Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
the first story that, as he later put it, “rang his cherries” was Donald Barthelme’s “The Balloon.”
D. T. Max • Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace
Reality, better say, lost the quotes it wore like claws—in a world where independent and original minds must cling to things or pull things apart in order to ward off madness or death (which is the master madness).
Vladimir Nabokov • Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (Vintage International)
He had the same aristocratic sense of equality with all living creatures and the same gift of taking in everything at a glance and of expressing his thoughts as they first came to him and before they had lost their meaning and vitality.
Pasternak Boris • Doctor Zhivago
Frost is the author of one of the greatest short poems in the English language, a poem that every American boy knows by heart, about the wintry woods, and the dreary dusk, and the little horsebells of gentle remonstration in the dull darkening air, and that prodigious and poignant end—two closing lines identical in every syllable, but one personal
... See moreVladimir Nabokov • Pale Fire (Vintage International)
After the last guest had gone (on a bicycle), and the ashtrays had been emptied, all the windows were dark for a couple of hours; but then, at about 3 A.M., I saw from my upstairs bathroom that the poet had gone back to his desk in the lilac light of his den, and this nocturnal session brought the canto to line 230 (card 18).
Vladimir Nabokov • Pale Fire (Vintage International)
The prose is astonishing, and in parts of Black Spring it is even better. Unfortunately I cannot quote; unprintable words occur almost everywhere. But get hold of Tropic of Cancer, get hold of Black Spring and read especially the first hundred pages. They give you an idea of what can still be done, even at this late date, with English prose. In the
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