"Te scoli dimineaţa, pe la şase, deschizi geamul, îţi faci o cafea mare în vechiul ibric albastru, o torni într-o ceaşcă temeinică de teracotă galbenă, iei o carte (de obicei una citită de două-trei ori), respiri, sorbi, citeşti. Dar vrei să comunici cuiva plăcerea celor trei verbe matinale! Ascuţi bine cu lama două creioane "Koh-I-Noor" B, potriveşti foaia liniată pe furnirul maro al biroului, priveşti acoperişurile verzi, asculţi zgomotul hidroforului şi-ţi dai seama, deodată, că totul e pierdut, iremediabil pierdut: adolescenţa, poezia, dragostea, prietenia. Rămîne lectura. Atît." 
(Emil Brumaru, Cerşetorul de cafea)

it's either memory, or expectation

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.

(Alan Watts)

Chess

"Because we were friends and sometimes loved each other,
perhaps to add one more tie
to the many that already bound us,
we decided to play games of the mind.

We set up a board between us:
equally divided into pieces, values,
and possible moves.
We learned the rules, we swore to respect them,
and the match began.

We've been sitting here for centuries, meditating
ferociously
how to deal the one last blow that will finally
annihilate the other one forever."

Chess, Rosario Castellanos