I Love The Idea Of Jewelry Being Passed Down In A Family. The Stories That It Tells, The Bodies That

She had created a dream world for herself. If the slightest thing happened in the normal world which did not conform to the laws of her dream world, her heart rose up in outrage and she was in pain.

Ivan Goncharov, The Same Old Story (1847)

paul and the lovely linda 🕊️

“I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to me to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.”

— Fernando Pessoa (via antigonies)

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the hearts affections and the truth of imagination - what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not.

- John Keats

“I like people whose beauty entails something individually captivating; People whose beauty is as pure as tears. Oh how glorious the human heart can be! How terrifying, if it is also linked to the soul (for the heart alone does nothing for me). This idea of the “soul” perpetually haunts me. I keep wondering whether I can altogether love people in case the idea of the soul remains forever an open question to me. I don’t know if what I call “the soul” exists or not but if it does, I imagine it as a slowly dying ember. I imagine it as something dark, tormented and disgustingly gorgeous.”

— Anaïs Nin, Anaïs Nin’s Lost World: Paris In Words And Pictures (via violentwavesofemotion)

Increase and widen your desires till nothing but reality can fulfill them. It is not desired that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness. Desire is devotion. By all means be devoted to the real, the infinite, the eternal heart of being. Transform desire into love. All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are expressions of your longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

I just want to create a beautiful life for myself and others. I want peace and quiet in my house in the mountains, a garden filled with blooming flowers and happy cats. Sunkissed mornings on a white porch enjoying a slow morning routine, with a cup of black tea in dainty floral teacups, vintage 50s music drifting from the kitchen along with the scent of pancakes & homemade jam. A house that smells like home, like fresh bread, like serenity. A hall filled with art in beautiful ornate frames. The freedom to create what I love and share it with others. I will create my own kind of happiness and I truly believe everybody deserves to create for themselves whatever life offers them the most happiness.

I shall live on dreams because reality is too cruel for me. I think I shall be the kind of person that nobody understands,

Anaïs Nin, Linotte: The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1914-1920