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“Indolence has always been my most essential quality. ‘Essential’ in the sense that it is the single quality I am convinced I possess and by which I can be recognised and remembered, and also in the sense that I feel most essentially like myself when I am exercising it. I cannot recollect a time when the idea of going for a walk was not a torment to me; a proposition that endangered my constant wish to stay where I was. I imagine myself, child and adult, curled up in an armchair, reading and being told (as a child) or invited (as an adult) to go out and do something. I cannot think why a person sitting with evident contentment in an armchair causes the desire in others for their immediate activity.”
― Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told?
― Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told?
“Whoever you be, O my reader-
friend, foe- I wish with you
to part at present as a pal.
Farewell. Whatever you in my wake
sought in these careless strophes-
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
live pictures or bons mots,
or faults of grammar-
God grant that you,
in this book,
for recreation, for the daydream,
for the heart, for jousts in journals,
may find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell!”
― Eugene Onegin
friend, foe- I wish with you
to part at present as a pal.
Farewell. Whatever you in my wake
sought in these careless strophes-
tumultuous recollections,
relief from labors,
live pictures or bons mots,
or faults of grammar-
God grant that you,
in this book,
for recreation, for the daydream,
for the heart, for jousts in journals,
may find at least a crumb.
Upon which, let us part, farewell!”
― Eugene Onegin
“And yet from thought of death, my friends, I shrink;
I want to live - to suffer and to think,
To taste of care and grief and tribulation,
Of rapture and of sweet exhilaration;
Be drunk with harmony; touch fancy's strings
And freely weep o'er its imaginings...
And love's last flash, its smile of farewell tender
My sad decline may yet less mournful render.”
―
I want to live - to suffer and to think,
To taste of care and grief and tribulation,
Of rapture and of sweet exhilaration;
Be drunk with harmony; touch fancy's strings
And freely weep o'er its imaginings...
And love's last flash, its smile of farewell tender
My sad decline may yet less mournful render.”
―
“For one can live in friendship
With verses and with cards, with Plato and with wine,
And hide beneath the gentle cover of our playful pranks
A noble heart and mind.”
―
With verses and with cards, with Plato and with wine,
And hide beneath the gentle cover of our playful pranks
A noble heart and mind.”
―
“Being really alone means being free from anticipation. Even to know that something is going to happen, that I am required to do something is an intrusion on the emptiness I am after. What I love to see is an empty diary, pages and pages of nothing planned. A date, an arrangement, is a point in the future when something is required of me. I begin to worry about it days, sometimes weeks ahead. Just a haircut, a hospital visit, a dinner party. Going out. The weight of the thing-that-is-going-to-happen sits on my heart and crushes the present into non-existence. My ability to live in the here and now depends on not having any plans, on there being no expected interruption. I have no other way to do it. How can you be alone, properly alone, if you know someone is going to knock at the door in five hours, or tomorrow morning, or you have to get ready and go out in three days’ time? I can’t abide the fracturing of the present by the intrusion of a planned future.”
―
―
Writerly Reads
— 103 members
— last activity Apr 22, 2018 09:14AM
A book club for authors, aspiring authors, editors, and aspiring editors. This book club is all about helping one another hone our craft as storytelle ...more
Julie’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Julie’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
979 books
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62 friends
295 books
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632 books
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403 books
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1,054 books
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825 books
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