Librocity

"Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life." ~Mark Twain

[nature-and-culture]

State Library of Victoria via ladygemstone

[librocity]

The sky, unlike the sea, never holds on to the people that pass through it. The sky contains nothing of our spirit, it doesn't care. Always shifting, altering its aspect from one moment to the next, it can't be defined.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

I was as tenacious as I was timid. I never protested, I did what they did, that is, I clambered up, I hesitated, and then I strode across, afraid each time that the empty space between the stumps would swallow me up, terrified each time that I would fall, even though I never did.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

birds hopping from branch to branch. How I envied their brazen strides.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

Solitude demands a precise assessment of time.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

there's always some savage element at the beach, either to tolerate or to overcome: an element we crave and cower from at the same time.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

I'm struck that I'm the only one in the room admiring the sea's splendor at this moment.  Though we're crowded together I feel separate from the group, excluded from their enduring, unquestioned bonds. On the other hand, I feel obligated to pay attention to people I barely know.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[librocity]

I never go back to the same place, it's better not to feel tied to one versus the other. But what I end up feeling far from isn't so much the daily grind- it's my family, my childhood.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts” 

[librocity]

I'm amazed at our impulse to express ourselves, explain ourselves, tell stories to one another.

Jhumpa Lahiri

“Whereabouts”

[grayskymorning]

Remodelista

[librocity]

In my opinion, consensual reality is better than facts.

~ Anne Fadiman

"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down"

[maybe-you-need-this]

[librocity]

...each of us enriches the environment of all of us.

Angela Duckworth 

“Grit” 

[librocity]

...but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.

Madeleine L’Engle 

“A Wrinkle in Time” 

[librocity]

And the black crow looked no less perfect against the deep blue than the white dove.

Naoki Higashida 

“The Black Crow and The White Dove” 

[librocity]

True compassion is about not bruising the other person's self-respect.

Naoki Higashida 

“The Reason I Jump”

[librocity]

We are all invented beings, she thinks, built this way or that to suit each other's needs.

Dina Nayeri 

“A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea”