Souls for Sale

“A writer never forgets the first time he accepted a few coins or a word of praise in exchange for a story. He will never forget the sweet poison of vanity in his blood and the belief that, if he succeeds in not letting anyone discover his lack of talent, the dream of literature will provide him with a roof over his head, a hot meal at the end of the day, and what he covets the most: his name printed on a miserable piece of paper that surely will outlive him. A writer is condemned to remember that moment, because from then on he is doomed and his soul has a price.”

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón 

You have to learn to love

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levin said it right. He said, “Love is the only rational act.”

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Book of the Week

 The element that surprised me when I read this book, a few years ago, was the narrator of the story: death itself. I think the writer was right to tell the story from the point of view of death, after all,  there's no better narrator to tell a story set in World War II. Also liked how the writer gave humanity to the character's death, making the reader sympathize with it and feel sorry for it (priceless the last setence of the novel, my favorite,  wich manages to send chills down my spine).

“Please believe me when I tell you that I picked up each soul that day as if it were newly born. I even kissed a few weary, poisoned cheeks. I listened to their last, gasping cries. Their vanishing words. I watched their love visions and freed them from their fear.” 

 It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist: books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.

You make me strong

“And now I’m looking at you,” he said, “and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before – bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it – but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.” 

City of Glass by Cassandra Clare 

Love attacks the reason

“The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.”

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

What's life without a little risk?

''It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.''

 

J. K. Rowling

The only true unconditional love

“When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.” 

For one more day by Mitch Albom 

The truth is too painful

“My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with the truth itself. What succor, what consolation is there in the truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.”

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Let me be myself

“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.”

The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Book of the Week

 I was sixteen when I read  Pride and Prejudice. It was the first Jane Austen novel I read and I fell completely in love with this author. Since then I've read everything she wrote.

"From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

 When Elizabeth Bennet first meets eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, she thinks him arrogant and conceited; he is indifferent to her good looks and lively mind. When she later discovers that Mr Darcy has involved himself in the troubled relationship between his friend Mr Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, she is determined to dislike him more than ever.

Books make me feel I am not alone

“But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.

“Oh, yes,” Lestat said. “Sometimes they are the only thing that keeps me alive.”

“What a strange thing to say at your age,” she laughed.

“No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer one hope — that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved.”

                                       Blackwood Farm by Anne Rice

Every night I save you

 I'm a huge fan of Buffy since I was twelve, and Spike has always been my favorite character of the show.
Undoubtedly Spuffy is my favorite fictional couple.

  ''I do remember what I said. The promise... to protect her. If I'd done that... even if I didn't make it... you wouldn't have had to jump. But I want you to know I did save you. Not when it counted, of course, but, after that. Every night after that. I'd see it all again... I do something different. Faster or more clever, you know? Dozens of times, lots of different ways... Every night I save you.''

Spike  'After Life' -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sonnet 43

 I just found this girl on youtube- +Pearls Of Wisdom - and I'm so grateful for all her videos. She'll be a lot on my blog from now, no doubt!
 A few days ago I shared with you How do I love thee by Elizabeth Barret Browning. Now, here's the poem read by a sweet voice that gives the delicacy and vulnerability own this confession of love. Because for me, Elizabeth doesn't declare her love, she confesses her love.

My wild heart bleeds with yours

“She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.”
 And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.''

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

How can you feel without a heart?

“I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death; and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

You are my better self

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

I will love you every step of the way

“I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it.

I will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear dagger proof tunics, and as a dagger proof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled.

I will love you until every fire is extinguised and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love until M. hates snakes and J. hates grammar, and I will love you until C. realizes S. is not worthy of his love and N. realizes he is not worthy of the V. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively.

I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and now matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.” 

Lemony Snicket

Always ϟ

''Harry: Why are you here, all of you?

Lily: We never left.''

In good times... and in bad times

 This is the story of Loki (impossible not to know who he is, thanks to Marvel) and his wife, Sigyn.  According to Norse myth, Loki, ussing his sagacity, killed Baldr (Odin's son). When the gods found out the truth, they took Loki's children, Váli and Nari/Narfi, and changed Váli into a wolf who rips apart his brother. His guts were used to tie Loki to three stones: one under his shoulders, another under the kidneys, and the third under his knees. The guts turned to iron and the goddess Skaði placed a snake above Loki. His wife, refusing to leave him, decided to stay sitting next to him for all eternity.
 The myth says that she's holding a bowl all the time to catch the dripping venom from the snake, but when the bowl becomes full, she has to leave him to pour out the venom, and at that time the venom falls on Loki's face. The pain is so terrible that he cannot help shake violently, and causing tremors in the Earth.
 His punishment will last until the twilight of the gods, and Sigyn will stay with him to avoid as much suffering as possible... forever.

[Picture] Loki and Sigyn (1863) by Marten Eskil Winge

Let's go to our own world... Where we can be happy

“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.” 

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Passion: the air we breathe

''Passion…it lies in all of us.

Sleeping. Waiting.

And though unwanted, unbidden…

It will stir..Open its jaws and howl.

It speaks to us, guides us.

Passion rules us all and we obey.

What other choice do we have?

Passion is the source of our finest moments.

The joy of love…the clarity of hatred..

and the ecstacy of grief.

It hurts sometimes more than we can bear.

If we could live without passion,

maybe we’d know some kind of peace.

But we would be hollow.

Empty rooms: shuttered and dank.

Without passion…

we’d be truly dead.''

Joss Whedon --- Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The Magic of Books

“People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.”

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield 

Human: the only animal capable of self-pity

''I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.''

Self-Pity by D.H. Lawrence

Being in love is to be vulnerable

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

Do not declare your love, better confess

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is one of my favorite poets, and I want to share with you this beautiful poem of hers.

        How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 

I love with a passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death.                                         

Tell me which poets you read!!!

I'm totally imperfect

''Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It's the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say: 'This is me, and I'm interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all I am but, more important, all that I am not'''

Ashton Kutcher

Book of the Week

I read this book a long time ago, I fell in love then, and still love it. I read it in Spanish, so I don't know how good and reliable is the translation, but still recommended:

''Fifteen years on, the remembrance of that day has returned to me. I have seen that boy wandering through the mist of the railway station, and the name of Marina has flared up again like a fresh wound. We all have a secret buried under lock and key in the attic of our soul. This is mine...''
 In May 1980, 15-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in the old quarter of Barcelona. For seven days and nights no one knows his whereabouts... His story begins in the heart of old Barcelona, when he meets Marina and her father German Blau, a portrait painter. Marina takes Oscar to a cemetery to watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the fourth Sunday of each month. At 10 a.m. precisely a coach pulled by black horses appears. From it descends a woman dressed in black, her face shrouded, wearing gloves, holding a single rose. She walks over to a gravestone that bears no name, only the mysterious emblem of a black butterfly with open wings. When Oscar and Marine decide to follow her, they begin a journey that will take them to the heights of a forgotten, post -war Barcelona, a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons; and a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.

Angel of Grief

"Sometimes I wish for falling

Wish for the release

Wish for falling through the air

To give me some relief

Because falling's not the problem

When I'm falling I'm in peace

It's only when I hit the ground

It causes all the grief" 

Have a little faith

 “Ignore any loss of nerve, ignore any loss of self-confidence, ignore any doubt or confusion. Move on believing in love, in peace, and harmony, and in great accomplishment. Remember joy isn't a stranger to you. You are winning and you are strong. Love. Love first, love always, love forever.”

Anne Rice 

Are you loved?

 “We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us”

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

The Beauty of Mortality

''I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again''

Carmilla and Laura

''You wll think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.''

 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. 

From the Gaelic Alba

I will live in Scotland some day...