October 2011
Sewer covers are different all around the world- did you know? And they each say the name of their town. There are hundreds of millions of towns in the world- did you know? And each town is made of different colors. New shades of green, red, grey, gold. Blue blurs lucid grey. And we all have covers over ourselves with a name on them.
“[…] For what gives value to travel is fear. It breaks down a kind of inner structure we have. One can no longer cheat—hide behind the hours spent at the office or at the plant (those hours we protest so loudly, which protect us so well from the pain of being alone). I have always wanted to write novels in which my heroes would say: “What would I do without the office?” or again: “My wife has died, but fortunately I have all these orders to fill for tomorrow.” Travel robs us of such refuge. Far from our own people, our own language, stripped of all our props (one doesn’t know the fare on the streetcars, or anything else), we are completely on the surface of ourselves. But also, soul-sick, we restore to every being and every object its miraculous value. A woman dancing without a thought in her head, a bottle on a table, glimpsed behind a curtain: each image becomes a symbol. The whole of life seems reflected in it, insofar as it summarizes our own life at the moment. When we are aware of every gift, the contradictory intoxications we can enjoy (including that of lucidity) are indescribable.”
—‘Love of Life’ from ’Lyrical and Critical Essays’ by Albert Camus
Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy (via fuckyeahexistentialism)
Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy (via fuckyeahexistentialism)
“It’s very difficult to describe a feeling and not to lie a little bit.”
—Max Frisch (via theparisreview)
Sitting by the Seine, its insane
How that ancient church, that solid stone,
White and wise,
Stands in quiet repose,
Knowing all and knowing not
How the red penetrates the wobbly ground
While quivering bodies stumble past
And you and I discover truth.
Have you ever seen iron glow?
Riveted tons of steel flickering?
Balls of diamonds, explosions of stars?
Metal flaming, orange and dark blue.
“I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self respect. And it’s these things I’d believe in, even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn’t all she should be. I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (via thatkindofwoman)
Amiens, France.
“Many daughters have done valiantly, but you surpass them all!”
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
York minster, lace, vikings, rain, and red berry macaroons. London again tomorrow, wearing my new green shoes. Oh and I cut my bangs!
“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, from “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” (via weissewiese)
