Tag Archives: Vincent Van Gogh

Engleza de joi/ Worthwhile

Worthwhile = useful, important, or good enough to be a suitable reward for the money or time spent or the effort made.

*Does the sun ask itself, “Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?” No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?” No, it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “Am I as big as other suns in other galaxies?” No, it burns, it shines.*
— Andrea Dworkin

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Art – Enclosed Field with Rising Sun by Vincent van Gogh.

Engleza de joi/ Silt

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Silt = sand, soil, mud, etc., that is carried by flowing water and that sinks to the bottom of a river, pond, etc.

“Seas move away, why not lovers? The harbours of Ephesus, the rivers of Heraclitus disappear and are replaced by estuaries of silt. The wife of Candaules becomes the wife of Gyges. Libraries burn.”
― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

Michael Ondaatje’s words are plain wizardry about visible wars and the invisible, the ones we battle everyday with us, shadows, dust and smoke. Nobody has molded love and life in such astounding stories.

He was born on the 12th of September, 73 years ago, in Sri Lanka.

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Art by Vincent van Gogh.

Engleza de joi/ Go-between

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Go-between = someone who takes messages between people who are unable or unwilling to meet:

“Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature.”
–Vladimir Nabokov

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Art by Vincent Van Gogh.

Writer’s block

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Imagination doesn’t come easy or cheap. Sometimes words slide gracefully into polished sentences and sometimes they stumble in incredibly incongruous ideas that represent nothing.

Write what goes through your mind. Then shape and polish the sharp edges. Have your thoughts run wild and tame them a little. Not too much.

Find sources of inspiration in everything you see, read, watch. Write them down and make up a story.

Listen to people. They are stories on two legs. They can give you hints of lives you could never know.

Write the truest sentence that you know. “I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’ So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there.”
– Ernest Hemingway
I always start with the truth, it is more illuminating and saner than everything we can imagine.

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