“Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below.”
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
With spring in the air, this bit of literary poetry sprang to mind.
What words from literature make you think of spring, or vice versa?
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.”
~Jane Austen, Persuasion
“Up out of the lampshade, startled by the overhead light, flew a large nocturnal butterfly that began circling the room. The strains of the piano and violin rose up weakly from below.”
With spring in the air, this bit of literary poetry sprang to mind.
What words from literature make you think of spring, or vice versa?
“If I am out of my mind, it’s all right with me…”
Saul Bellow, Herzog
“…life on earth is both brutally short, and paradoxically, far too long. ”
Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle
“Remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too poor to buy.”
C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
Share a line or two from literature that brings you strong imagery, memories, and/or feelings.
… “The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary.
They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of
fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully…“
“You have to make an effort to always look at the good side, always think about the good things. Then you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. If something bad comes up,
you do more thinking at that point…”
~ Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
“The Elephant Vanishes” is a collection of 17 short stories by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The stories were written between 1980 and 1991, and published in Japan in various magazines, then collections. The contents of this compilation were selected by Gary Fisketjon (Murakami’s editor at Knopf) and first published in English translation in 1993.
Today is the birthday of the great playwright George Bernard Shaw
Known at his insistence simply as
Bernard Shaw. Born July 26th 1856
an Irish playwright whose influence on Western theater, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, with a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory.
Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“You don’t get tired of muffins. But you don’t find inspiration in them”
“I can’t turn your soul on. Leave me those feelings; and you can take away the voice and the face. They are not you.”
Fun Fact: Pygmalion was the play that was later adapted to the famous musical “My Fair Lady.”
“You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were;
and I say ‘Why not?”
~Bernard Shaw
Cafe Book Bean 