2039
(via underlinedbooks)
I don’t think it’s terribly controversial to note that women, from a young age, are required to consider the reality of the opposite gender’s consciousness in a way that men aren’t. This isn’t to say that women don’t often misunderstand, mistreat, and stereotype men, both in literature and in life. But on a basic level, functioning in society requires that women register that men are fully conscious; it is not really possible for a woman to throw up her hands and write men off as eternally unknowable space aliens — and even if she says she has, she cannot really behave as though she has. Every element of her life — from reading books about boys and men to writing papers about the motivations of male characters to being attentive to her own safety to navigating most any institutional or professional or economic sphere — demands an ironclad familiarity with, and belief in, the idea that men really are fully human entities. And no matter how many men come to the same conclusions about women, the structure of society simply does not demand so strenuously that they do so. If you didn’t really deep down believe that women were, in general, exactly as conscious as you, you could probably still get by in life. You could probably still get a book deal. You could probably still get elected to office.
Jennifer duBois, Writing Across Gender
(via literarynerd)
(Source: florida-uterati, via literarynerd)
A good book should leave you slightly exhausted at the end.
You lived several lives while reading it.
William Styron (via sam-ambition)
‘My planet was blown up one morning,’ said Arthur, who had found himself quite unexpectedly telling the little man his life story or, at least, edited highlights of it, ‘that’s why I’m dressed like this, in my dressing gown. My planet was blown up with all my clothes in it, you see. I didn’t realize I’d be coming to a party.’
The little man nodded enthusiastically.
‘Later, I was thrown off a spaceship. Still in my dressing gown. Rather than the space suit one would normally expect. Shortly after that I discovered that my planet had originally been built for a bunch of mice. You can imagine how I felt about that. I was then shot at for a while and blown up. In fact I have been blown up ridiculously often, shot at, insulted, regularly disintegrated, deprived of tea, and recently I crashed into a swamp and had to spend five years in a damp cave.’
‘Ah,’ effervesced the little man, ‘and did you have a wonderful time?’
Arthur started to choke violently on his drink.
‘What a wonderful exciting cough,’ said the little man, quite startled by it, ‘do you mind if I join you?’ And with that he launched into the most extraordinary and spectacular fit of coughing which caught Arthur so much by surprise that he started to choke violently, discovered he was already doing it and got thoroughly confused.
Together they performed a lung-busting duet which went on for fully two minutes before Arthur managed to cough and splutter to a halt.
‘So invigorating,’ said the little man, panting and wiping tears from his eyes.
‘What an exciting life you must lead. Thank you very much.’
He shook Arthur warmly by the hand and walked off into the crowd.
Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything (via litreferential)
(Source: elenahol)
Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.
C.S. Lewis (via corpofcorpses)
F. Scott Fitzgerald in drag for the Princeton Triangle Club, 1915-1916. And because he was such a free bitch, he was voted most beautiful Show Girl for the play “The Evil Eye” which he wrote the lyrics for and starred in.
(via fitzgeraldist)
