everywhere in the world they hurt little girls

[game of thrones, season 4 episode 5: first of his name]

DEATHLESS, CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE

‘You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut’

King // “Lady Macbeth”, John Singer Sargent, 1889

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than merely to keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us. For example, when Captain Bartolus saw Orlando’s skirt, he had an awning stretched for her immediately, pressed her to take another slice of beef, and invited her to go ashore with him in the long-boat. These compliments would certainly not have been paid her had her skirts, instead of flowing, been cut tight to her legs in the fashion of breeches. And when we are paid compliments, it behoves us to make some return. Orlando curtseyed; she complied; she flattered the good man’s humours as she would not have done had his neat breeches been a woman’s skirts, and his braided coat a woman’s satin bodice. Thus, there is much to support the view that it is clothes that wear us and not we them; we may make them take the mould of arm or breast, but they mould our hearts, our brains, our tongues to their liking. So, having now worn skirts for a considerable time, a certain change was visible in Orlando, which is to be found if the reader will look at above, even in her face. If we compare the picture of Orlando as a man with that of Orlando as a woman we shall see that though both are undoubtedly one and the same person, there are certain changes. The man has his hand free to seize his sword, the woman must use hers to keep the satins from slipping from her shoulders. The man looks the world full in the face, as if it were made for his uses and fashioned to his liking. The woman takes a sidelong glance at it, full of subtlety, even of suspicion. Had they both worn the same clothes, it is possible that their outlook might have been the same.

-Orlando, Virginia Woolf

Evangeline & Jacks

“You can go back to pretending you don't like me, and I can pretend that I don't care. but for tonight, let me pretend you're mine.”

ISMAE RIENNE

Grave Mercy, Robin Lafevers

Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

midday thaw by tomas tranströmer, translated by patty crane // madonna della pietá by michelangelo buonarroti

FRANKENSTEIN by MARY SHELLEY

I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

the night circus (erin morgenstern)

"the circus arrives without warning. no announcements precede it. it is simply there, when yesterday it was not."

LORD OF SCOUNDRELS by Loretta Chase

“I will teach you a lesson you’ll never forget.”

She tangled her fingers in his hair and brought his mouth to hers. “My wicked darling,” she whispered. “I should like to see you try.”

Following in @lemmiart ‘s footsteps, I drew the thing in my book 🥺 My friend said this was blasphemous but I plan on dying with this book in my arms, and it makes me happy so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Emily Dickinson, from The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson