Passion

"I’d rather lose myself in passion than lose my passion."

~ Jacques Mayol

And we'll pretend that it meant something so much more

"All I see are dark grey clouds, in the distance moving closer with every hour. So when you ask 'is something wrong?', I think 'you're damn right there is but we can't talk about it now. No, we can't talk about it now."

Tiny Vessels ~ Ben Gibbard

Womankind

"It's all right for a woman to be, above all, human. I am a woman first of all."

~ Anais Nin

From the start

"From the start I knew it would probably end badly, but I didn't care."

~ Juliana Hatfield, When I Grow Up

Extraordinary

"Just remember one thing...anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. I mean, there are too many mediocre things in life, and love shouldn't be one of them."

Frankie, Dream For An Insomniac

on the shore

"when we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be alone on an empty shore."

arcadia ~ tom stoppard

finding happy

"i was happy but happy is an adult word. you don’t have to ask a child about happy, you see it. they are or they are not. adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. much easier to let it blow all over you. this is where i disagree with the philosophers. they talk about passionate things but there is no passion in them. never talk happiness with a philosopher. "

jeanette winterson, the passion

you know me, i'm impulsive

"i'm rash and impulsive. it's a flaw."

~ buffy sommers, buffy the vampire slayer

obsession and other love alternatives

keep art alive; art by joshua petker

"what is the difference between love and obsession? didn't both make you stay up all night, wandering the streets, a victim of your own imagination, your own heartbeat? didn't you fall into both, headfirst into quicksand? wasn't every man in love a fool and every woman a slave?

love was like rain; it turned to ice, or it disappeared. now you saw it, now you couldn't find it no matter how hard you might search. love evaporated; obsession was realer; it hurt, like a pin in your bottom, a stone in your shoe.

it didn't go away in the blink of an eye. a morning phone call filled with regret. a letter that said 'dear you, good-bye from me.'

obsession tasted like something familiar. something you'd known your whole life. it settled and lurked; it stayed with you."

~ alice hoffman, the ice queen

stuff that life is made of

"the not-knowings, not-understandings, and not-endings are part of the mystery of life, the things that keep us all guessing."

ghosts of block island ~ fran migliaccio

little things

my cup of tea ~ eisley

"those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others."

the book of tea ~ okakura kakuzo

dreams gave me away

"if i could dream at all, it would be about you, and i'm not ashamed of it."

twilight ~ edward cullen

ghosts

"who wants to see life as it is? it's the three gorgons in one. you look in their faces and turn to stone. or it's pan. you see him and you die--that is, inside you--and have to go on living as a ghost."

long day's journey into night ~ eugene o'neill

soul mates

keep art alive; art by audrey kawasaki

"“people think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. but a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. a true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. but to live with a soul mate forever? nah. too painful. soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank god for it.”

eat, pray, love ~ elizabeth gilbert

what you want

keep art alive; photograph by fabrizio sciami

"nobody knows what you want except you. and nobody will be as sorry as you if you don’t get it. wanting some other way to live is proof enough of deserving it. having it is hard work, but not having it is sheer hell.”

~ lillian hellman

quote found here.

looking away

keep art alive; art by joshua petker

“we grew still and stared at each other. it seemed incredibly dangerous to look into each other’s eyes, but we were doing it. for how long can you behold another person? before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. for a very long time; you didn’t need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, she suffered as i did. it was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin.”

no one belongs here more than you ~ miranda july

special thanks to achtung baby for posting this amazing quote

keep art alive; art by melanie moore

"i have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had. some people's emanations are very strong, some people create themselves afresh outside of their own body. this is not fancy. if a potter has an idea, she makes it into a pot, and it exists beyond her, beyond its own separate life. she uses a physical substance to display her thoughts. if i use a metaphysical substance to display my thoughts, i might be anywhere at one time, influencing a number of different things, just as the potter and her pottery can exert influence in different places. there's a chance that i'm not here at all, that all the parts of me, running along all the choices i did and didn't make, for a moment brush against each other."

oranges are not the only fruit ~ jeanette winterson

sea-girls

"we have lingered in the chambers of the sea,
by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown,
till human voices wake us,
and we drown."

the love song of j. alfred prufrock ~ t.s. eliot

before we forgot the songs

keep art alive; art by amy sol


"underneath this city, there is another city, one more modern, more recent in its origin. here, in these dark tunnels where pomegranates fall, all these thoughts fly around like moths, lured by light, by sweet smell of decay, trapping themselves by their own free choice in the confined space of their making: it can’t already be june, it can’t already be monday, that’s what they say, that’s what people keep muttering to themselves this morning as they cradle the last of the sleep in their coffee cups, for the precious moments in which they huddle in themselves before they must sign off their lives to something they don’t believe in, to something they think they cannot escape from. as they rock in the rhythm of the train, someone thinks, a moth in spider’s nest, though she does not see the intricate weaving of the thin threads, ready to untangle between our fingers, snapping the threads. but it’s like this: it’s already june, i’m already 28 and i haven’t done anything, many are talking, comforting us in these minutes of our lives when we descend down to darkness, to darkness so dark that we are helpless, our bodies swaying left to right, left to right as if we’re rocking in prayer, but we are not praying. we’re boxed in the freight, we’re boxed in a subway car, this is the death train, but unlike them, forced away from their homes because of blood, we chose this train, we chose to be on it, we are boxed in, we’re as helpless, we tell ourselves, positioning ourselves to the gravity, the pull of the train. our highest dreams thrown out like our last night’s dinner, a woman’s dream flies past, landing silently on the subway floor like the last note of an aria, i wish someone loved me, i wish he loved me, a thought so light it floats quietly down, hovers an inch or two above the floor, then lands, landing as someone steps on it. i wish somebody loved me, but i'm not pretty enough, i’m not smart enough, she closes her thoughts from us, she looks down to the book on her lap, the thick one, heavy like her sadness, but she doesn’t stop her reading, the thick book stays where it is, the woman, though, reads so little, doesn’t really read, just daydreams, her hopes going where we are going, she stays where she is, on the seat across. we are all going somewhere we have to each day, pulled by the invisible strings, and we say, i can go no other place, this is where i belong. no, we go to places only if we must, but must is a habit, after all, we can go anywhere as long as we let ourselves, anywhere we want to, only if we want to, she can stretch her arms as if in flight, and leave, leave this train, this city…only if she wants to. we think there’s no way out, our lives guided by some invisible lines only fate has right to hold, right to control. but we are closer to grace, we are closer to where we were before we were born, before we forgot the songs, before we forgot the promises, we are closer to grace in the darkness of our own making, we are not of time—only if we let it, only if we let the watch unshackle us, but we forget, as we have forgotten, as soon as we open our eyes. many are called and many do not hear."

many are called ~ mariko nagai

i keep trying to remember not to forget this

"the more you know who you are,
and what you want,

the less you let things upset you."

bob harris ~ lost in translation