“Behind Every Exquisite Thing That Existed, There Was Something Tragic.”

Anaïs Nin, The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1920–1923

Kim Addonizio, from "'Round Midnight'", What Is This Thing Called Love

Marguerite Duras, The Lover

“I must see new things and investigate them. I want to taste dark water and see crackling trees and wild winds.”

— Egon Schiele (via kittencrimson)

“IPHIGENIA : I shall wash blood with blood to get rid of the defilement—”

— Euripides, Iphigenia Among the Taurians (tr. by Anne Carson)

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to Ottis P. Lord written c. March 1878

“I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.”

— Franz Kafka  (via quotemadness)

Gennady Aygi, tr. by Peter France, from “The People Are a Temple.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, from The Idiot

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

— Maya Angelou