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2,379 voters
“I had a strong sudden instinct that I must be alone. I didn’t want to see any people at all. I had seen so many people all my life -- I was an average mixer, but more than average in a tendency to identify myself, my ideas, my destiny, with those of all classes that came in contact with. I was always saving or being saved -- in a single morning I would go through the emotions ascribable to Wellington at Waterloo. I lived in a world of inscrutable hostiles and inalienable friends and supporters.”
― The Crack-Up
― The Crack-Up
“She has no interest in the composition from ten or twenty feet—that will come later. What she wants is topography, the impasto, the furrows where sable hairs were dragged into tiny painted crests to catch the light. Or the stray line of charcoal or chalk, glimpsed beneath a glaze that’s three hundred years old. She’s been known to take a safety pin and test the porosity of the paint and then bring the point to her tongue. Since old-world grounds contain gesso, glue, and something edible—honey, milk, cheese—the Golden Age has a distinctively sweet or curdled taste. She is always careful to avoid the leads and the cobalts. What”
― The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
― The Last Painting of Sara de Vos
“Florence exists to educate our memory.”
― The Way Back to Florence
― The Way Back to Florence
“If life has a base that it stands upon, if it is a bowl that one fills and fills and fills - than my bowl without a doubt stands upon this memory.”
― Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing
― Moments of Being: A Collection of Autobiographical Writing
“The natural state of the sentient adult is a qualified unhappiness.”
― The Crack-Up
― The Crack-Up
21st Century Literature
— 3554 members
— last activity 8 hours, 15 min ago
We read literary fiction from 2000 to present, with the intent of finding those literary gems of timeless and enduring quality. We're less focused o ...more
All About Books
— 3830 members
— last activity 16 hours, 31 min ago
We're here because we like reading and we like chatting about reading. But we are here especially because we strongly believe that reading is not just ...more
Ben’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ben’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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