"Write hard and clear about what hurts."

— Ernest Hemingway 

(Source: larmoyante)

Posted 1 week ago

"One of my basic notions for a long, long time is that there is this mysterious mountain out there called reality. We novelists are always trying to climb it. We are mountaineers, and the question is, Which face do you attack? Different faces call for different approaches, and some demand a knotty and convoluted interior style. Others demand great simplicity. The point is that style is an attack on the nature of reality."

— Norman Mailer 

(Source: theparisreview)

Posted 1 week ago

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

— Ernest Hemingway

(Source: theonlymagicleftisart)

Posted 2 weeks ago

"Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. You’ll find what you need to find. Just read."

— Neil Gaiman 

(Source: akumuhana, via prettybooks)

Posted 3 weeks ago

"There’s something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can’t tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he’s liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can’t adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All this happens to me when I surface from a great book."

— Nora Ephron, “On Rapture”

Posted 3 weeks ago

"I can’t believe how real life never lets you down. I can’t understand why anyone would write fiction when what actually happens is so amazing."

— Nora Ephron, “The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less”

Posted 4 weeks ago

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel I’ve accomplished something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss."

— Nora Ephron, “Blind as a Bat”

Posted 4 weeks ago

"Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?"

— Albert Camus

(Source: wisewisdom, via intrepidcaitiff)

Posted 1 month ago

"The words ‘far, far away’ had always a strange charm."

— Alfred, Lord Tennyson (via somebody-else)

(Source: theunquotables, via booklover)

Posted 1 month ago