#sm

Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#criticism #jane-austen #london

As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire. ↗

— Evelyn Underhill

#beauty #mysticism #reality #spirituality #art

Big flashy things have my name written all over them. Well... not yet, give me time and a crayon. ↗

— Matt Smith

#big-flashy-things #doctor-who #humour #matt-smith #christmas

The smells of Christmas are the smells of childhood [p. 53] ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#christmasa #memories #smells #christmas

In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#critics #criticism

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you. ↗

— Mother Teresa

#help

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality. ↗

— Shirley Jackson

#escapism #first-sentence #opening-lines #reality #sanity

the phantom of the man-who-would-understand, the lost brother, the twin --- for him did we leave our mothers, deny our sisters, over and over? did we invent him, conjure him over the charring log, nights, late, in the snowbound cabin did we dream or scry his face in the liquid embers, the man-who-would-dare-to-know-us? It was never the rapist: it was the brother, lost, the comrade/twin whose palm would bear a lifeline like our own: decisive, arrowy, forked-lightning of insatiate desire It was never the crude pestle, the blind ramrod we were after: merely a fellow-creature with natural resources equal to our own. ↗

— Adrienne Rich

#love #mankind #poetry #dreams

The longest way must have its close - the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. ↗

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

#night #optimism #night

Actually, since I'm gay I think I should count for two guys instead of just one. I mean, in me you get the male point of view and you don't have to worry about me wanting to touch your boobies. ↗

— P.C. Cast

#damien #house-of-night #marked #night