LA Brower

“They could die behind this door together, gasping for air, and tonight they wouldn't mind. They were majestic, transcendent, in love. They were stupid and awful and they were fools. They hated one another, but only because they sometimes hated themselves. They loved the others more than they had loved anyone before, more than they would ever love anyone else on earth, they were certain.”
― Elizabeth Ames

“How they became friends was no great mystery, but now they remained so, braided together beyond their shared college quarters, this transcended the usual alchemy of optimism and obligation that kept friendships intact, kept people from fading into other categories: old friend, college friend, just someone I once knew. None of the four would ever be just anything to the others...”
― Elizabeth Ames, The Other's Gold

“It was not possible to rescue anyone, she knew by now, but you could recognize her. You could see what she showed you, flinch and keep looking, let her find in your own face the truth.”
― Elizabeth Ames, The Other's Gold

“Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner -- what is it?
if not the intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose