182 posts
Leonardo da Vinci sketches x
"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind."
-Friedrich Nietzsche
vintage perfume bottles, dusty books, stained glass windows, velvet sofas, dried roses, lipstick smudged coffee cups, shiny shoes, whispered wishes.
She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married
Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell
You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough.
ig: liberaureum.
Moodboard for @torturedsoulsblog! :]
She grows up feeling wrong, out of place, too dark, too tall, too unruly, too opinionated, too silent, too strange. She grows up with the awareness that she is merely tolerated, an irritant, useless, that she does not deserve love, that she will need to change herself substantially, crush herself down if she is to be married
Hamnet - Maggie O’Farrell
we had been late for coffee
“ ..The sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.. ”
- Virginia Woolf “To the Lighthouse” 1927
“She is loveliness itself.”
― Jane Austen, from “Emma.”
In Greek, "nostalgia” literally means "the pain from an old wound”. It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards and forwards, it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It let’s us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.
Don Draper, “The Wheel”
Hopes and expectations
Ps: I’m doing a survey on Dark Academia for a university project, if you like DA, I’d be happy to have you do it: https://forms.gle/bhFRX9ivTs9BXXdj8
Still Life with Books, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, 1625 - 1630 (detail)
book dedications are so tender here is this piece of art i made for an audience of thousands. but really every word is for you
“She was a glorious doll, so fair and delicate! She did not seem created for the sorrows of this world.”
— Hans Christian Andersen, What the Moon Saw (1866)
Do you have any favourite / suggestions for indipendent bookshops or second-hand books markets/shops in London? :)
YES
1. Daunt Books, Marylebone ⇢ my favorite in the world. Must see.
2. Foyles ⇢ it’s huge, beautifully organized, and has everything you could need. Also great cafe upstairs.
3. Persephone Books ⇢ all lady authors, a great way to find new things.
4. Southbank Book Market ⇢ in between waterloo and the eye (east edge of the southbank center under the bridge). Interesting selection (heavy on old orange penguin classics) with a can’t beat view.
5. Charring Cross Road ⇢ there’s a string of independent, rare, and 2nd hand bookstore here (same road Foyles is on). Start down by Great Newport Street, head up towards Foyles. There’s a whole range of bookstores down there – I particularly like Koenig (emphasis on art and fashion). Don’t be intimidated by the antique booksellers; no, you probably can’t afford anything but as long as you’re quiet and careful they don’t mind you poking around.
Happy Hunting!
i love the rare book room at my university
Last night, I told my mother "I wish I was dead" in a fit of rage and winter clouded her eyes. But it wasn't white and it wasn't quiet, it resembled something like helplessness and rage. She was in pain and I knew I hurt her. I wanted to say something, anything, but how do you withdraw a declaration of war? How do you stop the bombs that already destroyed homelands? In that moment I remembered how she always told me that when she was a kid, she was too afraid to sleep with the lights on. Not because she was afraid of monsters, but because she feared her grandmother would die. Because when you're a kid, not seeing it means it doesn't exist anymore. I saw the winter in her eyes again and I knew I had switched off the light, she wasn't angry, she was afraid.
And I also remembered how she always told me I'd always be 3 years old for her, always a child, and for the first time, I heard in the voice of a three year old "I wish I was dead". My heart broke. And I wanted to hug her and hold her, tell her I was sorry, that I didn't mean it. Before I could move a hand, she left the room. The entire evening, I saw myself as she saw me, a 3 year old child. I saw the child hurt herself and cry herself to sleep every week, fight her friends with her tiny hands and two ponytails, I saw her depression and her anxiety, I saw her yell "I wish I was dead" and I knew. I knew. I wanted to shout through the walls, yell and cry and tell my mother that now I KNEW, but I didn't. I wept and wept until I heard a quiet knock and a soft familiar voice whispered, "Dinner is ready".
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
It's always: "wanna hang out" but never "hey let's create a secret society and read literature and poetry"
I dream and I dream and I dream.
Is life not just a scramble to get things done before a deadline that you don’t even know the time of?
sometimes i read a phrase in a poem or a story or i see the clouds amble in the sky traced by sunlight or i hear a specific combination of notes on a piano and i just get so overwhelmed with a really specific feeling that i can't really name but i know that this feeling is so human and so tender at its core and that i am a tiny little part of a world so delightfully rich with sensations and i exist to experience this very feeling because it stems from the pure human love for coexistence with the world
with my papers not proofread and my manuscripts unfinished, i thread on through the world
when remco campert said "poetry is an act of affirmation. i affirm that i live, that i do not live alone."
The feminine urge to mess up your whole sleep cycle to read books.
How to: Confidence
Hold your head high
Look others in the eye
Laugh at yourself but not at others
Smile
Stop apologizing
Good manners (please and thank you)
Dress in a way that shows you have self worth
Expect others to believe you
Expect others to like you
"Real confidence is walking into a room and assuming everyone likes you."
Fake it till you make it. Before you know it, it's no longer fake.
by ashlypic
carpe noctem