book quotes

"Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life."

[literarymood]

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quotes from the books i read

women writers

poetry

classic literature

web weavings

letters

a lover's discourse by roland barthes

I hope you find something that satisfies your curiosity!

[derangedrhythms]

Anne Enright, The Wren, the Wren

[letsbelonelytogetherr]

— emily brontë; wuthering heights

[megairea]

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

[thatweirdguyinthebushes]

"if i was orpheus i simply wouldn't have turned around" if you didn't love her enough to turn around, you didn't love her enough to crawl through the underworld to save her. if you could prevent yourself from looking back, you wouldn't be trying to bring her back to life. if you were able to look forward, you would be grieving.

"if I was orpheus I simply wouldn't have turned around" if you don't love her enough to turn around, you aren't orpheus.

[primulaceas]

Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to Wil van Gogh. May 1889. The Illustrated Provence Letters of van Gogh selected and edited by Martin Bailey

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

“Mythos, in Greek,” said Borges, “is not a story that is false. It is a story that is more than true. Myth is a tear in the fabric of reality, and immense energies pour through these holy fissures. Our stories, our poems, are rips in this fabric as well, however slight.”

Jorge Luis Borges, quoted by Jay Parini in Borges and Me

[ashstfu]

someone said we had more fun in childhood because we didnt have any past memories to linger on and it has stuck with me ever since

[ashstfu]

[shisasan]

I often long for you and wish to speak only to you.

September 7th, 1963 Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters First published: 1977

[shisasan]

Love, I am drunk from so much gazing.

September 8, 1897 Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: a love story in letters (1897-1926)

[literaria-journal]

Ali Smith, The Whole Story and Other Stories 💕

[shisasan]

Your letters sound so sad... so nostalgic... ah, I feel guilty, but I do, very, want to be missed.

August 30, 1963 Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters First published: 1977

[septemberkisses]

September - a soft goodbye to summer, whispered gently by the rustling leaves of autumn.

Excerpts from:

The Letters of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath • The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien • Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos • Peggy Toney Horton • The Whole Story and Other Stories by Ali Smith • Albert Campus • To The Tune 'Soaring Clouds by Huang O. (tr. by Kenneth Rexroth & Ling Chung) • September by Earth, Wind and Fire

[lunamonchtuna]

— Samuel Beckett, an excerpt from "Cascando" (via lunamonchtuna)

[orpheuslament]

Introduction to The Iliad, Emily Wilson

[mournfulroses]

Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry featured in The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 2 (1934-1939)

[critical-quoter]

In French, there's a phrase for the random urge to jump from high places, the irrational desire to swerve into traffic despite imminent destruction: rappel du vide, the call of the void. Those sudden feral impulses tend to be shoved away immediately, but humans still experience them. What if you jumped? What if you touched the fire? What if? When I looked at him, staring at me, the void called. What if?

Her Soul to Take - Harley Laroux