Rajeev Ramakrishnan

“പുരികങ്ങളുടെയും കണ്ണുകളുടെയും ചുവന്ന പാതയിലെ സായാഹ്നയാത്രകളുടെയും അച്ഛാ, ഇലകൾ തുന്നിച്ചേർത്ത ഈ കൂടുവിട്ട് ഞാൻ പുറത്തേയ്ക്കു പോവുകയാണ്. യാത്ര.”
― O.V. Vijayan, ഖസാക്കിന്റെ ഇതിഹാസം | Khasakkinte Ithihasam | The Legends of Khasak

“Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads, a woman who feels too much, a woman who writes...
Don’t fall in love with an educated, magical, delusional, crazy woman. Don’t fall in love with a woman who thinks, who knows what she knows and also knows how to fly; a woman sure of herself.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who laughs or cries making love, knows how to turn her spirit into flesh; let alone one that loves poetry (these are the most dangerous), or spends half an hour contemplating a painting and isn't able to live without music.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is interested in politics and is rebellious and feel a huge horror from injustice. One who does not like to watch television at all. Or a woman who is beautiful no matter the features of her face or her body.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is intense, entertaining, lucid and irreverent. Don’t wish to fall in love with a woman like that. Because when you fall in love with a woman like that, whether she stays with you or not, whether she loves you or not, from a woman like that, you never come back.”
― Martha Rivera-Garrido

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?”
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society

“o love is to battle, if two kiss
the world changes, desires take flesh
thoughts take flesh, wings sprout
on the backs of the slave, the world is real
and tangible, wine is wine, bread
regains its savor, water is water,
to love is to battle, to open doors,
to cease to be a ghost with a number
forever in chains, forever condemned
by a faceless master;
the world changes
if two look at each other and see

Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone), translated by Eliot Weinberger”
― Octavio Paz