Live to read or read to live

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[theblackquill]

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.

Sylvia Plath, The Collected Poems (via theblackquill)

[theblackquill]

Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.

Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (via theblackquill)

[bleedingwordswordswords-blog]

My first stolen kiss Was between myself and one of my paintings of a sun.

I kissed the centre. My door left ajar late one night. I did not want anyone to see me Kiss the centre of my Brazilian sun.

It was over before it had begun. I drifted to my bed Lay down to rest And noticed, Three hours later, That I was still shaking.

[positivelllymedievalll-deactiva]

just a couple of mah books

[writerswritecompany]

What some people call a nightmare, a writer calls a plot.

James R. Paddock

[positivelllymedievalll-deactiva]

THE TRUTH ABOUT SYRIA, and the support by the west for these terrorists is so sickening, most of them are not even syrians

[burgundyreds-deactivated2015010]

this is a serious issue, and everyone with even an ounce of humanity should pay attention, there are so many lives being destroyed here and no one realises. doesn’t matter whether you are christian, muslim, atheist, whatever, we are all humans at the end of the day

[beraris]

[honeyforthehomeless]

I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

[bibliophibious]

Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me—the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.

Anaïs Nin, In Favor of the Sensitive Man and Other Essays (via bibliophibious)

[bookmania]

He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

[bleedingwordswordswords-blog]

I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour? Colour is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering – like the susurrus of the wind – from book to book and object to object for tens of thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half sours through the air with your glances. I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted. I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colours, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.”

Orhan Pamuk's 'My Name is Red'

[fuckyeahexistentialism]

My suggestion is that whenever you have to choose, always choose the unknown, because the known you have already lived. Never miss the unknown. Always choose the unknown and go headlong. Even if you suffer, it is worth it — it always pays.

Osho (via atrialflutters)

[proustitute]

No one asks me to do anything. Vainly, I have the feeling that this is of my choice, not theirs; and there is luxury in being quiet in the heart of chaos.

Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry dated 23 June 1927 (via proustitute)

[divine-despair]

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books.

Jean-Paul Sartre  (via iamthebookworm)

[tylerknott]

Typewriter Series #94 by Tyler Knott Gregson

[litverve]

I have a faith in language. It’s the ultimate achievement that we as a species have evolved so far. (I don’t mean that I think we are the only species with a language.) It’s the most flexible articulation of our experience and yet, finally, that experience is something that we cannot really articulate. We can look out and see the sunlight in those trees, but we can’t convey the full unique intimacy of that experience. That’s the other side, one of those things that makes poetry both exhilarating and painful all the time. It’s conveying both the great possibility and the thing that we can’t do.

W. S. Merwin, The Paris Review, The Art of Poetry No. 38 (via litverve)

[litverve]

… we are words on a journey not the inscriptions of settled people

W. S. Merwin, from “An Encampment at Morning” (via litverve)