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Night was spreading its dark wings, stroking Barcelona to sleep.

— Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi, Call Me Zebra

#Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi #Call Me Zebra #literature #books #words #bibliophile #lit #excerpt #nowreading #now reading #reader #Barcelona #page72

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Art allows us to reach our truest, deepest, most enduring selves by borrowing someone else's gaze and colours; leave to our own devices, we wouldn't have the insight, or the comprehensive vision, much less the will or the courage, to enter that place where only art can take us.

— André Aciman, 'Underground' in Homo Irrealis

#André Aciman #homo irrealis: essays #underground #page 21 #essays #lit #literature #reader #nowreading #bibliophile #books #art #insights #word #memories #nostalgia

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Ambiguity in art is nothing more than an invitation to think, to risk, to intuit what is perhaps in us as well, and was always in us, and maybe more in us than in the work itself, or in the work because of us, or, conversely in us now because of the work.

#André Aciman #homo irrealis #homo irrealis: essays #essay #lit #literature #books #bibliophile #words #excerpt #page 19 #underground #art #parallel universe

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Irrealis moods are a category of verbal moods that indicate that certain events have not happened, may never happen, or should or must or are indeed desired to happen, but for which there is no indication that they will ever happen. Irrealis moods are also known as counterfactual moods and include the conditional, the subjunctive, the optative, and the imperative—all best expressed in this book as the might-be and the might-have been.

— André Aciman, 'Underground' in Homo Irrealis: Essays

#andré aciman #homo irrealis #essays #books #bookish #now reading #excerpt #bibliophile #words #lit #literature #memories #nostalgia #introdction #paperback #reader #parallel universe #underground #art #moods #irrealis moods

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Actually, I did read, at times, over the years. Especially when I was mad, I read a good deal.

David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress

#David Markson #Wittgenstein's Mistress #page16 #lit #literature #now reading #currently reading #books #bibliophile #excerpt #text #reader #words #read #mad

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Time out of mind. Which is a phrase I suspect I may have never properly understood, now that I happen to use it. Time out of mind meaning mad, or time out of mind meaning simply forgotten?

David Markson, Wittgenstein’s Mistress 

#David Markson #Wittgenstein's Mistress #literature #text #words #books #bibliophile #nowreading #novel #diary #time #history #mad #excerpt #lit #page7

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She liked the pattern of her life now, the domestic monotony tempered with the rush of feeling always close to the edge of something, the sensation of having the thing she loved and valuing it all the more because she knew it could go all wrong at any moment.

Danielle Evans, “Anything Could Disappear” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #anything could disappear #the office of historical corrections #pg153 #lit #literature #bookblr #bibliophile #currently reading #now reading #books #words #excerpt #woman #life #domestic monotony #short stories #novella

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If she was not good enough for the thing other people had, who could be; if she did not deserve love, who should have it; if she could not find in a mirror what was so bad and unlovable in her, she would have to create it.

Danielle Evans, “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #richard of york gave battle in vain #the office of historical corrections #pg39 #lit #literature #short stories #novella #currently reading #bibliophile #words #books #now reading #purpose #self #excerpts from my journal

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In her early twenties, a series of men one by one held her to their chests and kissed the top of her head if they were gentlemen and palmed her ass if they were not and told her that she deserved better than they could give her. But what did it matter what she deserved, faced with the hilarity of one more person telling her glibly that better was out there when she was begging for mediocrity and couldn't have that?

Danielle Evans, “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #richard of york gave battle in vain #the office of historical corrections #pg 38 #lit #literature #currently reading #books #words #bibliophile #bookblr #excerpt #now reading #cliches #mediocrity #short stories #novella #men #relationships

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You know, I used to think that you were so brave, and sometimes I still do, and sometimes I think it's just that there's nothing in your life but you, and you have no idea what it means to be scared that what you do might matter.

Danielle Evans, “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #richard of york gave battle in vain #the office of historical corrections #pg34 #lit #literature #words #now reading #bibliophile #book #currently reading #excerpt #bookblr #brave #matter #self #existence

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I was scared. You were calm. You were so fucking calm it calmed me down, and that was what I liked about you.

Danielle Evans, “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #richard of york gave battle in vain #the office of historical corrections #pg34 #lit #literature #books #bibliophile #bookblr #now reading #currently reading #excerpt #words #feelings #emotional

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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. The land of the blind would be built for the blind; there would be no expectation among its citizens that the world should be other than what it was. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man would adjust, or otherwise be deemed a lunatic or heretic. The one-eyed man would spend his life learning to translate what experience was his alone, or else he would learn to shut up about it.

Danielle Evans, “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain” in The Office of Historical Corrections: a novella and stories

#Danielle Evans #richard of york gave battle in vain #the office of historical corrections #lit #literature #words #short stories #books #bibliophile #bookblr #excerpt #proverbs #the one-eyed man #pg24

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But when God blinds your eyes to culture, he opens your eyes to everything else. But what else is there? Seasons, birds, the wind in the trees. So don't go chasing your old forms of sight. Instead, learn to see newly.  Right now it may feel like a loss of sight, or like you don't understand the things you do see, but there is still a lot to see here.

Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

#Sheila Heti #Pure Colour #pg165 #lit #literature #now reading #stories #excerpt #bookblr #bibliophile #books #words #existence #presence #creation #middle years of life #past #present #God #forms of sight #self #purpose of life

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Or perhaps we don't really long for our first loves, despite all the songs and stories that tell us we do. Perhaps we are simply training the human soul for the even deeper longing it will one day feel, when it will sense, in some secret, small core of its being, the presence of this first draft of creation, and will confusedly long to return to it, as imperfect as it was.

Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

#Sheila Heti #Pure Colour #pg159 #lit #literature #bibliophile #bookblr #now reading #books #words #currently reading #excerpt #reader #first love #first draft #existence #creation #longing #imperfect #presence #human soul

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Are you sad to be living in the first draft—shoddily made, rushed, exuberant, malformed? No, you are proud to be strong enough to be living here now, one of God's expendable soldiers in the first draft of the world. There is some pride in having been created to make a better world to come. There is some pride in being the ones who were made to be thrown out.

Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

#Sheila Heti #Pure Colour #pg151 #lit #literature #bibliophile #currently reading #books #words #excerpt #now reading #bookblr #reader #stories #existence #God #first draft #world #human #history

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That sometimes a person is meant to move forward in the world with the one they love at a distance, and that the distance is there to make it more beautiful.

Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

#Sheila Heti #Pure Colour #pg146 #lit #literature #novels #stories #books words #bookblr #bibliophile #excerpt #now reading #currently reading #love #relationship #distance #reader

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The most delicate leaves, green and humble and finally fading, who not one person pays attention to, but who nevertheless thrive in silence, beneath the sinking sun.

Sheila Heti, Pure Colour

#Sheila Heti #Pure Colour #pg119 #lit #literature #now reading #currently reading #stories #novel #reader #bibliophile #bookblr #books #words #writer #existence