barometry

(via beccaandthebox)

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:31:00 +0800

"In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:17:53 +0800

“In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”

- Albert Camus
“Return to Tipasa”
The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Stories
(Translated by Justin O’Brien)

"And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty,..."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:09:00 +0800

“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history—money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery—the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

- C. S. Lewis
Book II: What Christians Believe, 3. The Shocking Alternative
Mere Christianity

“You’re no good. You’re mean and vicious and...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:46:07 +0800

“You’re no good. You’re mean and vicious and wild. And you always have been. And you know it too, don’t you?”

East of Eden

"And the King said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but..."

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:33:30 +0800

“And the King said to me, “Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart.””

- King Artaxerxes II to Nehemiah
The Bible, Nehemiah 2:2 ESV

“Sitrep”, 12 April, 2012 Diary Comics by Dustin...

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 21:02:00 +0800

“Sitrep”, 12 April, 2012
Diary Comics by Dustin Harbin

Dandel and ChunkyGood-bye, Chunky Rice Craig Thompson

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:17:00 +0800

Dandel and Chunky
Good-bye, Chunky Rice
Craig Thompson

"I was in love with circuses and their mystery: I suppose the most important memory is of Mr...."

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:35:41 +0800

“

I was in love with circuses and their mystery: I suppose the most important memory is of Mr. Electrico. On Labor Day weekend, 1932, when I was twelve years old, he came to my hometown with the Dill Brothers…. He was a performer sitting in an electric chair and a stagehand pulled a switch and he was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Lightning flashed in his eyes and his hair stood on end. I sat below, in the front row, and he reached down with a flaming sword full of electricity and he tapped me on both shoulders and then the tip of my nose and he cried, “Live, forever!” And I thought, “God, that’s wonderful. How do you do that?” The next day, I had to go to the funeral of one of my favorite uncles. Driving back from the graveyard with my family, I looked down the hill toward the shoreline of Lake Michigan and I saw the tents and the flags of the carnival and I said to my father, “Stop the car,” and he said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “I have to get out.”

Here I was, a twelve-year-old kid saying this, and my father stopped the car and I got out and he was furious with me. He expected me to stay with the family to mourn. But I got out of the car anyway and I ran down the hill toward the carnival. Until a few years ago, I’d forgotten about that funeral. But I was running away from death, wasn’t I? I was running toward life. Mr. Electrico was down with the carnival at the bottom of the hill. And by God I got there and he was sitting on the platform out in front of the carnival and I didn’t know what to say. I was sort of scared of making a fool of myself. I had a magic trick in my pocket, one of those little ball-and-vase tricks—a little container that had a ball in it that you made disappear and reappear—and I got that out and asked, “Can you show me how to do this?” It was the right thing to do. It made a contact. He knew he was talking to a young magician.

He took it, showed me how to do it, gave it back to me, then he looked at my face and said, “Would you like to meet those people in that tent over there? Those strange people?” And I said, “Yes, sir, I would.” He said, “C’mon.” So he led me over there and he hit the tent with his cane and said, “Clean up your language! Clean up your language!”

He took me in, and the first person I met was the Illustrated Man. Isn’t that wonderful? The Illustrated Man! I didn’t call him that, he was the Tattooed Man. I changed his name later for my book. But I met the Strong Man, I met the Fat Lady, I met the trapeze people, I met the dwarf and the skeleton. They all became characters later in my life.

Then we went out and sat on the dunes near the lake and talked, and all of a sudden, I don’t know why he said it, he leaned over and he said, “I’m glad you’re back in my life.” I said, “What do you mean? I don’t know you.” He said, “Yes. You were my best friend outside of Paris in 1918. You were wounded in the battle of the Argonne Forest and you died in my arms outside there, twenty-two years ago. I’m glad you’re back in the world. You have a different face, a different name, but the soul shining out of your face is the same as my friend. Welcome back.” Now why did he say that? Explain that to me, why? It could be that he saw the intensity for which I live.

Every once in a while at a book signing I see a young boy or girl who is so full of fire that it shines out of their face and you pay more attention to that. Because they are so alert, and everything you say, they are hanging on it. It could be that maybe at the age of twelve there was something in my face that I couldn’t see, of course, but he did. Maybe that’s what attracted him.

So when I left the carnival that day I stood by the carousel and I watched the horses running around and around to the music of “Beautiful Ohio” and I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks because I knew something important had happened to me that day because of Mr. Electrico. I felt changed. And so I went home and within days I started to write. And I’ve never stopped. Isn’t that amazing? It makes me cold all over to think about it. My life was turned around completely.

”

- Ray Bradbury
Listen to the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews
Collected by Sam Weller

"Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears…"

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 14:31:00 +0800

“Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears…”

- Albert Camus
May 1935 - September 1937
Notebooks, 1935-1942

"What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a..."

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:58:00 +0800

“What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.
”

- Blaise Pascal
Penseés
425, Section VII: Morality and Doctrine

"…I have noticed one overarching theme among smart people: they ask questions. When someone..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:42:08 +0800

“…I have noticed one overarching theme among smart people: they ask questions. When someone explains something new to me, I’ll usually just nod my head like I know what they’re talking about. If I don’t understand something, I’ll just Google it later. After all, I don’t want this person to think I’m a moron. Smart people are different. If they don’t understand something, or even if they think they understand something, they’ll ask questions.”

- “What I’ve Learned About Smart People”
Tommy MacWilliam

Photo

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:43:44 +0800

借りぐらしのアリエッティ (The Borrower Arriety)

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:15:46 +0800

借りぐらしのアリエッティ
(The Borrower Arriety)

"These are disastrous consequences, and all the result of not having “the heart established in..."

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:23:01 +0800

“These are disastrous consequences, and all the result of not having “the heart established in grace.””

- Charles Henry Mackintosh
Chapters XXIX—XXXI
Notes on the Book of Genesis

"Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love..."

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:33:00 +0800

“Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things.”

- Albert Einstein, 30 July 1947
Albert Einstein, The Human Side: New Glimpses From His Archives
From a letter in response to an Idaho farmer who named his son Albert and requesting to give the boy a few words of encouragement.

"The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:15:00 +0800

“The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

- Eden Phillpotts
A shadow passes

Diagnoses by Anne Emond

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:04:00 +0800

Diagnoses
by Anne Emond

"Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone;"

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:58:00 +0800

“Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;”

- XC, Canto III
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
Lord Byron

“What it means to be an adult” by Monica Sutera...

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:48:15 +0800

“What it means to be an adult”
by Monica Sutera Ekabutr

Photo

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:59:40 +0800