"I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires."

Dubliners: James Joyce (via recycled-words)

(via libraryland)

"I am by profession, a science-fiction writer. I deal in fantasies. My life is a fantasy. Nonetheless, Gloria Knudson lies in a box in Modesto, California. There’s a photo of her funeral wreaths in my photo album. It’s a color photo so you can see how lovely the wreaths are. In the background a VW is parked. I can be seen crawling into the VW, in the midst of the service. I am not able to take any more."

Philip K. Dick, VALIS.

I’m only about fifteen pages into this and it is already about as heartbreaking as A Scanner Darkly.You know, people always talk about how Dick’s writing toys with reality and surrealism, but they never mention the heavy sense of existential dread that runs through it, as all of his characters lose their minds. Another example: those scenes in The Man in the High Castle when the characters gradually realize that they live in the “wrong” reality.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea’s asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold. Come on, Ace. We’ve got work to do."

Doctor Who, Survival. The last words of the original series! A fitting ending.

"One of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before."

Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem   (via three3stamps)

There’s comfort in both this (when you’re feeling more adventurous about life) and the opposite (for when you need reassurance that yes, this has happened to people before you, and they turned out perfectly fine, so stop worrying so much and relax).

(Source: suicideblonde, via democracyoftouch)

bjorkgifs:

‘You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.’

(via afountainofblood)

View high resolution

murakamistuff:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

"France is still your country, even if you’re disappointed by it."

now THAT is an election slogan (via)

(Source: birdlord)

"

Smile when the situation doesn’t call for it. Smile when you’re feeling angry, when you’re feeling miserable, when you’re feeling most crushed by the world—and see if it makes any difference.

Smile at strangers in the street. New York can be dangerous, so you must be careful. If you prefer, smile only at female strangers. (Men are beasts, and they must not be given the wrong idea.)

Nevertheless, smile as often as possible at people you don’t know. Smile at the bank teller who gives you your money, at the waitress who gives you your food, at the person sitting across from you on the IRT.

See if anyone smiles back at you.

Keep track of the number of smiles you are given each day.

Don’t be disappointed when people don’t smile back at you.

Consider each smile you receive a precious gift.

"

Paul Auster, “Personal Instructions for Sophie Calle on How to Improve Life in New York City (Because she asked…),” collected in Gotham Handbook.

"If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same."

Marjane Satrapi, Iranian graphic novelist. (via libertarians)

(via assassinofjoy)

Elle:

What’s Your Desert Island Record?

Carrie Brownstein:

The whole desert island thing is really difficult. Part of me wants to choose Led Zeppelin II or III, but I’m worried about the lyrics and how eventually I’d want more from them. So, I’ll go with a band that I’ve loved since high school: the Replacements. Let It Be is the whole journey: It’s scrappy and yearning; it’s messy with moments of unadorned beauty. I can dance, sing, and cry, dance, sing, and cry. Ad infinitum.

"We construct a narrative for ourselves, and that’s the thread that we follow from one day to the next. People who disintegrate as personalities are the ones who lose that thread."

Paul Auster  (via naomijade)

(Source: liquidnight, via naomijade)

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

C.S. Lewis (via naomijade)

"Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion."

Rumi (via plantwhiteroses)

(Source: nirvikalpa, via pirateninjadisco)

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."

Leonard Cohen.

When I go to The Book Barn next week I’m hopefully buying ALL OF THE POETRY.

"He finds it extraordinary, even in the ordinary actuality of his experience, to feel his feet on the ground, to feel his lungs expanding and contracting with the air he breathes, to know that if he puts one foot in front of the other he will be able to walk from where he is to where he is going. He finds it extraordinary that on some mornings, just after he has woken up, as he bends down to tie his shoes, he is flooded with a happiness so intense, a happiness so naturally and harmoniously at one with the world, that he can feel himself alive in the present, a present that surrounds him and permeates him, that breaks through him with the sudden, overwhelming knowledge that he is alive. And that happiness he discovers in himself at that moment is extraordinary. And whether or not it is extraordinary, he finds this happiness extraordinary."

Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude.