Capote on writing

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."
–Truman Capote

Caricatures for Albe by Claire Clairmont

Caricatures for Albe

The last his Death. He dead, extended on his bed, covered all but his breast, which many wigged doctors are cutting open to find out (as one may be saying) what was the extraordinary disease of which this great man died—His heart laid bare, they find an immense capital I grown on its surface—and which had begun to pierce the breast—They are all astonishment.

One says, "A new disease." Another, "I never had a case of this before." A third, "What medicine would have been proper?" The fourth, holding up a finger, "A Desert island."


                                                —Claire Clairmont
                                                 on Lord Byron

Carmilla quote

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die -- die, sweetly die -- into mine. —Sheridan Le Fanu, 
from Carmilla

Les Amoureux by Marc Chagall

 

This is Marc Chagall’s Les Amoureux. He is one of my favorite painters, and I was surprised when I learned how his early life was full of unnecessary hardships. He grew up in a Hasidic household, which forbid any images of God’s creations, therefore, he had no visual art. Can you image? No paintings to look at, and yet, he became a painter. I always find this story impressive.

Eve by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Eve, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Coronavirus

The single word none of us will ever forget in our lifetime.
Coronavirus.
The End.

Beloved Books

“By you, I am forever undone.” 

             ― Cardan, from Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

I need to embrace this. Laughing.

Friday afternoon after shopping

Zadie Smith on Fiction

"Fiction messes with our sense of what is possible to do with our judgements. It usefully suspends our great and violent desire to be in the right on every question, and creates an unholy and ungovernable mix of the true and the false. It’s the place where things are true and not true simultaneously: the ultimate impossibility."

Zadie Smith, from “The I Who Is Not Me”, Feel Free: Essays

Favorite Books, The Night Circus

“ ‘It is important,’ the man in the grey suit interrupts. 'Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There’s magic in that. It’s in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that.’ He takes another sip of his wine. 'There are many kinds of magic, after all.’ ”

—Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus