Alain de Botton
It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things. — Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (Pantheon; First Edition, October 3, 2006)
Category: Architecture
Gaston Bachelard
Every corner in a house, every angle in a room, every inch of secluded space in which we like to hide, or withdraw into ourselves, is a symbol of solitude. […] Also, in many respects, a corner that is “lived in” tends to reject and restrain, even to hide, life. The corner becomes a negation… Continue reading Gaston Bachelard
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
In the mansion called literature I would have the eaves deep and the walls dark, I would push back into the shadows the things that come forward too clearly, I would strip away the useless decoration. I do not ask that this be done everywhere, but perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion… Continue reading Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
Gaston Bachelard
I can recover my calm by living the metaphors of the ocean. — Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. (Beacon Press; Reprint edition, April 1, 1994) Originally published 1057.
The Vale of Soul-Making 