my favorite quotes
I have a few drafted posts in the queue to look forward to: our summer master list being one of them, also a newsletter on feeling lost in your late twenties/ early thirties (especially as it pertains to career changing, purpose, etc), a june wish list, and another bookish letter with lots of book recommendations.
Before we get into to some quotes, I need to flex something I received in the mail…
Parade explores the lives of contemporary artists dealing with familial and societal constraints, told through four distinct sections that push the boundaries of traditional storytelling. The book focuses on several characters named G, including a painter who begins to paint upside down, revealing unsettling truths about the female condition, and a female artist who marries and has a child, facing oppression from her husband. Additionally, Parade delves into the dynamics of a dysfunctional utopian community, the turmoil in the art world following a tragic incident, and the reflections of siblings at their mother's deathbed. The novel also challenges conventional narrative structures and offers a deep meditation on art, love, and femininity.
A big thank you Faber for sending me this. Can’t wait to write my full review soon.
One last mail flex…
Okay, it’s time to share some of my favorite quotes from books and authors I adore:
But how could you live and have no story to tell? -Fyodor Dostoevsky, White Nights
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
If you look for perfection, you'll never be content. -Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
When asked, "Why do you always wear black?", he said, "I am mourning for my life.” -Anton Chekhov
What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age. -Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited. -Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Watch out for intellect, because it knows so much it knows nothing and leaves you hanging upside down, mouthing knowledge as your heart, falls out of your mouth. -Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems
We tell ourselves stories in order to live. -Joan Didion, The White Album
You have to pick the places you don't walk away from. -Joan Didion
New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. -Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem
I'm not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me. -Sally Rooney, Normal People
“I don't know what's wrong with me, says Marianne. I don't know why I can't be like normal people.” -Sally Rooney, Normal People
“You are your best thing” -Toni Morrison, Beloved
I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive. -Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. -Donna Tartt, The Secret History
Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones I did not. -Donna Tartt, The Secret History
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. -Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I write and that way rid myself of me and then at last I can rest.” -Clarice Lispector
My life is very simple. I read a lot of books. I watch a lot of movies. Listen to a lot of music. Walk the dog. Cook with my family. -Cillian Murphy (not a book. i stumbled upon this quote recently and it really spoke to me)
My library is an archive of longings. -Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
That’s all for today.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of good podcasts. I’ll share some episodes I think you’ll love, too sometime this week.
Love you.
Oh, you can follow me on TikTok and IG for more. <3 @caitlynandcharlee
ok now i need to start writing down my favorite quotes, these are so good. i think i'll start the list with this one "But how could you live and have no story to tell? -Fyodor Dostoevsky", it's a good reminder to go do things