to the next generation of lovers, and the next

alina starkov — you can’t carve this power out of me.

A QUOTE FROM EVERY BOOK I READ IN 2021: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Bram Stoker — Dracula

one likes to think there’s something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. but if i’ve learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. love doesn’t conquer everything. and whoever thinks it does is a fool.

What reading goals do you have for next year?

— Paradise Lost, John Milton (b. 9 December 1608)

— Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (via cstardust)

— Daphne du Maurier, from My Cousin Rachel

“The most stable elements, Clarice, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between iron and silver. I think that is appropriate for you.“

Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“i waited patiently - years - for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading jane austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. and then we’d say, yeah, he’s a cool guy.”

—Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

@booksociety’s love is in the air event: •Romeo & Juliet

— Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

celie, tell the truth, have you ever found god in church? i never did. i just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. any god i ever felt in church, i brought in with me. and i think all the other folks did too. they come to church to share god, not find god.

the proof that the little prince existed is that he was delightful, that he laughed, and that he wanted a sheep. when you want a sheep, it is proof that you exist.