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“I can’t write without a reader. It’s precisely like a kiss—you can’t do it alone.”

— John Cheever

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Tears prevented him from seeing the icons, something pressed on his heart; he prayed and asked God that the inevitable misfortunes which were ready to break over him any day might somehow pass him by, as storm clouds in a time of drought pass by a village without giving a drop of rain. And so many sins had already been heaped up in the past, so many sins, and everything was so inextricable, irreparable, that it somehow even made no sense to ask forgiveness.

Anton Chekhov, “In the Ravine” (via blacktout)

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For Grace, After a Party, by Frank O'Hara. Meditations on an Emergency, p. 17

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You know that fiction, prose rather, is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing. You do not have the reference, the old important reference. You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true.

Ernest Hemingway (via nihilnoetia) (via libraryland) (via booklover, nathanielstuart)

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“Do ladies always have such a hard time having babies?” Nick asked. “No, that was very, very exceptional.” “Why did he kill himself, Daddy?” “I don’t know, Nick. He couldn’t stand things, I guess.” “Do many men kill themselves, Daddy?” “Not very many, Nick.” “Do many women?” “Hardly ever.” “Don’t they ever?” “Oh, yes. They do sometimes.” They were seated in the boat. Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning. In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing; he felt quite sure that he would never die. 1924

Ernest Hemingway, Indian Camp (via pastichemoustache)

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It is impossible for these bourgeois thinkers to get to the heart of the problem of the common man. They can deal with it only in the most superficial manner. Their knowledge of it is pitifully inadequate, for they obtain their information through hearsay alone. They do not feel its crushing weight or the sense of desperation and the terrible anxiety it engenders. They make no attempt to examine it in depth. They simply accommodate themselves, passively, to the fact that the problem exists–somewhere far away.

Paul Nizan, The Watchdogs: Philosophers and the Established Order (via spectaculardistractions)

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The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead

by T.S. Eliot

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.      Frisch weht der Wind      Der Heimat zu      Mein Irisch Kind,      Wo weilest du? “You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;  They called me the hyacinth girl.” —Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden, Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. Od'und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel, And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find The Hanged Man. Fear death by water. I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring. Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone, Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying “Stetson! “You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, "Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? "Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?

"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, "Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! "You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frere!”

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In ‘The Waste Land,’ I wasn’t even bothering whether I understood what I was saying.

T. S. Eliot, The Art of Poetry No. 1 (via theparisreview)

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My window was open, and the earthy wind blowing through made me indolent. On the edge of the prairie, where the sun had gone down, the sky was turquoise blue, like a lake, with gold light throbbing in it. Higher up, in the utter clarity of the western slope, the evening star hung like a lamp suspended by silver chains— like the lamp engraved upon the title-page of old Latin texts, which is always appearing in new heavens, and waking new desires in men. It reminded me, at any rate, to shut my window and light my wick in answer. I did so regretfully, and the dim objects in the room emerged from the shadows and took their place about me with the helpfulness which custom breeds.

Willa Cather, My Antonia

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I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

Willa Cather, My Antonia

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Based off of the short story “Good Country People” by Flannery O'Connor. This one was in Society of Illustrators 2012.

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These boys, now, were living as we’d been living then, they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities. They were filled with rage. All they really knew were two darknesses, the darkness of their lives, which was now closing in on them, and the darkness of the movies, which had blinded them to that other darkness, and in which they now, vindictively, dreamed, at once more together than they were at any other time, and more alone.

James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”

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The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than death.

Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat"

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Savva Brodsky - Illustrations to Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat”

Despite being inactive this month we’ve totally get 3000 followers!

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. . . Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, I cannot adequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”  (via trashman69)

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King Alexander was a man of learning and of wisdom, as well as a great soldier, but the words of the queen of the Amazons were such that he could not answer. He bowed low before the queen and with a gesture indicated that he had naught to say. "Then it is to be peace," said the queen. "At least, before thy return, let me prepare for thee a banquet." In a hut made of logs and decorated with skins, a rough wooden table was placed before Alexander and on it was laid a loaf of gold. "Do ye eat bread of gold?" asked the king, much surprised. "Nay," replied the queen. "We are women of simple tastes, but thou art a mighty king. If thou didst but wish to eat ordinary bread in this land, why didst thou desire to conquer it? Is there no more bread in your own land that thou shouldst brave the dangers of the dark mountains to eat it here?" Alexander bowed his head on his breast. Never before had he felt ashamed. "I, Alexander of Macedon," he said, "was a fool until I came to the land beyond the Mountains of Darkness and learned wisdom from women."

From King Alexander’s Adventures: II. The Land of Darkness and the Gate Of Paradise

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literature meme | 5/9 short stories | The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

It used to disturb me at first.  I thought seriously of  burning the house – to reach the smell.  But now I am used to it.  The only thing I can think of that it is the color of the paper! A yellow smell. There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard.  A streak that runs round the room.  It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long straight, even smooch as if it had been rubbed over and over.  I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round – round and round and round – it makes me dizzy.