Woolf At The Door

Indeed, there is nothing more vexing, for instance, than to be rich, of respectable family, of decent appearance, of rather good education, not stupid, even kind, and at the same time to have no talent, no particularity, no oddity even, not a single idea of one’s own, to be decidedly ‘like everybody else.’

—Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot; p. 462, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Vintage). (via literarylust)

(Source: asthepoemsgo, via literarylust)

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures.

—Gustave Flaubert (via beermethatquote)

(via the-library-and-step-on-it)

Will There Be Enough Water

When My Ship Comes In?

The Dead Weather