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I want to be famous, doing what? Everything! I will never be a poet, or a philosopher, or a scholar. I can only be a singer or painter. I want to be in vogue; that is the principal thing. Don’t shrug your shoulders, strict people, don’t criticize me with an affected indifference. You are just the same at the bottom. You are careful not to let it show. But that doesn’t keep you from finding, deep in yourselves, that I tell the truth. Vanity! Vanity! Vanity! The beginning and the end of everything, and the sole and eternal cause of everything. Whatever is not produced by vanity is born from our passions. Passions and vanity are the only masters of the world.
Marie Bashkirtseff, 5th April 1876 (via early20thcenturynerd)
there is no audience to perform for, there is no approval, no admiration to attain. there is no role worth playing, there is no one to convince. let it go
“[W]hat does the sentence “If you eat this fruit you will die” mean for Eve who is in a place where there is no death?”
— Hélène Cixous, Readings: The Poetics of Blanchot, Joyce, Kakfa, Kleist, Lispector, and Tsvetayeva.
Hung on my bedroom wall is the quote attributed to Joan of Arc: “I am not afraid. I was born to do this.” However my life unfolds, goes my thinking, is how I am meant to live it; however my life unspools itself, I was created to bear it.
Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias (via fuckyeahannecarson)
Let’s go back to addressing each other by second name, so we can experience the unbearable intimacy of calling out our beloved’s first name when great distress momentarily makes us lose our restraint.
Perfume began in Mesopotamia as incense offered to the gods to sweeten the smell of animal flesh burned as offerings, and it was used in exorcisms, to heal the sick, and after sexual intercourse. The word’s Latin etymology tells us how it worked: per = through + fumar to smoke. Tossed onto a fire, incense would fill the sky with a smoke otherworldly and magical, which stung the nostrils as if clamorous spirits were clawing their way into the body. Perfumed smoke began with the things of this earth but climbed quickly into the realm of the gods. Atop the famous ziggurat-shaped Tower of Babel, which stretched closer to the gods than mortals could reach, priests lit pyres of incense.
— Diane Ackerman, ‘Smell: An Offering to the Gods’ A Natural History of the Senses
being a woman is like…yeah lol you can pursue self-fulfillment and happiness on the side but don’t forget your main eternal quest is for unattainable beauty and ritual degradation
“Maybe it was the smell of ripe tomatoes, or the oriole singing, or that certain slant of light on a yellow afternoon and the beans hanging thick around me. It just came to me in a wash of happiness that made me laugh out loud, startling the chickadees who were picking at the sunflowers, raining black and white hulls on the ground. I knew it with a certainty as warm and clear as the September sunshine. The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mothers do.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
be handed a letter by your maid, break the wax seal, read it with dawning understanding and then slowly look up into the middle-distance with an ominous smirk. order your carriage to be prepared at once.
Also the importance of building habits and structure through long term persistence and self forgiveness is more important than the gratification of quick results in almost every aspect of life just FYI
“The desire to be loved is the last illusion: give it up and you will be free.”
— Margaret Atwood, from A Sunday Drive (via wishbzne)
no one tells you how much of life takes practice. not just writing, painting, running, singing, etc, but practicing how to make friends. how to make the right ones. getting practiced at how to be a good friend, a good sibling, a good person. practice identifying when people haven’t earned that. learning to recognize your right to rage and, eventually, how to offer mercy. so much of life is muscle memory, and i’ve begun to realize there are so many more parts of ourselves to flex and stretch and strengthen than those we’re taught in anatomy lessons
““The ancient Greeks believed that when you read aloud, it was actually the dead, borrowing your tongue, in order to speak again.””
— - A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
i was worried my cat is dehydrated because i never see him drink water so i’ve started leaving a cup of water that’s “mine” (aka he sees me drink out of it once before he does) in my room so he thinks he is being a rebellious naughty by drinking out of it but rlly he is just following my plan & being hydrated .
the friend you miss comes home for good. you never see another mirror. it's summer forever and that terrible thought you keep having finally disappears.
its sooooo ugly how confident so many dudes are in producing the most average music and art … … . .…… .. where is their shame … why did i get taught so much more shame than is useful to me
“What is it that the child has to teach?
The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.
And the child is right.”
— Rabbi Tzvi Freeman
a reminder fr the me of last night and this morning & every day from now on ! a reminder fr everyone who wants better !
this place could be beautiful, right ? you could make this place beautiful.
Ever look at historic art and writing and artifacts and just realize we’ve all only ever been human
In every life there are events that reshape one’s sense of existence. Afterward, all is different and the past is dimmed.
Annie Proulx, Barkskins (via quotespile)
The real glo up is when you stop waiting to turn into some perfect hypothetical version of yourself and consciously enjoy being who you are in the present moment.
“Goethe has said, that in youth we cannot be happy unless we love. I did not love; but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something to others.”
— Mary Shelley, from The Last Man.