Arts and Crafts: René Magritte

So this is probably my favorite painting. Painted in 1953, it’s called Golconda. It’s named after a ruined city in India. For hundreds of years, the city of Golconda enjoyed tremendous wealth because it was a center of the diamond industry. Golconda translates to “mine of wealth.”

A biography of Magritte suggests this about his work:

“What he wants to establish is a disturbing relationship between the world and objects.”

Golconda

René Magritte

From: Prom

"I didn’t pay attention to the announcements in Homeroom on Monday because I had to analyze another poem for English. This one was about the moon—dumb, but very short. Poems are short because nobody can keep up that level of stupidness for more than one page."

Prom
Laurie Halse Anderson

Found on The Writer's Almanac

"Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
They are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness."

Nizar Quabbani

From: "To the Virgins..."

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

To the Virgins to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick

From: "Shut Up"

"You say,
I should do it differently.
I don't,
Necessarily agree.
Stand up!
Sit down!
Be nice!
Did you hear me ask for your advice?"

Shut Up
Kelly Osbourne

From: Speak

“…Heather says I was smart, ‘…so smart, Mel, to blow off this stupid group. This whole year has been horrible—I hated every single day, but I didn’t have the guts to get out like you did.’

She completely ignores the fact that I was never in, and that she dumped me, banished me from even the shadows of Martha glory. I feel like any minute a guy in a lavender suit will burst into the room with a microphone and bellow, ‘Another alternate-reality moment brought to you by adolescence!’”

Speak: 10th Anniversary Edition
Laurie Halse Anderson

Found:

"Rememdy it, or welcome it: a wise [wo]man's only two choices."

Terri Guillemets

Found:

"Those whom the gods love grow young."

-Oscar Wilde

From: Paper Towns

"It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters."

Paper Towns
John Green

From: Stoner & Spaz

"So you're going to make movies someday?"
"I'm going to major in business. Starting at Stanford."
"That's bullshit. You should make movies if you want to make movies."
"I never said I wanted to."
"But you do?"
"I owe my grandma a lot. She takes really good care of me."
"And you're easy to take care of, right? No drugs, no tats, all A's, and you brush after every meal."
"Yeah."
"And she likes having you around. You're good company."
"I guess."
"So you're even; your turn to do what you want."
"I'll bet she doesn't think so."
"Yeah, well, tough shit for Grandma."

Stoner & Spaz
Ron Koertge

From: This Lullaby

"I’d only told him about the song in a moment of weakness, a time of true confessions, which I usually avoided in relationships. The past was so sticky, full of land mines: I made it a point, usually, not to be so detailed in the map of myself I handed over to a guy. And the song, that song, was one of the biggest keys to me. Like a soft spot, a bruise that never quite healed right. The first place I was sure they would strike back, when the time came for them to do so."

This Lullaby
Sarah Dessen