#literature

Literature isn't a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts. ↗

— Philip Roth

#audacity #authority #beauty #belief #contest

Writing, painting, singing--it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death's footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives. ↗

— Ally Condie

#death-and-dying #literature #literature-writing #art

This is peculiarly an age in which each of us may, if he do but search diligently, find the literature suited to his mental powers. ↗

— P.G. Wodehouse

#brain-power #intelligence #literature #mental-power #reading

There is something perfect to be found in the imperfect: the law keeps balance through the juxtaposition of beauty, which gains perfection through nurtured imperfection. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#beauty #dejan-stojanovic #imperfect #imperfection #juxtaposition

What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.' ↗

— James Wolcott

#author #autumn #brought #contender #dan

Darkness does not age; nothing is always nothing ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#always #darkness #dejan-stojanovic #literature #literature-quotes

A midst deceit I found the truth; there in the rough I found a diamond. And from the moment we met, I think of no one else Today I choose to be, to live and breathe; to dream, to weep, and to sing in free verse. And you, the object of my delight: a like-minded opposite I am myself with, a mind-fuck times six, seven, eight thousand and three. I know that you love me with every inch of your deep. ↗

— Donato DiCristino

#arts #blog #donato #free-verse #glbt

[On Female Attraction to Men in Uniform] That male military persona feeds a subconscious, passive-aggressive female desire to dominate the warrior as he is perceived an iconic example of masculinity (particularly amongst traditionally warlike cultures). The damsel in distress theme always struck me as embodying this: the hapless, innocently beautiful woman unwittingly enraptures the heroic male so completely that he would risk all to submit to her at his own peril, and quite in spite of it. ↗

— Tiffany Madison

#literature #military-theory #passive-aggressive #romantic-themes #warrior

It is beautiful to talk about beautiful things and even more beautiful to silently gaze at them. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#beauty #dejan-stojanovic #gaze #literature #literature-quotes

Novels institutionalize the ruse of eros. It becomes a narrative texture of sustained incongruence, emotional and cognitive. It permits the reader to stand in triangular relation to the characters in the story and reach into the text after the objects of their desire, sharing their longing but also detached from it, seeing their view of reality but also its mistakenness. It is almost like being in love. ↗

— Anne Carson

#desire #eros #eros-the-bittersweet #literature #novels