“Exile is never the state of being satisfied, placid, or secure. Exile, in the words of Wallace Stevens, is ‘a mind of winter’ in which the pathos of summer and autumn as much as the potential of spring are nearby but unobtainable. Perhaps this is another way of saying that a life of exile moves according to a different calendar, and is less seasonal and settled than life at home. Exile is life led outside habitual order. It is nomadic, decentered, contrapuntal; but no sooner does one get accustomed to it than its unsettling force erupts anew.”

— Edward W. Said, Reflections on Exile: and Other Essays (via residueatlas)