Boats Against the Current

Words, words, and more words

[tobeborneback-blog]

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms... While we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Gustave Flaubert, "Madame Bovary"

[talesofpassingtime]

Now even the city had two centres of gravity — the true and magnetic north of its personality: and between them the temperament of its inhabitants sparked harshly like a leaky electric discharge.

Lawrence Durrell, Justine  

(via talesofpassingtime)

[talesofpassingtime]

He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (via talesofpassingtime)

[tobeborneback-blog]

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too-"

John Keats, "On Autumn"

[tobeborneback-blog]

"A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams."

Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose"

[talesofpassingtime]

What was it in Evie’s head? Crime or dream? I never found out; but I had learned something else: when you go deep inside someone’s head, they can feel you in there.

Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children  (via talesofpassingtime)

[talesofpassingtime]

Then, despite all her self-control, she lost her temper with a historic cry: “To hell with the Archbishop!

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera    (via talesofpassingtime)

[talesofpassingtime]

They are insect ghosts in buttoned boots. Don’t speak to them, don’t go too near them. They’re dangerous. I had plenty of room. I started running between the car tracks. The avenue is long.

Louis Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night (via talesofpassingtime)

[tobeborneback-blog]

One is ugly oneself, but life is beautiful.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

[tobeborneback-blog]

Isn't that the only way to curate a life? To live among the things that make you gasp with delight?

Maira Kalman

[tobeborneback-blog]

"Be an active trader between languages. Carry precious metals from one to the other."

Vladimir Nabokov

[tobeborneback-blog]

"We photograph things in order to drive them out of our minds. My stories are a way of shutting my eyes."

Franz Kafka

[tobeborneback-blog]

"...and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me... And yes j said yes I will yes."

James Joyce, "Ulysses"

[tobeborneback-blog]

Look at what lies at your feet! A crack in the ground, sparkling gravel, a tuft of grass, some crushed debris, offer equally worthy subjects for your applause and admiration.

Jean Dubuffet

[talesofpassingtime]

She refused to learn the names of the stars or of the constellations, as of the wayside plants. ‘Why should I want to label them?’ she would say. ‘I prefer to look at them, not to hide them under a name.’

David Herbert Lawrence, The Trespasser  (via talesofpassingtime)

[tobeborneback-blog]

Observez un jour, non pas dans un restaurant de luxe où l’intervention arbitraire des garçons et des sommeliers détruit mon poème, observez dans un petit casse-croûte populaire, deux ou trois convives ayant pris leur café et causant. La table est couverte encore de verres, de bouteilles, d’assiettes, l’huilier, le sel, le poivre, la serviette le rond de serviette, etc. Voyez l’ordre fatal qui met tous ces objets en rapport les uns avec les autres; ils ont tous servi, ils ont été saisis par la main de l’un ou de l’autre des convives; les distances qui les séparent sont la mesure de la vie. C’est une composition mathématiquement agencée ; il n’y a pas un lieu faux, un hiatus, une tromperie. Si un cinéaste non halluciné par Hollywood était là, tournant cette nature morte, en ‘gros plan’, nous aurions un témoin de pure harmonie.

Le Corbusier

[tobeborneback-blog]

Art is what reveals to us the state of perfection...

Kukai