I wish that you
were here to see
how much the sky
really does love me.
“I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing light
Of your own being”
“I will touch you with my mind. Touch you and touch and touch until you give me suddenly a smile, shyly obscene; I will touch you with my mind. Touch you, that is all, lightly and you utterly will become with infinite care the poem which I did not write.”
E.E Cummings, Lady
“Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.
Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.”
Pablo Neruda, from “Here I Love You
“Here I am back and still smouldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger.”
Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953
“Perhaps, somewhere, some day, at a less miserable time, we may see each other again.”
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
“I like her. She makes life interesting. She, herself, is interesting, I suppose. She talks right from the heart. I appreciate her frankness and I like the fact that she doesn’t force the natural flow of a conversation. There’s personality in her words. She thus gets to the core of things and that’s important because with her — I can talk knowing that the talk is real! Oh believe me, it’s amazingly real! And she also gives me the opportunity to listen as fully and completely as possible. And I can’t seem to get her out of my head […]”
Virginia Woolf
“I am overwhelmed with things I ought to have written about and never found the proper words.”
Virginia Woolf, Diaries Volume One 1915-1919
“Dès qu’elle posait les yeux sur lui, elle avait aussitôt envie de sentir sa chair – avec sa bouche, avec ses mains, avec tout son corps – qui l’attirait de façon magnétique.”
Anaïs Nin, Vénus érotica
“I want to love you wildly. I don’t want words, but inarticulate cries, meaningless, from the bottom of my most primitive being, that flow from my belly like honey. A piercing joy, that leaves me empty, conquered, silenced.”
Anaïs Nin
“We spoke all night in tongues,
in fingertips, in teeth.”
“Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.
This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.
La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine
the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you and this
is what it is like, or what it is like in words.”
Carol Ann Duffy, “Words, Wide Night”
“And I can’t
help
but to run my fingers
down your spine
like you are my
favorite
book. But I still
cannot read you,
you are
your own language.
Your pages are
tired and torn,
but I want you,
I want it all.”
Michelle K., “Like a Book”
“I craved him constantly, so deeply it was a physical ache.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“I am still so naive. I know pretty much what I like and dislike, but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?”
Sylvia Plath
“if you kiss my neck, you can softly hear the sound of my clothes being thrown to the other side of the room.”
« I’m not used to being loved. I wouldn’t know what to do. »
F. Scott Fitzgerald, More Than Just A House
“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole”
“Something unappeased, unappeasable, is within me.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“If I kiss you it is not only your mouth
not only your navel
not only your lap which I kiss
I kiss also your questions and your desires
I kiss your thinking
your doubts
and your courage
your love to me
and your freedom of me
your foot came
and that goes away again
I kiss you
who you are
and who you will be tomorrow and later
and if my time is over.”
Erich Fried
“Je posai la main sur lui. Le toucher fut toujours d’une telle importance pour moi. Cela m’était une raison de vivre. Je ne pus jamais expliquer pourquoi. Des petits contacts de rien du tout. Mes doigts effleurant son épaule. Nos cuisses se touchaient quand nous étions serrés côte à côte dans l’autobus. Je ne pouvais pas l’expliquer mais j’en avais besoin. Parfois j’imaginais coudre ensemble tous nos petits contacts. Combien de centaines de milliers de doigts s’effleurant faut-il pour faire l’amour ?”
Jonathan Safran Foe Extrêmement fort et incroyablement près
“La vitesse, la mer, minuit, tout ce qui est éclatant, tout ce qui est noir, tout ce qui vous perd et donc vous permet de vous trouver ….”
Françoise Sagan,Des bleus à l’âme
And the rest is rust and stardust.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
“Armed I am with love. Disarmed I am.”
Manuel Alegre
“If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.”
Pablo Neruda, If You Forget Me
“I’ve never done anything but dream. This, and this alone, has been the meaning of my life. My only real concern has been my inner life.”
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
“I wish I were a poet. I’ve never confessed that to anyone, and I’m confessing it to you, because you’ve given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I’ve spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind’s eye. It’s been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I’ve been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, ‘Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open.’
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we’ll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What’s real? What isn’t real? Maybe those aren’t the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on.”
Jonathan Safran Foer, from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
Paulo Coelho
“I had to touch you with my hands, I had to taste you with my tongue; one can’t love and do nothing.”
Graham Greene
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”
Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974
“Have you ever felt a potential love for someone?
Like, you don’t actually love them and you know you don’t, but you know you could. You realise that you could easily fall in love with them. It’s almost like the bud of a flower, ready to blossom but it’s just not quite there yet. And you like them a lot, you really do. You think about them often, but you don’t love them. You could, though. You know you could.”
W.J.
“What’s the worst thing I’ve stolen? Probably little pieces of other people’s lives. Where I’ve either wasted their time or hurt them in some way. That’s the worst thing you can steal, the time of other people. You just can’t get that back.”
Chester Bennington
“Cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
The less I needed,
the better I
felt.”
Charles Bukowski, “Let It Enfold You”
we mended broken secrets
with our hands
touching
our lips
entangled in a language
unspoken
thoughts
of clay given flesh
given life
only to die like gods
unremembered
And the rest is rust and stardust.
“Je sais, un peu partout, tout le monde s’entretue, c’est pas gai, mais d’autres s’entrevivent, j’irai les retrouver.”
Prévert
« Tandis que la terre sommeille, si j’entends le vent soupirer, je crois t’entendre murmurer des mots sacrés à mon oreille. »
Lamartine, Souvenir
« « Amant ».
Oh, comme je détestais ce mot. Tellement prétentieux, comme un terme emprunté à une autre langue. Cet arrière-goût, cet arrière-fond d’affections illicites, illégitimes. Définition du dictionnaire : Qui entretient une liaison amoureuse. Impermanent. Désincarné. Inextricablement lié au sexe.
Je n’ai jamais voulu une amante. Pour avoir une amante, il me faut revenir à la racine du mot. Car je n’ai jamais voulu une amante, mais j’ai toujours voulu aimer, et être aimé.
Il n’y a pas de mot pour définir celui qui reçoit l’amour. Seulement pour celui qui le donne. L’idée préconçue selon laquelle les amants vont nécessairement par deux.
Quand je dis : Sois mon amante, je ne veux pas dire : Entretenons une liaison. Je ne veux pas dire : Couche avec moi. Je ne veux pas dire : Sois mon secret.
Je veux que nous revenions à la racine du mot.
Je veux que tu sois celle qui m’aime.
Je veux être celui qui t’aime. »
David Levithan, Dictionnaire d’un amour
« Come love me.
Come.
Come onto this blank sheet of paper.
With me.
I give you my skin.
Come.
Quick. » Marguerite Duras, No More
« I am nothing but words,
just a shape
of dreams or night. »
Euripides
« As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become. » Jean-Paul Sartre
« Il y a trois sortes de personnes,
celles qui savent vivre
et celles qui ne savent pas.
– Et les autres, c’est quoi?
Marie dit que, les autres, c’est de la poésie. »
Claudie Gallay
« It’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst… And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my little life… You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry… you will someday. » American Beauty (film: final scene monologue)
« You’re the only person I loved on Mondays and I fucking hated everyone on Mondays. »
« Like rain, I fell for you. »
six word story
You are all I think about
« The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention. »
Rachel Naomi Remen
« The hardest thing to do when you go back underwater, is talk about what the sky was like. »
Iain Thomas
« Je suis fatiguée : j’ai marché toute la nuit pour semer ton souvenir.
Assise sur un banc, abrutie malgré moi par l’approche du matin,
je cesse de me rappeler que j’essaie de t’oublier. »
Marguerite Yourcenar
« Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence. »
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Intimacy: Hold my waist. Stroke my neck. Kiss my forehead. Hold my hand.
Maturity: Patience is amazing. A prize will come to you when the time is right. Its called falling in love. Waiting is hard. But worth it.
Honesty: I don’t care what you’ve done. I care about what you will do in the future. Be honest with me, I’ll be honest with you.
Care: Because not many people give a crap about anything anymore.
« Would you like an adventure now, or shall we have our tea first? » Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie
« Encountering you, I found a sense in my abyss. » Violette Leduc, Therese And Isabelle
« Your soul is the whole world. »
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
« I’m not thinking about the day when I’ll see you again, any more than I ever evoke our past — I too am blocked against all memory. But I don’t need to see you — I’m not separated from you, I’m still in the same world as you. You should know that I’m calm, involved, not at all unhappy — I have no regret, no desire, no hope for anything. I’m easy in my mind about you, and this ease of mind comes from the absolute certainty I now have that, if the worst were to happen to you, I should no longer live either […] » Simone de Beauvoir, from Letters To Sartre
« Laisse mes mains dénouées
et le cœur, laisse-moi libre!
Laisse courir mes doigts
sur les chemins de ton corps. »
Pablo Neruda,extrait de “Laisse mes mains dénouées”
« There’s a special place in my heart for the ones who were with me at my lowest and still loved me when I wasn’t very loveable. » Yasmin Mogahed
« Il n’y a pas de vacances à l’amour, dit-il, ça n’existe pas. L’amour, il faut le vivre complètement avec ton ennui et tout, il n’y a pas de vacances possibles à ça. »
Marguerite Duras ,Les petits chevaux de Tarquinia
« Before and now it is love between us, between you and me.
Death and love. I will be whatever you want, whatever you are. »
Marguerite Duras, No More
« I want to feel. I want to love. »
Flannery O’Connor,A Prayer Journal
« Si je pouvais de nouveau vivre ma vie dans la prochaine je commettrais plus d’erreurs.(…) Je serais plus bête que j’ai été, en fait, je prendrais très peu de choses au sérieux.(…) J’ai été une de ces personnes qui vécurent sensément et prolifiquement chaque minute de leur vie : bien sûr, j’ai eu des moments de joie. Mais si je pouvais revenir en arrière j’essaierai d’avoir simplement de bons moments. Au cas où vous ne le sauriez pas, c’est de cela qu’est faite la vie… »
Jorge Luis Borges ,Extrait de ” Instantes”
« You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken. » Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1 (1931-1934)
« You are the knife I turn inside myself; that is love. That, my dear, is love. »
Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena
« God, your voice.
I don’t think you’ll ever understand what your voice does to me. »
« I feel entirely dehumanised by the sun now, and wish for fog, snow, rain, humanity. » Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Edward Sackville-West
« I just think that people are so weird about nudity and the human body. Sex is not bad, naked bodies are not bad and naked bodies don’t always have to be connected to sex. » Emily Browning
« Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation. » Graham Greene
« There are a few things in life so beautiful they hurt: swimming in the ocean while it rains, reading alone in empty libraries, the sea of stars that appear when you’re miles away from the neon lights of the city, bars after 2am, walking in the wilderness, all the phases of the moon, the things we do not know about the universe, and you. » Beau Taplin || and you.
« Find me now. Before someone else does. »
Haruki Murakami in 1Q84
« C’est peut être ça être vivant: traquer les instants qui meurent. » L’Elegance du Hérisson