One of the best libraries in America: Kansas City Public Library. The façade of the Kansas City library is a giant bookshelf — how’s that for the power of books?
“There is a flash, a burst of heat, and my mother looks at my father one last time. My father simply holds on to her hand, pulls himself a little closer to her, and covers her body with his. They explode, burn away, and smolder, because sometimes it just makes sense to hold on like that.” -Kevin Wilson
Halfway through this lovely book.
The premises of the short stories are entirely surreal - the first two involve a grandmother rental agency and a boy who works at a scrabble factory after his parents spontaneously combust. Yet the writing is so spot-on emotionally that the stories hardly seem strange.
I love when fiction is good enough to achieve this balance. When it can be as honest and odd as I want the world to be.
“
If there is no fog on the day you come home I will build a bonfireMatthea Harvey, from “In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden” (via proustitute)
So the smoke will make the cedars look the way you like them
“
I’m not sentimental—I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last—the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.F. Scott Fitzgerald (via cardamonandcanvases)
“
… this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody getsJorie Graham, from “Prayer” (via proustitute)
what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing
is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by
each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself,
also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something
at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through
in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is
what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen
now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only
something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go.
I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never.
It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.
Call it an act of omission, my love.
Night Air by C. Dale Young
"If God is Art, then what do we make of Jasper Johns?" One never knows what sort of question a patient will pose, or how exactly one should answer. Outside the window, snow on snow began to answer the ground below with nothing more than foolish questions. We were no different. I asked again: "Professor, have we eased the pain?" Eventually, he’d answer me with: "Tell me, young man, whom do you love?" "E," I’d say, "None of the Above," and laugh for lack of something more to add. For days he had played that game, and day after day I avoided your name by instinct. I never told him how we often wear each other’s clothes— we aren’t what many presuppose. Call it an act of omission, my love. Tonight, while walking to the car, I said your name to the evening star, clearly pronouncing the syllables to see your name dissipate in the air, evaporate. Only the night air carries your words up to the dead (the ancients wrote): I watched them rise, become remote.
“
My editor won’t let any of the characters swear. Which is sometimes difficult because Ron is definitely a boy who would swear.J.K. Rowling (via accioronaldweasley)
(via youarebeautiful)
