two dee

"While I enjoy America (a sense of bewilderment always accompanies this enjoyment) it behoves me to..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 16:31:42 -0400

“While I enjoy America (a sense of bewilderment always accompanies this enjoyment) it behoves me to sharpen my skills of observation like an Englishman. A more shallow national orientation than the former it would be difficult to believe. How odd that intellect, movement and esprit de corps mark the same nation that boasts a thin veneer of what it calls culture … The American’s fears of financial indisposition, compromised hygiene and loneliness make even less sense.”

- Henry James, The Vastness of Self in Unpeopled Exile

"Walking in delicate silence, in the cruel wasting of his illness, down a crowded sidewalk on his way..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:32:32 -0400

“Walking in delicate silence, in the cruel wasting of his illness, down a crowded sidewalk on his way to the library, unrecognized, unknown, forgotten, the proudness of his bearing set him off from the summer people.”

- Lillian Hellman

Interviewed by Anne Hollander, John Marquand

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Sat, 02 Mar 2013 10:08:50 -0500

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Thu, 28 Feb 2013 22:17:03 -0500

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Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:58:38 -0500

"Technique can be taught, perspective is unique."

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 22:54:49 -0500

“Technique can be taught, perspective is unique.”

- Jake Davis

"There is the pleasure of tiredness. I lean the scythe against a tree and wipe my brow. And as I..."

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 20:43:00 -0500

“There is the pleasure of tiredness. I lean the scythe against a tree and wipe my brow. And as I do—at that moment and not before—I feel the power of the new urge. Suddenly I want my earned reward. I want the thing that will take all that tension of focus and turn it slowly around, letting what was tightened up go loose, smoothing down every sharp corner. For me this is wine, something red that has been aged in oak, the gift of gifts.”

- Sven Birkerts

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Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:26:44 -0500

"Maybe I wanted to learn how to think. Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don’t know what..."

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:16:06 -0500

“Maybe I wanted to learn how to think. Writing is a concentrated form of thinking. I don’t know what I think about certain subjects, even today, until I sit down and try to write about them. Maybe I wanted to find more rigorous ways of thinking. We’re talking now about the earliest writing I did and about the power of language to counteract the wallow of late adolescence, to define things, define muddled experience in economical ways. Let’s not forget that writing is convenient. It requires the simplest tools. A young writer sees that with words and sentences on a piece of paper that costs less than a penny he can place himself more clearly in the world. Words on a page, that’s all it takes to help him separate himself from the forces around him, streets and people and pressures and feelings. He learns to think about these things, to ride his own sentences into new perceptions.”

- Don DeLillo

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Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:27:01 -0500

BLVR: What do you think of e-books? Maurice Sendak: I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s...

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 15:30:00 -0500

BLVR: What do you think of e-books?

Maurice Sendak: I hate them. It’s like making believe there’s another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of sex. There isn’t another kind of book. A book is a book is a book. I know that’s terribly old-fashioned. I’m old, and when I’m gone they’ll probably try to make my books on all these things, but I’m going to fight it like hell. [Pauses] I can’t believe I’ve turned into a typical old man. I can’t believe it. I was young just minutes ago.

"He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely."

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 23:34:57 -0500

“He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely.”

- Steinbeck

"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He..."

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:23:42 -0500

““A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.””

- Albert Einstein

If you want to go far you have to go slow. - GM

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:47:58 -0500

If you want to go far you have to go slow.

- GM

- W.H. Auden, This and That

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 11:17:46 -0500

- W.H. Auden, This and That

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:37:22 -0500

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. - Joan Didion

"In Chinese there is a term which is very difficult to translate into English, it is something like..."

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 00:35:19 -0500

“In Chinese there is a term which is very difficult to translate into English, it is something like “chances.” It means: Why am I sitting here having this interview with you instead of somebody else? Why should we meet here?”

- Wong Kar-wai

"The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very..."

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 12:58:03 -0400

“The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”

- W.H. Auden

"This may be shit. We don’t know. We haven’t had time to realize it yet. You know, that sort of..."

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:40:00 -0400

“This may be shit. We don’t know. We haven’t had time to realize it yet. You know, that sort of thing. But that kind of gives the game away, because, actually, we are shit. And that’s why it takes three years to uncover the stuff underneath.”

- Thom Yorke

"Yeah, it’s dope, but man, give me some time and I can give you way better! All I know is that at the..."

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 22:05:51 -0400

“Yeah, it’s dope, but man, give me some time and I can give you way better! All I know is that at the end of the day, I’m very excited because I feel like I understand what I wanna do, and now it’s just about doing it. That’s the easy part. Understanding what you wanna do is the hard part. Now, I feel like I’m more comfortable than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and it’s pretty crazy. I feel extremely lost at the same time, like I’m screwed, but at the same time I really feel like, even though I’m screwed, I really know what I wanna do. So, no matter what happens, even if things go downhill, I still know what I wanna do. And that’s always gonna keep me going up. Everything else doesn’t matter, nothing matters unless you know what you wanna do.”

- Teebs