Posted 5 days ago

"… out of various forms of personal catastrophe comes art, if you’re lucky."

— Rosanne Cash, Composed (2010)

Posted 1 week ago

"You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden behind the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too, keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember.
Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong."

— Rosanne Cash, Composed (2010)

Posted 1 week ago

"‘I declare:’ a great Southernism, and a poetic way to live."

— Rosanne Cash, Composed (2010)

Posted 1 week ago

"Looking back, I see that what I regarded as templates were merely incidents in a long life, and the only crippling potential they possessed was that which I gave them. There is not meaning in everything, but one can ascribe meaning to anything. Therein lies the beauty."

— Rosanne Cash, Composed (2010)

Posted 1 week ago

"The only advice … that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions. If this is agreed between us, then I feel at the liberty to put forward a few ideas and suggestions because you will not allow them to fetter that independence which is the most important quality that a reader can possess. After all, what laws can be laid down about books? The battle of Waterloo was certainly fought on a certain day; but is Hamlet a better play than Lear? Nobody can say. Each must decide that question for himself. To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries. Everywhere else we may be bound by laws and conventions — there we have none."

— How Should One Read a Book? (Virginia Woolf, 1925)

(Source: wrappedineventide, via fuckyeahreading)

Posted 1 week ago

"I wanted to be a writer, but becoming a good writer seemed an insurmountable and confusing task."

— Rosanne Cash, Composed (2010)

Posted 1 week ago

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

— Humphrey Bogart

Posted 2 weeks ago

"Write hard and clear about what hurts."

— Ernest Hemingway 

(Source: larmoyante)

Posted 2 weeks 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 2 weeks ago