“This afternoon's task was to introduce us to the works of William Shakespeare, and once again I was completely captivated by his charm and skill. [..] I loved the undercurrent of hostility that lay beneath the surface of this deceptively beautiful language. It seemed a shame that people no longer spoke this way, and I undertook a campaign to reintroduce Elizabethan English to the citizens of North Carolina.

'Perchance, fair lady, thou dost think me unduly vexed by the sorrowful state of thine quarters,' I said to my mother as I ran the vacuum cleaner over the living-room carpet she was inherently too lazy to bother with. 'These foul specks, the evidence of life itself, have sullied not only thine shag-tempered mat but also thine character. Be ye mad, woman? Were it a punishable crime to neglect thine dwellings, you, my feeble-spirited mistress, would hang from the tallest tree in penitence for your shameful ways. Be there not garments to launder and iron free of turbulence? See ye not the porcelain plates and hearty mugs waiting to be washed clean of evidence? Get thee to thine work, damnable lady, and quickly, before the products of thine very loins raise their collected fists in a spirit born both of rag and indignation, forcibly coaxing the last breath from the foul chamber of thine vain and upright throat. Go now, wastrel, and get to it!'

My mother reacted as if I had whipped her with a short length of yarn. The intent was there, but the weapon was strange and inadequate. I could tell by the state of my room that she spent the next day searching my dresser for drugs.”

Naked, David Sedaris

“It's not that we don't face things because they are difficult. Things are difficult because we don't face them.”

Lucio Séneca Recommended by Paula.

“We talked of death, and this was life to us.”

describing friendship with Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton

“I am alone here in my own mind.
There is no map
and there is no road.”

January 24th, Anne Sexton

“Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don't like to be told
that you're sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer.”

Live, Anne Sexton

“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Macbeth, William Shakespeare

“sechita / had learned to make allowances for the distortions/ but the heavy dust of the delta/ left a tinge of grit n darkness/ on every one of her dresses/ on her arms & her shoulders/ sechita/ waz anxious to get back to st. louis/ the dirt there didnt crawl from the earth into yr soul/ at least/ in st. louis/ the grime waz store bought second-hand/ here in natchez/ god seemed to be wipin his feet in her face/”

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf, Ntozake Shange

“I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”

Ode to the West Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Send away for a priceless gift
One not subtle, one not on the list
Send away for a perfect world
One not simply, so absurd
In these times of doing what you're told
You keep these feelings, no one knows
What ever happened to the young man's heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart

[...]

Send a message to the unborn child
Keep your eyes open for a while
In a box high up on the shelf, left for you, no one else
There's a piece of a puzzle known as life
Wrapped in guilt, sealed up tight.”

45, Shinedown Recommended by Alexis.

“There's nothing ever wrong but nothing's ever right
Such a cruel contradiction
I know I cross the lines its not easy to define
I'm born to indecision
There's always something new some path I'm supposed to choose
With no particular rhyme or reason.”

Burning Bright, Shinedown Recommended by Krystal.

“Jurgis, without a word, lifts Ona in his arms, and strides out with her, and she sinks her head upon his shoulder with a moan. When he reaches home he is not sure whether she has fainted or is asleep, but when he has to hold her with one hand while he unlocks the door he sees that she has opened her eyes.

'You shall not go to Smith's today, little one,' he whispers, as he climbs the stairs; and she catches his arm in terror, gasping: 'No! No! I dare not! It will ruin us!'

But he answers her again: 'Leave it to me; leave it to me. I will earn more money--I will work harder.'”

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

“Time to kill wrote a living will and gave it to the man in the moon
But I'm on a get well soon
This happy face is watching me die
Elevate me to another world
All that I can do in my own
Is leave well enough alone.”

A Living Will, Elliott Smith

“The litebrite's now black and white
Cause you took apart a picture that wasn't right
Pitch burning on a shining sheet
The only maker that you'd want to meet
The dying man in a living room
Who's shadow paces the floor
Who'll take you out in the open door
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
He said really I just wanna dance
Good and evil matched perfect it's a great romance
I can deal with some physic pain
If it'll slow down my higher brain
Veins full of disappearing ink
Vomiting in the kitchen sink
Disconnecting from the missing link
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
I see you're leaving me and taking up with the enemy
The cold comfort of the in between
A little less than a human being
A little less than a happy high
A little less than a suicide
The only things that you really tried
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
It's not what I'm like
It's just a fond farewell to a friend
Who couldn't get things right
Fond farewell to a friend
This is not my life
It's just a fond farewell to a friend ”

Fond Farewell, Elliott Smith

“She found it difficult, this thing of being alone, awaiting the arrival of a group. She prepared a face - as her favourite poet had it - to meet the faces that she met, and it was a procedure that required time and forewarning to function correctly. In fact, when she was not in company it didn't seem to her that she had a face at all... And yet in college, she knew she was famed for being opinionated, a 'personality' - the truth was she didn't take these public passions home, or even out of the room, in any serious way. She didn't feel that she had any real opinions, or at least not in the way other people seemed to have them. Once the class was finished she saw at once how she might have argued the thing just as viciously and successfully the other way round; defended Flaubert over Foucault; rescued Austen from insult instead of Adorno. Was anyone ever genuinely attached to anything? She had no idea. It was either only Zora who experienced this odd impersonality or it was everybody, and they were all play-acting, as she was. She presumed that this was the revelation college would bring her, at some point. In the meantime, waiting like this, waiting to be come upon by real people, she felt herself to be light, existentially light, and nervously rumbled through possible topics of conversation, a ragbag of weighty ideas she carried around in her brain to lend herself the appearance of substance. Even on this short trip to the bohemian end of Wellington - a journey that, having been traversed by car, offered no opportunity whatsoever for reading - she had brought along, in her knapsack, three novels and a short tract by De Beauvoir on ambiguity - so much ballast to stop her floating away, up and over the flood, into the night sky.”

On Beauty, Zadie Smith

“And how can you bring it home to them? By an inspiration? By a vision? A dream? Brothers! People! Why has life been given you? In the deep, deaf stillness of midnight, the doors of the death cells are being swung open--and great-souled people are being dragged out to be shot. On all the railroads of the country this very minute, right now, people who have just been fed salt herrings are licking their dry lips with bitter tongues. They dream of the happiness of stretching out one's legs and of the relief one feels after going to the toilet. In Orotukan the earth thaws only in summer and only to the depth of three feet - and only then can they bury the bones of those who died during the winter. And you have the right to arrange your own life under the blue sky and the hot sun, to get a drink of water, to stretch, to travel wherever you like without a convoy. So what's this about unwiped feet? And what's this about a mother-in-law? What about the main thing in life, all its riddles? If you want, I'll spell it out for you right now. Do not pursue what is illusory-property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes see, and if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart - and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it might be your last act before your arrest, and that will be how your are imprinted in their memory!”

The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Better to die, and sleep
The never-waking sleep, than linger on
And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.”

Sophocles

“Some days aren't yours at all
They come and go as if they're someone elses days
They come and leave you behind someone elses face
And it's harsher than yours, and colder than yours
They come in all quiet, sweep up, and then they leave
And you don't hear a single floor board creak
They're so much stronger than the friends you try to keep by your side.”

Somedays, Regina Spektor Recommended by Shay.

“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents and no one's fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishment for concealed sins.

And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous. ”

East Of Eden, John Steinbeck

“He decided in favor of life out of sheer spite and sheer malice.”

Perfume, Patrick Süskind

“We have just enough religion to make us hate but not enough to make us love one another.”

Thoughts On Various Subjects, Jonathan Swift

“Life is not a movie. Good guys lose. Everybody lies. And love does not conquer all.”

Swimming With Sharks [movie]

“The next night, I lay straight on the bed next to him.... still didn't touch me ...the next night I took off my gown... He was scared and turned his face. He had no desire for me, but it was his fear that made me think he had no desire for any women. .. After more months had passed (his mom said) My son says he’s planted enough seeds for thousands of grandchildren. .. It must be you doing something wrong....she confined me to the bed so that her grandchildren's seeds would not spill out so easily.”

The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan

“What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the bed’s edge. The drawers were all opened and their contents scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he would never come back. He was gone forever. Would he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had met Lord Steyne. She thought of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely and profitless! Should she take laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes, schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes. The woman was her accomplice and in Steyne’s pay. 'Mon Dieu, madame, what has happened?' she asked.

What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not, but who could tell what was truth which came from those lips, or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure?

All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy.”

Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas

“'I shared a dark suspicion,' Kemp says, 'that the life we were leading was a lost cause, we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles — a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other — that kept me going.'”

The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson