Things that make me smile

[metamorphesque]

fyodor dostoevsky (the brothers karamazov), charles bukowski (a vote for the gentle light)

[metamorphesque]

czesław miłosz, from the poem "hope"

[dionysian-mystery]

The Jacaranda Years by Yiwei Chai

[quotesthatilike]

It’s freeing to give up on the delusion that you matter and can control anything at all.

Molly Lambert

[quotesthatilike]

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

Henry Miller, The books in my life (1891)

[quotesthatilike]

Through an accident, my unconscious mind had found itself reflected in the words of another person and for the first time, just by chance, language had finally managed to manifest myself in my body.

Jespa Jacob Smith, «The Soft Line In-Between» in Non-binary Lives

[quotesthatilike]

Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it. However great the private disasters to which love may lead, love itself is strikingly and mysteriously impersonal; it is a reality which is not altered by anything one does.

James Baldwin, Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone

[metamorphesque]

― E.M. Forster, Howards End

[text ID: The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.]

[quotesthatilike]

If I had to sum up what he did to me, I’d say it was this: he made me sing along to all the bad songs on the radio. Both when he loved me and when he didn’t.

Jenny Offill, Dept of Speculation

[quotesthatilike]

At some point you have to admit that doing things ironically can have very straightforward consequences.

Lauren Oyler, Fake Accounts

[quotesthatilike]

The world is a heavy burden, and yet we carry it. As soon as we are back in our burrows, whether joyful or discontented, we close the door upon it, we turn our backs upon it. The fidelity of things is only an expression of our own infidelity.

Violette Ledue, The Lady and the Little Fox Fur

[quotesthatilike]

”Interesting”, I say. Of course, it is not interesting that he has been allowed to live candidly. It is not interesting that he can conceive of nothing else. He has equated his range of motion with mine. ... This is the first time I sort of understand him. He thinks we’re alike. He has no idea how hard I’m trying.

Raven Leilana, Luster

[quotesthatilike]

Because in the moments we are closest, there is always a caveat, always a clock running out, and nothing can be purely sweet. I wake up in the morning and think for a moment that I am someone happier than I am and then I remember where I am.

Raven Leilani, Luster

[quotesthatilike]

If I’m honest, all of my relationships have been like this, parsing the intent of the jaws that lock around my head. Like, is he kidding, or is he hungry? In other words, all of it, even the love, is a violence.

Raven Leilani, Luster

[quotesthatilike]

The truth I’ll never know. What remains is the story I’m telling myself, in a way that suits me, a story I can be satisfied with.

Virginie Despentes, Apocalypse Baby

[quotesthatilike]

Sometimes I can feel that girl crowning at the back of my throat, trying to come out through any orifice she can. But I swallow her until the next time she wants to be born again.

Avni Doshi, Burnt Sugar

[weltenwellen]

Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

[felisque-blog]

“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”

— Hugh Laurie (via inparticulr)