Edward Hopper

BARBARA KRUGER

Thomas Bernhard - Drei Tage(1970) dir. Ferry Radax

“The role of the artist is exactly the same role, I think, as the role of the lover. If you love somebody, you honor at least two necessities at once. One of them is to recognize something very dangerous, or very difficult. Many people cannot recognize it at all, that you may also be loved; love is like a mirror. In any case, if you do love somebody, you honor the necessity endlessly, and being at the mercy of that love, you try to correct the person whom you love. Now, that’s a two-way street. You’ve also got to be corrected. As I said, the people produce the artist, and it’s true. The artist also produces the people. And that’s a very violent and terrifying act of love. The role of the artist and the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see. Insofar as that is true, in that effort, I become conscious of the things that I don’t see. And I will not see without you, and vice versa, you will not see without me. No one wants to see more than he sees. You have to be driven to see what you see. The only way you can get through it is to accept that two-way street which I call love. You can call it a poem, you can call it whatever you like. That’s how people grow up. An artist is here not to give you answers but to ask you questions.”

— James Baldwin, “The Black Scholar Interviews James Baldwin,” Conversations with James Baldwin (edited by Fred L. Standley and Louis H. Pratt)

“I want to tell her that I want so badly to be a part of this world, to stand in it, but every hand I touch withholds warmth. The world gathers everywhere beyond me.”

— Victoria Chang, from “Dear Father”, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief (via voirlvmer)

L. A. Johnson, from "Birthmark"

tumblr is so great it’s like the diary is talking back

Again with the “can’t.”

But when Kafka said Even in my strong times I wasn't very strong it broke something in me.

Tell Me Something Good, Ocean Vuong