#rap

What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into somebody else's.... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own. ↗

— Diane Arbus

#photographs #photography #art

I imagine that the essential gesture of the Operator is to surprise something or someone (through the little hole in the camera), and that this gesture is therefore perfect when it is performed unbeknownst to the subject being photographed. From this gesture derive all photographs whose principle (or better whose alibi) is “shock”; for the photographic “shock” consists less in traumatizing than in revealing what was so well hidden that the actor himself was unaware or unconscious of it. ↗

— Roland Barthes

#imagination

I don't know what the definition of pornography is and nobody else does either. Pornography is somebody else's erotica that you don't like. People are interested in their own sexuality and they've always reflected it in their art. End of story. ↗

— Erica Jong

#art

I often wonder what Einstein would have done in my position. At Peterson, I kept an Einstein poster in my room, the one that says 'Imagination is more important than knowledge.' Einstein was smart, maybe even as smart as Laserator, but he played it way too safe. Then again, nobody ever threw a grappling hook at Einstein. I like to think he would have enjoyed my work, if he could have seen it. But no one sees anything I do, not until it's hovering over Chicago. ↗

— Austin Grossman

#einstein #grappling-hook #imagination

London opens to you like a novel itself. [...] It is divided into chapters, the chapters into scenes, the scenes into sentences; it opens to you like a series of rooms, door, passsage, door. Mayfair to Piccadilly to Soho to the Strand. ↗

— Anna Quindlen

#geography #literary-london #london #metropolis #similes

I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough. In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost. ↗

— Nan Goldin

#loss #lost-love #photography #art

Ninety-six per cent of juvenile prostitutes are fugitives from abusive domestic situations; 66 per cent began working before they turned 16. (Prostitution is their only perceived means of survival.) Millions of children work as prostitutes around the world. A third are male. One study revealed that over 50 per cent of prostitutes are the children of alcoholics or substance abusers, and 90 per cent are deflowered through incest or rape. Ninety-one per cent of prostitutes do not speak of the abuse. (The truth of life is told through the language of behavior.) Abused children suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, guilt, self-destructive impulses, suspicion, fear. Seventy-five per cent of prostitutes attempt suicide. (Imagine their scrapbook of memories.) ↗

— Antonella Gambotto-Burke

#children-of-alcoholics #fear #guilt #incest #juvenile-prostitutes

Since Thami had the Arab's utter incomprehension of the meaning of pornography, he imagined that the police had placed the ban on obscene films because these infringed upon Christian doctrine at certain specific points, in which case any Christian might be expected to show interest, if only to disapprove. ↗

— Paul Bowles

#pornography #imagination

You save yourself or you remain unsaved. ↗

— Alice Sebold

#rape #self-responsibility #inspirational

Do you have to make me feel like there's nothing left of me? You can take everything I have, you can break everything I am, like I am made of glass, like I am made of paper.Go on and try to tear me down I will be rising from the ground like a Skyscraper... ↗

— Demi Lovato

#inspirational #skyscraper #inspirational