It Is The Phenomenon Sometimes Called “alienation From Self.” In Its Advanced Stages, We No Longer

@aneid / sydney smith / unknown / @bakwaaas / @nutnoce / @dearestvita

“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)

Sergei Efron, from a letter to Max Voloshin, referring to Marina Tsvetaeva, featured in Earthly Signs, Moscow Diaries

“Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure.”

— George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

hearing Americans speak in real life is so jarring omfg... Get back in the TV right now

Sarah Perry, The Essence of Peopling

Ireland, Iran & Lebanon

reading in bed. painting by marta astrain.