One steadfast, activist colleague of mine at the university promised to go with me no matter what; another begged me not to go, insisting that my presence wouldn’t affect what happened, and all I would do out there was freeze to death. I tried to explain to her that you don’t go to a vigil expecting to halt action. You go to bear witness to what the state would prefer to do in complete darkness
maggie nelson
The whole of this film is one gorgeous hymn to the feminine mystique. For who would want to be the dumbfounded, piston-like Alexandre pumping his genitals, when instead you could be this most sensitive creature brimming with the rarest emotions?
veronica scott esposito, on the double life of véronique
Before the 1914 war passports didn’t exist. You had to have one for Russia or Turkey, otherwise you went where you liked provided you had the money. He told me he was in London on a diplomatic passport. His stay was limited. He was going to Holland to lecture, or so I understood. He told me he was half French, half Dutch, and lived in Paris. ‘All this passport business is only because it’s wartime,’ I said. ‘They’ll stop it as soon as the war’s over.’ He smiled a little and said, ‘Perhaps, perhaps.’
jean rhys
I told him I sometimes felt like smacking Quinn for mocking me anytime I recited poetry.
Nah, it ain’t like that, Doonie said. He just associates poems with some teacher telling him he’s a dumbass.
mary karr
Hold up, did you just hear, did you just say, did you just see, did you just do that? Then the voice in your head silently tells you take your foot off your throat because just getting along shouldn’t be an ambition.
claudia rankine
Evelina’s brother was like her but with red hair. He took me for long walks, showed me Castries, and one day asked if I would like to see a fight between a tarantula and a scorpion. ‘We put them in a bottle and watch,’ he said.
I asked who won.
‘Neither wins. The spider bites, the scorpion stings, and they both die.’
jean rhys
The Romans put skulls into their love poems.
Skeletons and dry bones along with love.
As if violet was only beautiful against
something black. We also talked of death,
I perhaps more than you. It made me happy,
to think of the newly dead body being lowered
into the coffin of the other. You found
this idea impressive but terrible.
I longed for your agreement and approval.
Wanted you to understand the hugeness of love.
You whispered that our bones would be mixed
together, but probably it was your way
to get me to stop crying and go to sleep.
Which I did, contentedly. I wanted something
to be done, some enactment to prove this secret,
this illicit love. Something too large.
I wanted it made of actual things. Dirt
and corpses even. As real as the table you
said your love was that I could sit down to
and eat from if I wanted something permanent.
I wanted absoluteness to be made of my heart.
linda gregg
