A moving prism

» I went in; I closed the door. I sat down on the bed. Blackest space extended before me. I was not in this blackness, but at the edge of it, and I confess that it is terrifying. It is terrifying because there is something in it which scorns man and which man cannot endure without losing himself. But he must lose himself; and whoever resists will founder, and whoever goes toward it will become thi s very blackness, this cold and dead and scornful thing in the very heart of which lives the infinite. This blackness stayed next to me, probably because of my fear: this fear was not the fear people know about, it did not break me, it did not pay any attention to me, but wandered around the room the way human things do. – ‘ Death Sentence ’ , Maurice Blanchot

Dream21, Safwan Dahoul (2009) » Compared to the person I love, the universe seems poor and empty. This universe isn't 'risked' since it's not 'perishable'.  [...] I love irreligiousness, the disrespect involved in risk taking and gambling. In risk taking, I sometimes push my luck so far that I lose even anguish as a possibility. Anguish in this case would be withdrawal from risk. Love is my necessity. I'm impelled to drift into happiness, sensing chance there. First rapturously to win - then laceratingly to let go of the winnings - in a game that exhausts me.  — The Bataille Reader , Edited by Fred Botting and Scott Wilson 

The Banquet, Rene Magritte, 1958 » I was thinking about the challenge that life and death lay down to writing. For writing moves at the pace of the hand. And life and death go by in a flash. We catch fire, surprised. Writing is far behind. How are the fiery moments to be grasped? How can that fire be caught in our hands? Besides, we had better catch the fire in our hands quickly. Because if we catch the fire in our hands quickly enough, we won’t get burned. Fire grasped with the speed of fire: that’s how it must be done. To write. — In October 1991…, Stigmata: Escaping Texts, Hélène Cixous; 

» Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive. – Rilke, from The Sonnets to Orpheus II, 13

The Kiss of Death, Edvard Munche (1899) »  I called for my horse to be brought from the stable. The servant did not understand me. I myself went into the stable, saddled my horse and mounted. In the distance I heard a bugle call. I asked him what it meant but he did not know and had not heard it. By the gate he stopped me and asked, ‘Where are you riding to sir?’ I answered, ‘away from here, away from here, always away fr om here. Only by doing so can I reach my destination’. ‘Then you know your destination’, he asked. ‘Yes’, I said, ‘I have already said so, “Away-From-Here”, that is my destination’. ‘You have no provisions with you’, he said. ‘I don’t need any’, I said. ‘The journey is so long that I will die of hunger if I do not get something along the way. It is, fortunately, a truly immense journey.’ – Franz Kafka