April222012
“She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlight sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.” The Awakening (via essmac)

the awakening kate chopin lit quote 

April182012
“…Once you pass a certain age, life becomes nothing more than a process of continual loss. Things that are important to your life begin to slip out of your grasp, one after another, like a comb losing teeth. And the only things that come to take their place are worthless imitations. Your physical strength, your hopes, your dreams, your ideals, your convictions, all meaning, or, then again, the people you love: one by one, they fade away. Some announce their departure before they leave, while others just disappear all of a sudden without warning one day. And once you lose them you can never get them back. Your search for a replacement never goes well. It’s all very painful - as painful as actually being cut with a knife.” Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 (via pinksubmergence)

quote lit murakami 1Q84 

March122012
“Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there. That gnaws away at the night-time hours desperate for a sign and appears at breakfast so self-composed. That longs for certainty, fidelity, compassion, and plays roulette with anything precious.” Jeanette Winterson, The Passion (via yesyes)

jeanette winterson the passion quote prose lit 

February262012
“You turn towards meteor showers in August,
wishing yourself like that:
bright and burning wholly out.
When feeling finally comes it is
that falling, matter breaking away
from air, the sound
of crickets moving through the grass like fire—
and the strangely twisted metal
in the field that a child finds:
residue, crown.
Then there’s the story of the Chinese sage,
in anger and despair, who cut his body away in pieces,
flung them into the lake.
Each one, becoming finned and whole, swims off.” Jane Hirshfield, “The Falling” (via Read a Little Poetry)

(Source: gammasandgerunds)

jane hirshfield the falling poem poetry lit 

February122012

pillowstars:

Every time you see a flood like that on the news you tell yourself: That’s it. That’s my heart.

— H. Murakami

(Source: valuska)

haruki murakami quote lit 

February52012
“I usually solve problems by letting them devour me.” Franz Kafka (via kafkaesque-world)

(via kafkaesque-world)

lit franz kafka quote 

February42012
“Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.” W.S. Merwin, Separation. (via askios)

poetry lit w.s. merwin 

February32012

For Grace, After A Party

   You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn’t
interest
           me, it was love for you that set me
afire,
        and isn’t it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
                                                     writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn’t there
               an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn’t
                           you like the eggs a little
different today?
                        And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.

Frank O'Hara

(via chickpurchase)

frank o'hara poem poetry lit beat generation 

7PM

Mayakovsky

1
My heart’s aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.

2
I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.

Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.
I embrace a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.

3
That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest
oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks
what a funny place to rupture!
and now it is raining on the ailanthus
as I step out onto the window ledge
the tracks below me are smoky and
glistening with a passion for running
I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O’Hara

(via twicedailypoetry)

frank o'hara poem poetry lit beat generation 

2PM
“You too have your gentle
moments, you too have eyelashes,
each of your eyes
is a different colour

in the half light
your body stutters against
me, tentative as moths, your
skin is nervous” Margaret Atwood (from her poem, “Small Tactics”)

(Source: clementina)

lit margaret atwood small tactics poem poetry 

January312012

“The Madness Vase,” Andrea Gibson

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables.
Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day
I would be grounded, rooted.
Said my head would not keep flying away
to where the darkness lives.

The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight.
Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do.
I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling.
You will find a good man soon.”

The first psycho therapist told me to spend
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet
with my eyes closed and ears plugged.
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet.

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth.
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness
when they care more about what they give
than what they get.

The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.”

The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me
forget what the trauma said.

The trauma said, “Don’t write these poems.
Nobody wants to hear you cry
about the grief inside your bones.”

But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi jumped
from the George Washington Bridge
into the Hudson River convinced
he was entirely alone.”

My bones said, “Write the poems.”

andrea gibson the madness vase poem poetry lit 

January282012
“He does not speak of these things to people, there is nobody to speak them to here, nobody who knows. If he was asked he would say okay mostly, mostly I am okay, it is okay. But there are times when he feels too much, when if he could tell someone he would say I cannot possibly bear it anymore I want to tear the paper from the walls and fall to my knees and hammer upon the floor with my useless ruined fists.” Jon McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

lit book books quote jon mcgregor if nobody speaks of remarkable things anguish 

January252012
“He doesn’t know which is worse, a past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo.” Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake)

(Source: khranek)

Margaret Atwood Oryx and Crake books lit quote bravery 

12PM
“She wanted to reach out and grab Calvin’s hand, but it seemed that ever since they had begun their journeying, she had been looking for a hand to hold, so she stuffed her fists into her pockets and walked along behind the two boys. —I’ve got to be brave, she said to herself. —I will be.” A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’engle (via check-your-pockets-chimney-child)

quote lit madeline l'engle a wrinkle in time books bravery 

January212012
“We cannot continue to turn ourselves in for the mess we left when we tried coming clean.” Buddy Wakefield (via pressley)

buddy wakefield lit poem poetry 

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