A clever woman is more lethal than a freshly crafted magic wand, and this is why she is feared. She is unpredictable, and unpredictable is another word for ‘threat’

Nikita Gill, Fierce Fairytales: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul: Scheherazade The Clever

Minster Gate Bookshop, York

“That’s the way it is: If two people want to be together, they’ll find a way. They’ll forge a way.”

— Shobha Rao, An Unrestored Woman: And Other Stories

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”

— Alice Walker (via thoughtkick)

Still I Rise

by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.             

that second wave of sleep after waking up too early >>>

Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.

— William Faulkner.

@roach-works // Melissa Broder, "Problem Area" // Mary Oliver, "The Return" // @annavonsyfert // Koyoharu Gotouge, Demon Slayer // Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance // David Levithan, How They Met and Other Stories // Tennessee Williams, Notebooks

“Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but “steal” some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.”

— Albert Camus, from Notebooks, 1951-1959

“When you stop talking to people, stop talking about them too.”

— arabwife

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

“I’ve always liked quiet people: You never know if they’re dancing in a daydream or if they’re carrying the weight of the world.”

— John Green, Looking for Alaska

“I’ve been hurt so bad and I still love so hard. I admire my heart for that.”

— Alexandra Elle, Words From A Wanderer (via thebookquotes)