— Adrienne Rich, From “Integrity.”

Is it possible to develop a voice in writing with such coherence and quiet authority that I can do away with narrative structure? (Plot?) In the dream story, all that’s holding it together now is the voice, and maybe the imagery—holding it together against its own tendency to fragment, to fly apart. The pieces want to return to some other order—not with each other—but I compel them quite quietly to hold together my way.

from One Day I'll Remember This Diaries 1987–1995 by Helen Garner

Some drawings from little edits Ive posted the past month or so. You can see them on my insta (@star_bite) or TikTok (@star_bite)

“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Left Hand of Darkness

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet

“And maybe that’s all I wanted—to be asked a question and have it cover me, like a roof the width of myself.”

— Ocean Vuong, from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“[…] the openness to revelation. Which is another way of saying, to being wrong about what is possible and true.”

— Karen Russell, from “The Ghost Birds”

But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter?

— Mary Oliver, from “Snowy Night”

“In the end I would rather wonder than know.”

— Mary Ruefle, from “On Secrets,” in Madness, Rack, and Honey

ppl are asking questions like, "how do i get out of this labyrinth" and "this is horribole why would anyone build this" but i think we shoudl be asking questions like "why dont the others love the labyrinth as much as i do" and "how do i make tgem love the labyrinth"

it's so fucked up that francis spent months thinking about wrapping his hands around james's neck in anger and instead their relationship ends with him gently caressing his throat

une passion pour jeanne d’arc, stella tennant by paolo roversi for vogue paris february 1994

recurring gifsets of the character on my highly personalized tumblr dash save me

— from Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

"[...] Revising the perceived sad ending of the entry, Geryon again borrows from “Red Meat,” this time its final fragment, writing, “All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand/ in hand,” shifting away from self-centering and instead highlighting red’s continuance without him and its propensity for connection, despite Geryon’s own alienation. Redness is not exclusive to boys but can belong to breezes too."

— from Anne Carson: “Red Meat: Fragments of Stesichoros” by Kristi Maxwell

I must retire to my chamber now that you've turned on the biggie big head light but lament no more for I shall be vocal stimming very loudly from there so you could still enjoy the abundant warmth of my company

oh my favorite trope? two people who go through something so unique and agonizing and entirely beyond words that they have no choice but to create a bond that transcends all other types of love, thus acting as the sole point of understanding for the other person in a world that cannot fathom what they’ve been through