She did not need much, wanted very little. A kind word, sincerity, fresh air, clean water, a garden, kisses, books to read, sheltering arms, a cosy bed, and to love and be loved in return.
Starra Neely Blade
Posts tagged Excerpts Quotes and Passages.
That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretence. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act - and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.
Jim Morrison
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
Gary Provost
I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic — in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.
Anais Nin
It’s not painful anymore, I guess because I’ve accepted it.
Now it’s just lingering, hanging on by a thread. I wonder when it will totally end? When will it break? When will it really be over?
I can’t say but I will be prepared and I’ll smile and laugh and cry—sometimes happy tears—often they’ll be sad but I won’t be sad long the sadness I’ll feel when it’s really over will be momentary. I’ll get better and stronger and move on and meet people and like men and be loved and fall in love. And you? I don’t quite know where you’ll be or how you’ll turn out but you probably won’t be a friend of mine. You’ll be nothing more than a memory, some time I spent, some time I wasted. We probably won’t speak candidly ever again, there will always be too much tension to be candid. Whatever the case, I’ll still be me, just as bright and bubbly as I’ve always been sometimes overwhelmed by emotion but over all just fine. I imagine you’ll be in the same state of denial you’ve always been in. You’ll still be neurotic, insecure and complacent I suppose but you’ll continue to deny all this, like you always have. You’ll probably deny me and deny what we both know it was but again you always have been in denial about me.
An excerpt from A Work In Progress
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Title: Excerpt from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
Artist: Jeremy Irons
Audio excerpt from Vladimir Nabokov’sLolita
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”
Romance is about the possibility…
…Poetry is the possibility of language.
Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn.
Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath
At the root of every large struggle in life is the need to be honest about something that we do not feel we can be honest about. We lie to ourselves or other people because the truth might require action on our part, and action requires courage. We say we “don’t know” what’s wrong, when we do know what is wrong; we just wish we didn’t.
The Secret Life of Prince Charming, Deb Caletti
Closing sequence of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall
[narrating] After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I… I realized what a terrific person she was, and… and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I… I, I thought of that old joke, you know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; you know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and… but, uh, I guess we keep going through it because, uh, most of us… need the eggs.
He loved her, of course but better than that, he chose her, day after day.
Choice: that was the thing.
Sherman Alexie The Toughest Indian In the World
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Title: F. Scott Fitzgerald - Laughter Rose Towards The Summer Sky
Artist: Frank Muller
The Great Gatsby audiobook clip
Wanna cool down, relax, sit back, do some people spotting? Than listen to the above audio book passage from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (narrated by Frank Muller), and let yourself be transported to Jay Gatsby’s garden party. Take a glass of champagne that’s “served in glasses bigger than finger-bowls” and listen to the orchestra playing jazz. To read along while listening to this and more passages from F. Scott Fitzgerald masterpiece The Great Gatsby, go to: http://www.bookbytes.net/all-description-bookbytes/itemlist/tag/the-great-gatsby
