#mer

Of course one’s sense of identification with the nation is inflected by all kinds of particulars, including one’s class, race, gender, and sexual identification. … But [regarding] national character …, aside from references to a national aesthetic — literary, musical, and choreographic, there are two poles I reference: minimalist and maximalist. I love them both — the cryptic poems of Emily Dickinson folded up in tiny packets and hidden away in a box, the sparse, understated choreographies of Merce; but also the “trashy, profane and obscene” poems of Whitman and Ginsberg, [and] Martha Graham’s expressionism. I am, myself, a minimalist. But I love distortion guitar and the wild exhibitionism of so many American artists. Also, these divisions are false. Emily Dickinson, in fact, can be as trashy and obscene as the best of them! Anyway, Dickinson and Whitman are at the heart of this narrative. They are the Dancing Queen and the Guitar Hero. ↗

— Barbara Browning

#i-m-trying-to-reach-you #maximalism #minimalism #love

But I will confess 
that I began as an astronomer—a liking
for bright flashes, vast distances, unreachable things,
a hand stretched always toward the furthest limit—
and that my longing for you has not taken me
very far from that original desire
to inscribe a comet’s orbit around the walls
of our city, to gently stroke the surface of the stars. ↗

— Troy Jollimore

#inspirational #self #stars #the-origin-of-things #inspirational

...I fear that some of us understand just enough about the gospel to feel guilty--guilty that we are not measuring up to some undefinable standard--but not enough about the Atonement to feel the peace and strength, the power and mercy it affords us. ↗

— Sheri Dew

#gospel #guilt #mercy #peace #religion

Josh: So, Toby, it’s election night. What do you say about a country that goes out of its way to protect even those citizens that try to destroy it? Toby: God bless America. ↗

— Aaron Sorkin

#democracy #freedom #west-wing #freedom

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad? ↗

— Dodie Smith

#mist #summer #romantic

Love and kindness are the hammer and chisel that gently chip through barriers and long-held beliefs to reveal the magnificent soul contained within every human. ↗

— Molly Friedenfeld

#belief #chisel #hammer #human #inspiration

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#writing #writer

Judging by the photograph it seemed like I hadn’t been there at all. As if it was my camera that had been on holiday, and not me. ↗

— Ida Løkås

#holiday #memories #photograph #photographer #photography

Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#song

A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England. ↗

— Rudyard Kipling

#cold #england #fog #seasons #summer