Lit Verve

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:42:26 -0400

“I make the most of all that comes

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:38:42 -0400

“I make the most of all that comes

the least of all that goes.”

Sara Teasdale, from “The Philosopher”

“A light here required a shadow there.”

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:34:27 -0400

“A light here required a shadow there.”

Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:26:05 -0400

“I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.”

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:23:01 -0400

“I am interested in language because it wounds or seduces me.”

Roland Barthes, “The Pleasure of the Text”

“The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish,…

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:19:43 -0400

“The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.”

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:14:30 -0400

“There isn’t enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given…

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:11:31 -0400

“There isn’t enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance, prevails.”

Raymond Carver, from “The Author of Her Misfortune”

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

Fri, 22 May 2026 14:03:24 -0400

“I am rooted, but I flow.”

Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Fri, 22 May 2026 13:58:49 -0400

“Keep awake, alive, new. Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft. Survive without…

Fri, 22 May 2026 13:50:58 -0400

“Keep awake, alive, new. Perform the paradox of being hard and yet soft. Survive without calcification of the tender membranes. Be a poet. Be alive.”

Tennessee Williams, from a diary entry on February 25, 1942

“Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.”

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:59:55 -0500

“Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

Robert Hass, from “Meditation at Lagunitas”

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:55:07 -0500

“The world is too much with us;”

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:49:37 -0500

“The world is too much with us;”

William Wordsworth, from “The World Is Too Much With Us”

“The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness And the cities are falling asleep, each in its…

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 10:46:14 -0500

“The bright side of the planet moves toward darkness
And the cities are falling asleep, each in its hour,
And for me, now as then, it is too much.
There is too much world.”

Czeslaw Milosz, from The Separate Notebooks, trans. by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:28:15 -0500

“Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:23:17 -0500

“Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”

Hermann Hesse, Wandering

“A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one…

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:21:21 -0500

“A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.”

Hermann Hesse, Wandering

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:14:19 -0500

“We never know how high we are Till we are asked to rise And then if we are true to plan Our…

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 16:09:28 -0500

“We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies—”

Emily Dickinson, from “J:1176”