April is...

"On a bad day you also don’t need a lot of advice. You just need a little empathy and..."

elaineofastolat — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:12:50 +0000

“On a bad day you also don’t need a lot of advice. You just need a little empathy and affirmation. You need to feel once again that other people have confidence in you.”

- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

brain-food: On June 26, 1956, author C.S. Lewis responded to a...

elaineofastolat — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:54:36 +0100

brain-food:

On June 26, 1956, author C.S. Lewis responded to a fan letter from Joan Lancaster, a young Chronicles of Narnia enthusiast.

In a personalized thank-you letter, the writer imparted some simple and valuable stylistic advice for budding prose writers.

1. Always try to use the language so as to make quite clear what you mean and make sure your sentence couldn’t mean anything else.

2. Always prefer the plain direct word to the long, vague one. Don’t implement promises, but keep them.

3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean “More people died” don’t say “Mortality rose.”

4. In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.”

5. Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say “infinitely” when you mean “very”; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

You can read the rest of the letter @ Letters of Notes

"In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a..."

elaineofastolat — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:11:42 +0000

“In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misunderstood this relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.”

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

"With the divorce rate up to sixty per cent, how can anyone attend a wedding with a straight face..."

elaineofastolat — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 12:00:05 +0000

“With the divorce rate up to sixty per cent, how can anyone attend a wedding with a straight face anymore? I see lovers walking hand in hand, looking at each other as if nobody else was alive on the earth, and I can’t help thinking that in a year, more or less, they’ll each be with someone new. Or else nursing broken hearts. True, most lovers don’t work at it hard enough, or with enough imagination or generosity, but even those who try don’t seem to have any ultimate success these days. Who knows how to make love stay?”

- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

"I never intended to rescue you. We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have..."

elaineofastolat — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:00:06 +0000

“I never intended to rescue you. We’re our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.”

- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

"That is why virtually every revolution in history has failed: the oppressed, as soon as they seize..."

elaineofastolat — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:05 +0000

“That is why virtually every revolution in history has failed: the oppressed, as soon as they seize power, turn into the oppressors, resorting to totalitarian tactics to “protect the revolution.” That is why minorities seeking the abolition of prejudice become intolerant, minorities seeking peace become militant, minorities seeking equality become self-righteous, and minorities seeking liberation become hostile…”

- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

"Who does have a love life anymore? These days people have sex lives, not love lives. Lots of them..."

elaineofastolat — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:00:05 +0000

“Who does have a love life anymore? These days people have sex lives, not love lives. Lots of them are even giving up sex. I don’t have a love life because I’ve never met a man who knew how to have a love life. Maybe I don’t know how, either.”

- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and..."

elaineofastolat — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 03:34:09 +0000

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

consistentcontradiction: Tennyson, In Memoriam “For words,...

elaineofastolat — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:45:56 +0000

consistentcontradiction:

Tennyson, In Memoriam

“For words, like Nature, half reveal; And half conceal the Soul within.”

"Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be..."

elaineofastolat — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:59:18 +0000

““Tell them stories. They need the truth. You must tell them true stories, and everything will be well, just tell them stories.”
That was all, and then she was gone. It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we’ve unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep. It was the dream she’d tried to describe to Atal, the night picture; but as Mary tried to find it again, it dissolved and drifted apart, just as these presences did in the open air. The dream was gone.
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.”

- Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass (via rileyanne)

"There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely..."

elaineofastolat — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 16:18:26 +0000

“There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating - people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.”

- Lord Henry, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (via paintmysilence)

"Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a..."

elaineofastolat — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 02:00:35 +0000

“Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become that path himself.”

- Henry Miller, Henry Miller on Writing (via bookoasis)

Edgar Allen Poe Short Stories, Tales, and Poems

elaineofastolat — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:36:15 +0000

Edgar Allen Poe Short Stories, Tales, and Poems

"Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or..."

elaineofastolat — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:52:32 +0100

“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.”

- Neil Gaiman (via ree-writes)

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as..."

elaineofastolat — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:46:22 +0100

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”

- Catherine, Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)

"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not..."

elaineofastolat — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 06:42:15 +0100

“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

- Catherine, Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë)

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on? When in your heart, you begin to..."

elaineofastolat — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:57:55 +0100

“How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on? When in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back.”

- JRR Tolkien. (via maddyluna)

"The codes of duty and honor were not exclusively masculine. Many young women who watched brothers..."

elaineofastolat — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:39:35 +0100

“The codes of duty and honor were not exclusively masculine. Many young women who watched brothers march away were heard to exclaim, “I wish I were a man!” Some of them acted on this wish. Several hundred women, from Maine to Texas, disguised themselves as men and passed superficial medical examinations to enlist in volunteer regiments. Their motives ranged from patriotism and love of adventure to a desire to stay with husbands or lovers who had joined the army.
Some women soldiers were son discovered and discharged. The usual reason for discovery was hospitalization for illness or wounds, as in the case of an Ohio private, “Charles Freeman,” who was hospitalized for fever, found to be Mary Scaberry, and discharged for “sexual incompatibility.” Six female soldiers were found out when they had babies. As a male soldier in a Massachusetts regiment described one of these cases in a letter home, “There was an orderly in one of our regiments & he & the Corporal always slept together. Well, the other night the Corporal had a baby, for the Cpl. turned out to be a woman! She has been in 3 or 4 fights.”
A few women soldiers served through the war without discovery. The most famous was Albert Cashier of the 95th Illinois, whose name is inscribed on the Illinois monument at Vicksburg along with those of all other soldiers from the state who fought there. Cashier went to bachelor farming after the war, and not until an accident in 1911 required “his” hospitalization was Albert Cashier discovered to be Jennie Hodgers.”

- James M. McPherson and James K. Hogue, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction

"He wanted to cry quietly, but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music."

elaineofastolat — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 15:55:00 +0100

“He wanted to cry quietly, but not for himself: for the words, so beautiful and sad, like music.”

- James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1917. (via maddyluna)

Reblog if you’ve ever felt this way. Joyce understands my life.

reagan-was-a-horrible-president: Participate in Banned Books...

elaineofastolat — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:39:44 +0100

Where The Wild Things Are

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter Series

Lord of the Rings

reagan-was-a-horrible-president:

Participate in Banned Books Week!