Hope & Coffee Spoons

Welcome to H&CS! Thanks for stopping by for daily literary inspiration and words of wisdom from some of our favorite poets and novelists. Run by Sarah

[theburiedgirl--blog]

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need to exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a constraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.”

-Passage from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Seemed incredibly relevant.  (via theburiedgirl-)

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Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Toni Morrison: Beloved

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Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

George Bernard Shaw

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A poem begins with a lump in the throat.

Robert Frost  (via awdoll)

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since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate  than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers.

e. e. cummings

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The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin 

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Herr God. Herr Lucifer. Beware. Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

Sylvia Plath: “Lady Lazarus”

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There are no weeds, and no worthless men. There are only bad farmers.

Victor Hugo: Les Miserables

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You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

C.S. Lewis

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The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.

Langston Hughes: “Suicide’s Note”

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Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all- Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.      So how should I presume?

T.S. Eliot: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

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If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.

Charles Bukowski (via wordsnquotes)

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To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Oscar Wilde

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I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

Markus Zusak: The Book Thief

[clementinevonradics]

When you are 13 years old, the heat will be turned up too high and the stars will not be in your favor. You will hide behind a bookcase with your family and everything left behind. You will pour an ocean into a diary. When they find you, you will be nothing but a spark above a burning bush, still, tell themDespite everything, I really believe people are good at heart. When you are 14, a voice will call you to greatness. When the doubters call you crazy, do not listen. They don’t know the sound of their own God’s whisper. Use your armor, use your sword, use your two good hands. Do not let their doubting drown out the sound of your own heartbeat. You are the Maid of Untamed Patriotism. Born to lead armies into victory and unite a nation like a broken heart. When you are 15, you will be punished for learning too proudly. A man will climb onto your school bus and insist your sisters name you enemy. When you do not hide, he will point his gun at your temple and fire three times. Three years later, in an ocean of words, with no apologies, you will stand before the leaders of the world and tell them your country is burning. When you are 16 years old, you will invent science fiction. The story of a man named Frankenstein and his creation. Soon after you will learn that little girls with big ideas are more terrifying than monsters, but don’t worry. You will be remembered long after they have put down their torches. When you are 17 years old, you will strike out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig one right after the other. Men will be afraid of the lightening in your fingertips. A few days later you will be fired from the major leagues because “Girls are too delicate to play baseball” You will turn 18 with a baby on your back leading Lewis and Clark across North America. You will turn 18  and become queen of the Nile. You will turn 18  and bring justice to journalism. You are now 18, standing on the precipice, trembling before your own greatness. This is your call to leap. There will always being those who say you are too young and delicate to make anything happen for yourself. They don’t see the part of you that smolders. Don’t let their doubting drown out the sound of your own heartbeat. You are the first drop of a hurricane. Your bravery builds beyond you. You are needed by all the little girls still living in secret, writing oceans made of monsters and throwing like lightening. You don’t need to grow up to find greatness. You are stronger than the world has ever believed you to be. The world laid out before you to set on fire. All you have to do is burn.

For Teenage Girls With Wild Ambition and Trembling Hearts, Clementine von Radics (via clementinevonradics)

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Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Robert Frost: “Fire and Ice”