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

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

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

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

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.

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

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