In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality. It is as final as the mountains: a fact. There it is. When you realize it you cannot complain.
― William S. Burroughs, Queer. (Viking Press November 1985)
In Memory: “Even aimless journeys have a purpose.” — Art of Quotation
“Even aimless journeys have a purpose.” Tony Horwitz, 1959-2019, author, journalist, Pultizer Prize winner, quote from “One for the Road“
via In Memory: “Even aimless journeys have a purpose.” — Art of Quotation
James Baldwin — The Vale of Soul-Making
Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison […]
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited” — Art of Quotation
“I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited”
– Jorge Luis Borges, writer
Charles Simic — The Vale of Soul-Making
All my dark thoughts laid out in a straight line. An abstract street on which an equally abstract intelligence forever advances, doubting the sound of its own footsteps.
— Charles Simic, “Euclid Avenue,” Unending Blues: Poems (Mariner Books, 1986)
Rumi — The Vale of Soul-Making
Surge like an ocean, don’t scatter yourself like a storm. Life’s waters flow from darkness. Search the darkness, don’t run from it. Night travelers are full of light, and you are, too; don’t leave this companionship.
— Rumi, from “Search the Darkness,” Love Is a Stranger (Shambhala, 2000)
on privilege — HA’s Place
the day woke up in a frenzy of skin and blood, all seemingly smeared on my brown face, chiding me for my ignorance of the lasting night, right at the corner of my right eye — my language is my privilege, my middle- class ceiling stays intact, when i write expressions of winds, sands, waters, […]
“Say who you are… in your life and in your work…” — Art of Quotation
“Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about […]
Naked Cities Journal 