Quotes from Erri De Luca, Tre cavalli

On the brink of sleep I have a gloomy thought: that saving yourself is only pushing yourself even deeper into the trap rather than getting out. Dying is the only way out.

Sometimes to take two steps in a row, one after the other, I need to make a contract with myself.

Do you really know yourself so well or are you making it up?' she asks. Some things I concoct, some I glean from my senses, most I thirst for.

You stay in the war because it would be shameful to stay out of it. An then grief seizes you and hold its grip till anger has turned you into a soldier.

A man dies and his skin loses heat like the sand on a summer evening. It makes you feel like warming him up.