He Does Not Understand The Reason For The Moon

the whole world around me expanding and contracting, visually and viscerally heaving.

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

I want to say the poet is never afraid because he is unceasingly afraid, and therefore cannot become that which he already is

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

A great halo And a tightening in the throat

Dorota Chróścielewska, tr. Regina Grol

I am only as much as I'm not.

Dagna Ślepowrońska, tr. Regina Grol

Nervous awe and apprehension are born out of proximity and attention. The greater the intimacy between these cultures and nature, the greater the tension. The industrial world destroys nature not because it doesn’t love it but because it is not afraid of it.

Mary Ruefle, On Fear

Either she loves him, or she is resolved to.

Wisława Szymborska, Portrait of a Woman tr. Regina Grol

From now on it is not dying we must fear, but living.

Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination

For, when what he knows as art is relegated to the museum and gallery, the unconquerable impulse towards experiences enjoyable in themselves finds such outlet as the daily environment provides.

- John Dewey, Art as Experience

It is a mistake therefore to compare someone writing about his own life to an exhibitionist, since the latter has only one desire: to show himself and be seen at the same time.

Annie Ernaux, Simple Passion

and how it's hard not to always want something else, not just to let the savage grass grow.

Ada Limón, Mowing