la Nausée

The Waves broke on the shore

[iamreadytogonow]

190919

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John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley- 1962

[iamreadytogonow]

"The leaves of the trees about the camp ground were thick and heavy, no longer growing but hanging limp and waiting for the first frost to whip them with colour and the second to drive them to the earth and terminate their year"

John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

[adrasteiax]

“The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight, in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour, and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to the shore. (…) The nights now are full of wind and destruction; (…)”

— Virginia Woolf, from To The Lighthouse

[iamreadytogonow]

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting

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Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

[iamreadytogonow]

’Life’, said Marvin dolefully, ’loathe it or ignore it, you can’t like it.

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Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

[iamreadytogonow]

The strange thing, on looking back, was the purity, the integrity, of her feelings for Sally. It was not like one’s feelings for a man. It was completely disinterested, and besides, it had a quality which could only exist between women, between women just grown up

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Virginia Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway”

[iamreadytogonow]

“Then more bread and butter and more flies droning round the nurcery ceiling on which quivered islands of light, ruffled, opalescent, while the pointed figners of the lustre dripped blue pools on the corner of the mantelpiece”

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Virginia Woolf, the Waves

[iamreadytogonow]

”I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live”

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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

[iamreadytogonow]

”I thought, it’s a shame that we have to live, but it’s a tragedy that we get to live only one life, because if I’d had two lives, I would have spent one of them with her.”

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Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

[iamreadytogonow]

”It is useless to ask such questions; for nobody can answer them”

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Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

[iamreadytogonow]

”He sat there on the bench, utterly depressed; he thought: I am a fool”

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Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

[iamreadytogonow]

”I am free: I haven’t a single reason for living left, all the ones I have tried have given way and I can’t imagine any more”

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Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

[iamreadytogonow]

”They did not want to exist, only they could not help it; that was the point”

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Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

[iamreadytogonow]

“Nausea is both the story of the troubled life of a young writer, Antonie Roquentin, and an exposition of one of the most influential and significant philosophical attitudes of modern times - existentialism. The book chronicles his struggle with the realization that he is an entirely free agent in a world devoid of meaning; a world in which he must find his own purpose and then take total responsibility for his choices. A seminal work of contemporary literary philosophy, Nausea evokes and examines the dizzying angst that can come from simply trying to live.”

[iamreadytogonow]

The mountains proudly erect far above the treetops. They have witnessed the creation of life and they know more than any mind. Will I ever stand with them and know their greatness? Will I ever smell the fresh cool breezes upon my skin?

Take me to the mountains where I can stretch out my arms and cry: “I am Limitless!” Without any boundaries, the freedom in the air would fill my lungs, and the wind of my breath could blow a hundred houses to the ground. 

The mountains are lethal. To fall down would be the last thing one does in life. But I would yield to the hight; I would not be afraid. I would instead raise my look to the sky. Only blue would then meet my eye. 

In the evening the sun would set and endless hues would be painted on the evening sky. Colours so beautiful yet oblivious of my gaze. I would scream at them: “You are loved and prized! Please don’t ever stop glowing like you do now!” But they wouldn’t hear my cry and, as before, shine unaware of their beauty.  

In the night I would see stars like a million holes in the floor of heaven. They would shine invincibly. Afraid of the dark, I would lay on the ground, with only the light from the stars to relieve my fears. It would reveal every mystery the night would try to conceal. But I wouldn’t be frightened for I would know that, among the mountains, I am always safe. 

Someday I will go to them. I will stand with them and share their pride, I will feel the breeze caress my skin and I will try to tell the colours how beautiful they are; but not quite yet.

[iamreadytogonow]

”Would you write on a desert island? Doesn’t one always write in order to be read?”

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Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

[iamreadytogonow]

”In the patch of sunlight, a fly is dragging itself along, dazed, warming itself and rubbing its front legs against one another. I am going to do it the favour of squashing it.” “It bursts, its little white guts come out of its belly; I have relieved it of its existence.”

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Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea