A Writer's Ruminations

entregulistanybostan: Annemarie Schwarzenbach por Marianne...

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:29:19 -0400

Annemarie Schwarzenbach por Marianne Breslauer.

Fuente, nota y más fotos

"What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:16:45 -0400

“What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?”

- Mark Strand, from “No Words Can Describe It”

losed: Nabokov and his Butterflies

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:04:46 -0400

losed:

Nabokov and his Butterflies

"And I have stepped into your dream at night, A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight. I..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:47:00 -0400

“And I have stepped into your dream at night,
A stranger there, my body steeped in moonlight.
I watched you tremble, washed in all that silver.

Love, the stars have fallen into the garden
And turned to frost. They have opened like a hand.
”

- Thomas James, from “Tom O’ Bedlam among the Sunflowers”

"There was always the hunger, The death of small things Somewhere in your body"

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:43:00 -0400

“There was always the hunger,
The death of small things
Somewhere in your body”

- Thomas James, from “Two Aunts”

"I wanted to marry an absence."

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:40:39 -0400

“I wanted to marry an absence.”

- Thomas James, from “Longing for Death”

blue-voids: Letters from Vincent van Gogh to his brother,...

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:28:58 -0400

blue-voids:

Letters from Vincent van Gogh to his brother, Theo.

"She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:17:13 -0400

“She herself is a haunted house. She does not possess herself; her ancestors sometimes come and peer out of the windows of her eyes and that is very frightening. She has the mysterious solitude of ambiguous states; she hovers in a no-man’s land between life and death, sleeping and waking.”

- Angela Carter, “The Lady of the House of Love” from The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

"Maggie in her brown frock with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair pushed back, looking from the..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 21:12:38 -0400

“Maggie in her brown frock with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair pushed back, looking from the bed where her father lay, to the dull walls of this sad chamber which was the centre of her world, was a creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful and glad: thirsty for all knowledge: with an ear straining after dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her: with a blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the wonderful impressions of this mysterious life and give her soul a sense of home in it.”

- George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

"Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude."

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:19:41 -0400

“Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.”

- Mary Shelley , Frankenstein (via feuille-d-automne)

lovingsylvia: Sylvia Plath, 1953

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:15:46 -0400

lovingsylvia:

Sylvia Plath, 1953

"after the murder, after the burialEmmett’s mother is a pretty-faced thing; the tint of pulled..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:00:30 -0400

“

after the murder,
after the burial

Emmett’s mother is a pretty-faced thing;
the tint of pulled taffy.
She sits in a red room,
drinking black coffee.
She kissed her killed boy.
And she is sorry.
Chaos in windy grays
through a red prairie.

”

- Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till” (via black-poetry)

"Inside a book I’ve been meaning to read forever, I come across you"

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:53:27 -0400

“Inside a book
I’ve been meaning to
read forever, I
come across you”

- David Yezzi, from “This Is My Proof” (via proustitute)

Final page of the manuscript for “The Dead” by James...

Thu, 02 May 2013 19:52:00 -0400

Final page of the manuscript for “The Dead” by James Joyce

"The love of books. My library is an archive of longings."

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:18:33 -0400

“The love of books. My library is an archive of longings.”

- Susan Sontag, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh (via sketchofthepast)

"Writing: a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:52:24 -0400

“Writing: a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting oneself be surprised by the abyss. Of never becoming resigned, consoled; never turning over in bed to face the wall and drift asleep again as if nothing had happened; as if nothing could happen.”

- Hélène Cixous, “Coming to Writing and other Essays”

Mary Shelley’s handwritten poem “Absence”, on the death of her...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:46:49 -0400

Mary Shelley’s handwritten poem “Absence”, on the death of her husband. The poem reads:

Ah! he is gone — and I alone;
How dark and dreary seems the time!
‘Tis Thus, when the glad sun is flown,
Night rushes o’er the Indian clime.

Is there no star to cheer this night
No soothing twilight for the breast?
Yes, Memory sheds her fairy light,
Pleasing as sunset’s golden west.

And hope of dawn — Oh! brighter far
Than clouds that in the orient burn;
More welcome than the morning star
Is the dear thought — he will return!

"Sometimes fear grips me that these fragile moments of life will fade away. It seems that I write..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 01:15:51 -0400

“Sometimes fear grips me that these fragile moments of life will fade away. It seems that I write against erasure.”

- Assia Djebar, “Assia Djebar: The Tireless Walker of Memory” translated by Erin E. Brady and Guillaume Basset (via ArabLit)

"This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your..."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:10:10 -0400

“This is what it is to love an artist: The moon is always rising above your house. The houses of your neighbors look dull and lacking in moonlight. But he is always going away from you. Inside his head there is always something more beautiful.”

- Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice

"She doesn’t think she’s worthy to live. But she doesn’t realize, she is life."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:10:07 -0400

“She doesn’t think she’s worthy to live. But she doesn’t realize, she is life.”

- Derek Raymond, He Died with His Eyes Open