You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait. Do not even wait, be quite still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka, "Reflections on Sin, Pain, Hope and the True Way"
I hope everybody had a great start into 2012 and here's a happy new year to all of you! Sorry, if this roundup is coming a bit late. I am just back from the holidays. First post of 2012 over at Things That Quicken The Heart will be up very soon!
I've posted this already last year. but today is the bicentenary of poet, dramatist and short story writer Heinrich von Kleist's death, so it's again time to bear his work in remembrance. He was born on October 18th, 1777 and died November 21st, 1811 by commiting suicide - he shot himself together with his friend Henriette Vogel, who was fatally ill. Both where only 34 years old.