Where would I go, if I could go, who would I be, if I could be, what would I say, if I had a voice, who says this, saying it’s me? — Samuel Beckett, Stories and Texts for Nothing. (Grove Press; First Printing edition, January 13, 1994) Originally published January 1st 1974.
When I saw him look at me with lust, I dropped my eyes but, in glancing away from him, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. And I saw myself, suddenly, as he saw me… And, for the first time in my innocent and confined life, I sensed in myself a potentiality for corruption… Continue reading Angela Carter
Love her Sings the sea Bluely Moaning — Jack Kerouac, from “74th Chorus,” San Francisco Blues (Penguin, 1995)
The word ‘despair’ is overused and banalized now, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. It’s close to what people call dread or angst, but it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable sadness of knowing I’m small and weak and selfish and… Continue reading David Foster Wallace
But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires. — James Joyce, from “Araby,” Dubliners. (Grant Richards Ltd., London June 1914)
Think of someone you want to touch whom you cannot touch, someone forbidden. Think of a room where there is nothing except the two of you: still, you cannot touch them. Think of the heat between two hands about to touch, the language that exists in that silence. — Chelsea Hodson, from “A Simple Woman,”… Continue reading Chelsea Hodson
Sometimes I see me dead in the rain. — J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey. (Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition, January 30, 1961)
