Currently Reading:

(pay no mind to the picture post, it has no relevance to the quote at all, just a quirky touch to lessen the grim of the text. - and because its taken me 3 different post's to display this days 'productivity' ha)

‘I might even show you my photograph album. You might even see a face in it which might remind you of your own, of what you once were. You might see faces of others, in shadow, or cheeks of others, turning, or jaws, or backs of necks, or eyes, dark under hats, which might remind you of others, whom once you knew, whom you thought long dead, but from whom you will still receive a sidelong glance, if you can face the good ghost. Allow the love of the good ghost. They possess all that emotion … trapped. Bow to it. It will assuredly never release them, but who knows … what relief … it may give them … who knows how they may quicken … in their chains, in their glass jars. You think it cruel … to quicken them, when they are fixed, imprisoned? No … no. Deeply, deeply, they wish to respond to your touch, to your look, and when you smile, their joy … is unbounded. And so I say to you, tender the dead, as you would yourself be tendered, now, in what you would describe as your life.’

—from Act 2 of No Man’s Land (1975); this passage was read at Pinter’s funeral, in accordance with his request

currently reading:

i just haaad to post some visual book porn right now on this 528 paged wonder! i don't know if you've noticed, but im a dork. an a-list dork. and things like international mythology get me wet (remi honey, contain yourself hahaha) my brother picked this up just today, it covers loads of mythology from greek and roman, to european, even to maori! (and brushing up on some old school myths and legends couldnt hurt anybody yessir) not only is it full of lustful art pieces dated back to early B.C's, but if your anything like me, it'll have your thoughts provoking similarities in each culture and opening your mind to all sorts of era's and just immediate brain pleasures! with that being said, im killing myself trying to get through it as calmly and maturely as possible, which is much more difficult than bites the dust, believe me. i highly reccomend this badboy, and if you hit up a nearby borders you can score this 110$ masterpiece for a mere 50 bones! you won't regret it! and if you do, f%$k you!

currently reading:

‘We lived at F., on the banks of the Marne.

My parents disapproved of friendships between the sexes. But our sensuality, which is born with us, though for a time it remains dormant, was aroused rather than quelled by their disapproval.

I have never been a dreamer. What appears dream to others more credulous than I seems to me to be as real as cheese to a cat—in spite of the glass that covers it. Yet the glass does exist.

If the glass breaks, the cat takes advantage, even if it’s his master who breaks it and cuts his hand in the process.’

—from the opening of The Devil in the Flesh (Le Diable au corps)
1923; translated from the French by Richard Griffiths

currently reading:

‘Well, as I was saying, the world is eaten up by boredom. To perceive this needs a little preliminary thought: you can’t see it all at once. It is like dust. You go about and never notice, you breathe it in, you eat and drink it. It is sifted so fine, it doesn’t even grit on your teeth. But stand still for an instant and there it is, coating your face and hands. To shake off this drizzle of ashes you must be for ever on the go. And so people are always “on the go.” Perhaps the answer would be that the world has long been familiar with boredom, that such is the true condition of man. No doubt the seed was scattered all over life, and here and there found fertile soil to take root; but I wonder if man has ever before experienced this contagion, this leprosy of boredom: an aborted despair, a shameful form of despair in some way like the fermentation of a Christianity in decay…

Naturally I keep these thoughts to myself. But I am not ashamed of them. I even believe that they’d be easy enough to communicate, too easy perhaps for my peace of mind—that is to say, for the peace of my conscience…

Our superiors are no longer official optimists. Those who still profess the rule of hope, teach optimism only by force of habit, without believing in what they say. You need only raise the mildest objection and you find them wreathed in knowing deprecating smiles; they beg you to spare them. Old priests are not taken in. For in spite of appearances, provided you use the same official terms—terms which are in any case hard and fast—the themes which inspire official eloquence are no longer the same, and our elders would never be able to recognize them…

By nature I am probably coarse-grained, for I confess that I have always been repelled by the “lettered” priest. After all, to cultivate clever people is merely a way of dining out, and a priest has no right to go out to dinner in a world full of starving people…

For those who have the habit of prayer, thought is too often a mere alibi, a sly way of deciding to do what one wants to do. Reason will always obscure what we wish to keep in the shadows. A worldly man can think out the pros and cons and sum up his chances. No doubt. But what are our chances worth? We who have admitted once and for all into each moment of our puny lives the terrifying presence of God? Unless a priest happens to lose his faith—and then what has he left, for he cannot lose his faith without denying himself? He will never learn to “look after number one” with the alert common sense—nay, with the candour and innocence of the children of this world. What is the use of working out chances? There are no chances against God.’

— Georges Bernanos, The Diary of a Country Priest (1937)