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
An Old Woman of the Roads, by Pádraic Colum
Oh, to have a little house! To own the hearth and stool and all! The heaped up sods upon the fire, The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains And pendulum swinging up and down! A dresser filled with shining delph, Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor, And fixing on their shelf again My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night Beside the fire and by myself, Sure of a bed and loth to leave The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I am weary of mist and dark, And roads where there’s never a house nor bush, And tired I am of bog and road, And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high, And I am praying Him night and day, For a little house - house of my own - Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
reading in bed. painting by marta astrain.
I long for a large room to myself, with books and nothing else, where I can shut myself up, and see no one, and read myself into peace.
Virginia Woolf, Letter to Violet Dickinson
paul and the lovely linda 🕊️
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)
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.
Athenais by John William Godward (1908)
“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)