All my sleepless nights, I put into a quiet word

[metamorphesque]

Galina Belyaeva in The Shooting Party (My Sweet and Tender Beast, 1978)

[shisasan]

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned (1934)

[petaltexturedskies]

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

Susan Sontag, from At the Same Time

[sovietpostcards]

Evening in tselina [virgin lands]. The Red October sovkhoz in Kazakstan (1963).

[chthonic-cassandra]

Night is the interior world - in this case not spatial but temporal - of Romeo and Juliet, a middle world of transformation and dream sharply contrasted to the harsh daylight world of law, civil war, and banishment. Night will be the setting for all the play's crucial private moments, moments of tragedy and love: the masque at Capulet's feast; the balcony scene in the orchard; the aubade scene, after the lovers have spent the night together; and the final night, the final darkness of Romeo's visit to Juliet's tomb, his fight with the County Paris, and his death. This is all the more striking when we recall that plays written for the public theater, like Romeo and Juliet [...] were performed in full daylight, in the middle of the afternoon. The sense of foreboding night and pervasive blackness is conjured up entirely by and through language, with the assistance of a few well-placed props and costumes: a lantern, a candle, a nightdress. Night, that is to say, is a state of theater and a state of mind.

Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All

[mournfulroses]

Feng Zhi, from a poem titled "Snake," featured in A century of modern Chinese poetry : an anthology

[academiaa-a]

When Margaret Atwood said, "there is something in your throat that wants to get out and you won't let it." and then Franz Kafka wrote, "And what I really intended to say in the end remains unsaid."

[littlehorrorshop]

Colleen Moore in Ella Cinders (1926)

[havanaberry]

Hamnet (2025) "He can feel Death in the room, hovering in the shadows, over there beside the door, head averted, but watching all the same, always watching."

[sephirothhh]

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) dir. Simon West

[petaltexturedskies]

I want everything quiet and simple. For me: walking barefoot, sitting still, reading, listening to stories and now and then telling some myself. Eating fruit, drinking milk, longing to create, but with patience and many insights.

Rainer Maria Rilke, in a letter to Lou Salomé written c. March 1904, from Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters

[luthienne]

Fady Joudah, from A Palestinian Meditation in a Time of Annihilation

[luthienne]

Hala Alyan, from The Palestine Double Standard

[mournfulroses]

Υou remember that night of tempest and of kisses?

Robert Desnos, from Essential Poems & Writings; "In Long Ago,"

[kosmogrl]

ever since I was a little girl I knew I never wanted to tell anyone anything

[villainesses]

Do you think it’s a nice evening? I do. And do you think it’s gonna rain? I do. I now pronounce you two in love.

Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas in The Guilt of Janet Ames (1947 dir. Henry Levin)

[sophsun1]

Elaine Benes + Favourite Insults

JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS as Elaine Benes | Seinfeld (1989-1998)

[undinesea]

These are my sanctuaries: music that stirs, nature that heals, poetry that whispers, and solitude that understands.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from a letter to poet Boris Pasternak