fora, parece uma drástica realocação do nosso papel na trama. Longe de sermos o personagem principal da história, estamos reduzidos a um figuração. A história do lado de dentro gira ao nosso redor, mas na outra história cada um de nós é apenas um simples personagem em meio a muitos outros, um personagem cuja entrada em cena é determinada por outras pessoas e que não tem nenhum controle real sobre a hora da sua saída do palco. As coisas que impulsinam nossas vidas, as coisas que queremos, nossos planos, projetos e metas - aquilo que podemos chamar de nossa motivação - são o resultado de forças que não controlamos. Aparentemente, nosso papel foi escrito por outra pessoa. Temos pouco controle sobre o seu conteúdo e não temos a menos ideia de qual é o seu sentido.
O choque das duas histórias é às vezes chamado de condição humana. "
― Mark Rowlands , The Philosopher at the End of the Universe: Philosophy Explained Through Science Fiction Films
7
" Holding up an oil-paper umbrella,
I loiter aimlessly in the long, long
And lonely rainy alley,
I hope to encounter
A lilac-like girl
Nursing her resentment
A lilac-like color she has
A lilac-like fragrance,
A lilac-like sadness,
Melancholy in the rain,
Sorrowful and uncertain;
She loiters aimlessly in this lonely rainy alley
Holding up an oil-paper umbrella
Just like me
And just like me
Walks silently,
Apathetic, sad and disconsolate
Silently she moves closer
Moves closer and casts
A sigh-like glance
She glides by
Like a dream
Hazy and confused like a dream
As in a dream she glides past
Like a lilac spray,
This girl glides past beside me;
She silently moves away, moves away
Up to the broken-down bamboo fence,
To the end of the rainy alley.
In the rains sad song,
Her color vanishes
Her fragrance diffuses,
Even her
Sigh-like glance,
Lilac-like discontent
Vanish.
Holding up an oil-paper umbrella, alone
Aimlessly walking in the long, long
And lonely rainy alley,
I wish for
A lilac-like girl
Nursing her resentment glide by. "
― Dai Wangshu
8
" I did,” Henric said, with a triumphant look.“Oh,” Meena said, opening the book to the page 74, the one from her dream. “You mean thisprince?” She pointed at the illustration of Lucifer.Henric’s grin faltered slightly. “Precisely.”“He’s not a prince,” Meena said. “As you know perfectly well, he’s a fallen angel. And what wasLucien’s mother?”“A p-princess,” Henric stammered. But there was terror in his eyes.“No,” Lucien said, shaking his head. “She was an angel.”Meena swung around to look at him. Tears glittered in her eyes as she gazed up into his, whichhad gone back to their normal deep brown.“Yes, Lucien,” she said, holding the book open in front of him. “That’s why Henric was trying tokeep this from you. Because he realized it was the one thing that might help you remember what yourmother always taught you. You, of all people, really do have a choice. You can choose to be good . . .because you are part good. No matter how hard you try to be the devil’s son, you’ve still got an angel fora mother. "
10
" And this love between Henry and Fora . . . at first, it was a small, uncertain thing, like the glow of the morning sunos the horizon. And then it was its own wild animal, bucking against the world and anything that threatened it, so hot it could burn and sometimes did. And then it was quiet, as quiet as a snowfall, covering everything, certain of its place, even as it was certain it could not last forever. "
― Martha Brockenbrough , The Game of Love and Death