I don’t do anything with my life except romanticize and decay with indecision.
— Allen Ginsberg, The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems: 1937-1952. (Da Capo Press; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition November 1, 2006)
Allen Ginsberg — The Vale of Soul-Making
Charles Bukowski — The Vale of Soul-Making
if there is light
it will find
you.
— Charles Bukowski, from “the harder you try,” The People Look Like Flowers. (Ecco; First Edition edition (March 27, 2007)
Charles Bukowski — The Vale of Soul-Making
Paul Auster — The Vale of Soul-Making
Impossible, I realize, to enter another’s solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known. A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver? Where all is tractable, where all is hermetic and evasive, one can do no more than observe. But whether one can make sense of what he observes is another matter entirely.
— Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude. (Sun Publishing 1982)
Paul Auster — The Vale of Soul-Making
Donna Tartt — The Vale of Soul-Making
And the nights, bigger than imagining: black and gusty and enormous, disordered and wild with stars.
— Donna Tartt, The Secret History. (Vintage (April 13, 2004) Originally published 1992.
Donna Tartt — The Vale of Soul-Making
John Burroughs — The Vale of Soul-Making
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is, “Look under foot.” You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the centre of the world.
— John Burroughs, Studies in Nature and Literature (Fredonia Books [NL] July 27, 2002)
Roland Barthes — The Vale of Soul-Making
To know that one does not write for the other, to know that these things I am going to write will never cause me to be loved by the one I love (the other), to know that writing compensates for nothing, sublimates nothing, that it is precisely there where you are not–this is the beginning of writing.
— Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. (Hill and Wang; Second Printing edition June 1, 1979) Originally published 1977.
Roland Barthes — The Vale of Soul-Making
Charles Bukowski — The Vale of Soul-Making
there is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock.
― Charles Bukowski, from “the crunch,” Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems, 1974-1977. (Ecco; Ecco edition May 31, 2002) Originally published 1977.
Charles Bukowski — The Vale of Soul-Making
Hannah Arendt – ‘Everything was possible and nothing was true’
‘In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.’
Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism as quoted in – ‘Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted’ found at: cakeordeathsite – nothing is true everything is permitted
H. Rider Haggard — The Vale of Soul-Making
Yea, all things live forever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.
― H. Rider Haggard, She (Oxford University Press, October 22, 1998). Originally published 1887.
H. Rider Haggard — The Vale of Soul-Making
Charlie Chaplin — The Vale of Soul-Making
When you remember me, it means you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if […]
Charlie Chaplin — The Vale of Soul-Making
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