#it

Possibly there are few imaginative writers who have not a leaning, secret or avowed, to the occult. The creative gift is in very close relationship with the Great Force behind the universe; for aught we know, may be an atom thereof. It is not strange, therefore, that the lesser and closer of the unseen forces should send their vibrations to it occasionally; or, at all events, that the imagination should incline its ear to the most mysterious and picturesque of all beliefs ↗

— Gertrude Atherton

#occult #writers #imagination

The self is constituted within a variety of arenas and in relation to multiple traditions. Self-hood, on this understanding, is both provisional and open-ended, and critically depends on the configuration of relationships between one’s own groups and those cultures and values that are deemed ‘other’. The regulation of alterity becomes a defining attribute of self-hood, as my sense of who I am is crucially mediated by an understanding of that which I am not (paraphrasing William Connolly). ↗

— Michael Kenny

#relationships #self #relationship

It’s not a crime to wish for other worlds. You’ll get taxed for it but they can’t throw you in jail for creating your own private world…yet. Dramatics are fun, an indulgence. ‘You can’t go backward,’ ‘You can’t live in the past,’ they tell you. Why not? ‘You’ve got to put all that behind you and move on to other things,’ they say. Bullshit! These are all expressions of modern disposability. It’s a mediocritizing technique—trying to get rid of what I call ‘past orthodoxies.’ It’s our past that makes us unique, therefore it’s our past that economic interests want to rob from us, so they can sell us a new, improved future. Society now depends on a disposable world—out with the old, in with the new, including relationships. But how we weep and wish we could hold onto those cherished moments forever, to those long-whispered dreams, those tortured nights—how we want to grasp them and stop them from sifting through our fingers. I say, ‘Don’t let it happen. Keep things the way you want them and let the rest of the world be duped. ↗

— Anton Szandor LaVey

#mediocrity #nostalgia #past #retro #satanism

Humph! A text message that said, ‘What’s up, sexy?’ You call that setting a mood? Love making takes place long before the bedroom— ↗

— N. Wood Lane

#do-it-to-my-mind #fiction #marriage-life #n-wood-lane #relationships

Jim Reston: And of course when that moment came--no words came to my mouth, and I shook his hand. Because if you've spent that long hating a man--in the end--a kind of relationship develops. An intimacy. Biographer and subject. Assassin and target. ↗

— Peter Morgan

#relationship

The speculative thinker makes Christianity into theology, instead of recognizing that a living relationship to Christ involves passion, struggle, decision, personal appropriation, and inner transformation.' (Moore's summary of Kierkegaard) ↗

— Charles E. Moore

#relationship

The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#hospital #mortality #sickness #souls #relationship

Apologizing: does not always mean that you are wrong and the other person is right. it just means that you value your relationship more than your ego. ↗

— Anonymous

#relationship

To recognize and comprehend what influences us and others is to function with purpose. ↗

— Mark David Henderson

#politics #relationships #sociology #world-views #relationship

Women destroy me. I allow them to. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#infidelity #machismo #male-and-female-relationships #masculinity #weakness