Monday 25 August 2014

Date a girl who reads

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.


Find a girl who reads.
 You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.


She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.


Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.


It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.


Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.


Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.


You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.


Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”


― Rosemarie Urquico

Sunday 27 July 2014

As if you had died

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent, 
and you hear me from far away, and my voice does not touch you. 
It looks as though your eyes had flown away 
and it looks as if a kiss had sealed your mouth.

Like all things are full of my soul 
You emerge from the things, full of my soul. 
Dream butterfly, you look like my soul, 
and you look like a melancoly word.

I like you when you are quiet and it is as though you are distant. 
It is as though you are complaining, butterfly in lullaby. 
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you: 
let me fall quiet with your own silence.

Let me also speak to you with your silence 
Clear like a lamp, simple like a ring. 
You are like the night, quiet and constellated.
Your silence is of a star, so far away and solitary.

I like you when you are quiet because it is as though you are absent. 
Distant and painful as if you had died. 
A word then, a smile is enough. 
And I am happy, happy that it is not true.


Pablo Neruda

Thursday 19 June 2014

Don't dance with the devil on your back

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
And every demon wants his pound of flesh


                            And I've been a fool and I've been blind
                                        I can never leave the past behind            
                                   I can see no way, I can see no way
                              I'm always dragging that horse around
                      All of his questions, such a mournful sound
          But tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right up my throat
Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me


                            And I am done with my graceless heart
                 So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
                               Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
                                   It's always darkest before the dawn



Monday 16 June 2014

Happiness is not a state, but a moment

"Happiness is like a butterfly, which appears and delights us for one brief moment but soon flits away"


                           Anna Pavlova

Saturday 14 June 2014

Angelic Power



Rune created by Cassandra Clare for her series The Mortal Instruments.

Let's beat the heat!


I am my literary DNA

“Books help to form us. If you cut me open, you will find volume after volume, page after page, the contents of every one I have ever read, somehow transmuted and transformed into me. Alice in Wonderland. the Magic Faraway Tree. The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Book of Job. Bleak House. Wuthering Heights. The Complete Poems of W H Auden. The Tale of Mr Tod. Howard''s End. What a strange person I must be. But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.”


Susan Hill

Sunday 1 June 2014

The Capital of Spain

I've been already in Madrid a couple of years ago, and I fell in love with it. Hope to live there someday.








Saturday 31 May 2014

Death is not the enemy

"Death is not an evil, because it frees us from all evils, and while it takes away good things, it takes away also the desire for them. Old age is the supreme evil, because it deprives us of all pleasures, leaving us only the appetite for them, and it brings with it all sufferings. Nevertheless, we fear death, and we desire old age." 


Giacomo Loepardi

Monday 12 May 2014

Book of the Week

I love books that have good plot twists. This book has two of them. Two plot twists that will completely change your perspective of the victim and the characters associated with her. 


"Young girls and mass murders are tender hearted creatures" 

Alex Prévost—kidnapped, savagely beaten, suspended from the ceiling of an abandoned warehouse in a tiny wooden cage—is running out of time. Her abductor appears to want only to watch her die. Will hunger, thirst, or the rats get her first?

Apart from a shaky eyewitness report of the abduction, Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven has nothing to go on: no suspect, no leads, and no family or friends anxious to find a missing loved one. The diminutive and brilliant detective knows from bitter experience the urgency of finding the missing woman as quickly as possible—but first he must understand more about her. 

As he uncovers the details of the young woman’s singular history, Camille is forced to acknowledge that the person he seeks is no ordinary victim. She is beautiful, yes, but also extremely tough and resourceful. Before long, saving Alex’s life will be the least of Commandant Verhoeven’s considerable challenges.

Saturday 3 May 2014

Haunt Me

“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

 

 Wuthering Heights by  Emily Brontë

Tuesday 15 April 2014

Be Drunk

''You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the 
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks 
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually 
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be 
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of 
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, 
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, 
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything 
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is 
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and 
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be 
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish." 


Charles Baudelaire

Friday 28 March 2014

The First Book

“Once, in my father's bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.” 


The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Clenched Soul

We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.

I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.

Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.

I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.

Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?

The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.

Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues. 


Pablo Neruda

Tuesday 11 March 2014

The place you were always meant to be

“The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations - all of them rearranging themselves so this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.”


Every Day by David Levithan

Tuesday 4 March 2014

Book of the Week

 I read this book a long time ago. I've always loved Christian mythology, angels and demons. I think these are topics where you can explote a lot and, well treated, you can write really good stories. So, obviously, when I saw this book, I couldn't resist.
It's well written, realistically. When you write about supernatural topics, especially about angels, it's so easy to fall into the ridiculous. You have to be careful. Coherence is essential when you write any story, especiallly supernatural stories. Coherence gives credibility.
You never get the feeling that it's too fanciful or that lacks logic, and that's a big plus with these stories.


“Angel and devil,” he said. “One is but a shade of the other.” 

The story follows a nun in New York who unwittingly reignites an ancient war between Angelologists, a group who study angels, and a race of descendants of angels and humans called the Nephilim. The story blends ancient biblical pericopes, the myth of Orpheus, and the fall of rebel angels.

Friday 28 February 2014

The Soul of a Writer

 “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

Sunday 23 February 2014

Love Me for Love's Sake

Sonnet XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" -
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity. 


Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Tuesday 18 February 2014

I will turn your tears into diamonds.

Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds... true love?


Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Between the Shadow and the Soul

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this: 

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. ” 


Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

Sunday 9 February 2014

Every dream I've ever had

 “I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours. ”
   
                                                       
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

Thursday 6 February 2014

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice. 


Robert Frost

Monday 3 February 2014

Book of the Week

 This is one of my favorite books. It's a short story, which is a shame, I'd have liked to go deeper into the story of Carmilla and Laura. But it's short story full of beauty. A story of love and repulsion, opposing feelings, terrifying truths. A story full of sensuality and sexuality, narrated so subtly that it is irresistible.



 “Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.”

  Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria, where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service. When she was six years old, Laura had a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her.
 Twelve years later, a carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the "dream" they both had when they were young. Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months.

Blood Suckers

 "Imagine drinking the finest champagne and the sensation of the most sensual lovemaking you've ever experienced. Overlay that with the rush the opium fiend feels as he takes that first breath on the pipe, and you begin to have some sense, some tiny, infinitesimal sense of what it feels like to drink the blood of...a living human being."


Vampire: The Masquerade 

Sunday 2 February 2014

Evil is a point of view

“Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.”


The Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Thursday 30 January 2014

My feelings are a paradox

 “From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence,
I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed
to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and
soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover
myself when she withdrew her arms.
In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I experienced a strange
tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with
a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her
while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into
adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can
make no other attempt to explain the feeling.” 


 Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Monday 27 January 2014

The man full of dark fell for the girl full of light


 “Don’t underestimate the allure of darkness. Even the purest hearts are drawn to it. Still, I’m sure it will all be fine.


You’ll never have to loath the darkest parts of yourself that care for me in spite of all I’ve done. I will be gone and you’ll be free. I just want you to be honest with me.


He's your first love. I intend to be your last. However long it takes.


Perhaps one day, in a year or even in a century, you’ll turn up at my door and let me show you what the world has to offer. You mark my words. Small-town boy, small-town life; it won’t be enough for you.


I’ve done more than enough. I’ve shown kindness, forgiveness, pity… because of you, Caroline. It was all for you.


So you’ve never felt the attraction that comes when someone who’s capable of doing terrible things for some reason cares only about you?” 


Klaus to Caroline - The Vampire Diaries