Olivia Laing
You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavour to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by millions of people. ― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. (Picador, 2016)
Category: Memoir
Anaïs Nin
When I am happy it is so rare. I need to dwell on it, to contemplate it. What a hunger, a craving for beautiful things. — Anaïs Nin, Nearer the Moon: The Previously Unpublished Unexpurgated Diary, 1937-1939. (Harcourt; 1st edition, November 1996)
Anaïs Nin
I am always between two worlds, always in conflict. I would like sometimes to rest, to be at peace, to choose a nook, make a final choice, but I can’t. Some nameless, undescribable fear and anxiety keeps me on the move. On certain evenings like this, I would like to feel whole. Only a half… Continue reading Anaïs Nin
Vincent van Gogh
…I have a feeling of being at home when I am with Sien, a feeling that she gives me my own hearth, that our lives are interwoven. This is a heartfelt, deep feeling, serious, and not without a dark shadow of her gloomy past and mine, as if some evil threatened us, against which we… Continue reading Vincent van Gogh
Henry David Thoreau
This is June, the month of grass and leaves … already the aspens are trembling again, and a new summer is offered me. — Henry David Thoreau, from “June 6, 1857,” Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, Volume 6. (Kessinger Publishing, LLC, May 26, 2006)
Anaïs Nin
Everything with me is either worship and passion or pity and understanding. I hate rarely, though when I hate, I hate murderously…but I am more preoccupied with loving. — Anaïs Nin, Henry and June: From “A Journal of Love”–The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. (Harvest Books; 1 edition October 29, 1990) Originally published 1986.
Franz Kafka
Desire for a deeper sleep that dissolves more. The metaphysical urge is only the urge towards death. — Franz Kafka, The Diaries of Franz Kafka, 1910-23. (Schocken, October 30, 1988)
