Page 6

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.

- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Page 311

For however inhospitable the wind, from this vantage point Manhattan was simply so improbable, so wonderful, so obviously full of promise - that you wanted to approach it for the rest of your life without ever quite arriving.

- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Home inspiration

{via cup of jo}

Quote

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Page 38

I thought once he got to know my quality I'd mean more to him. He'd finally see it. I don't say that I'm better than other women. I'm not superior. I'm nutty, also. But I am in touch with the me in myself. There's so much I could do for a man that I love. 

- A Theft by Saul Bellow

Page 340

For me love is like this: you’re in one room or apartment which you think is fine, then you walk through a door and close it behind you and find yourself in the next apartment, which is even better, larger, more floor space, a better view. You’re happy there and then you go into the next apartment and close the door and this one is even better. And the sequence continues, but with the odd feature that although this has happened to you a number of times, you forget: each time your new quarters are manifestly better and each time it’s breathtaking, a surprise, something you’ve done nothing to deserve or make happen. You never intend to go from one room onward to the next – it just happens. You notice a door, you go through, and you’re delighted again. 

- Mating by Norman Rush

Page 95

If I overdwell on this it can’t be helped: love is important and the reasons you get it or fail to are important. The number of women in my generation who in retrospect anyone will apply the term “great love” to, in any connection, is going to be minute. I needed to know I had a chance here. Love is strenuous. Pursuing someone is strenuous. What I say is if you find yourself condemned to wanting love, you have to play while you can play … What was moving me was the feeling of being worth someone’s absolute love, great love, even. And to me this means male love whether I like it or not. C’est ca. Here I am, there I was. I don’t know if getting love out of a man is more of a feat of strength now than it used to be or not, expect that I do: it is. It’s hideous. It’s an ordeal beyond speech. When I’m depressed I feel like what was meant by one of his favorite quotations: A bitter feast was steaming hot and a mouth must be found to eat it. Men are like armored things, mountainous assemblages of armor and leather, masonry even, which you are told will self-dismantle if you touch the right spot, and out will flow passionate attention. 

- Mating by Norman Rush

Page 93

Why can’t every mating in the world be on the basis of souls instead of inevitably and fundamentally on the match between physical envelopes? Of course we all know the answer, which is that otherwise we would be throwing evolution into disarray. Still it distresses me. We know what we are.

- Mating, by Norman Rush

Wishlist

{Bella Foster still life and Bethesda Fountain, both via Wayne Pate}

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Page 294

The three of them were beautiful, in the way all girls of that age are beautiful. It can't be helped, that sort of beauty, nor can it be conserved, it's a freshness, a plumpness of the cells, that's unearned and temporary, and that nothing can replicate. None of them was satisfied with it, however; already they were making attempts to alter themselves to improve and distort and diminish, to cram themselves into some impossible, imaginary mould, plucking and pencilling away at their faces. I didn't blame them, having done the same once myself. 

- The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

Page 235

She told me many other things as well. "It's all right to show boredom," she said. "Just never show fear. They'll smell it on you, like sharks, and come in for the kill. You can look at the edge of the table - it lowers your eyelids - but never look at the floor, it makes your neck look weak. Don't stand up straight, you're not a soldier. Never cringe. If someone makes a remark that's insulting to you, say Excuse me? as if you haven't heard; nine times out of ten they won't have the face to repeat it. Never raise your voice to a waiter, it's vulgar. Make them bend down, it's what they're for. Don't fidget with your gloves or your hair. Always look as if you have something better to do, but never show impatience. When in doubt, go to the power room, but go slowly. Grace comes from indifference." Such were her sermons. I have to admit, despite my loathing of her, that they have proved to be of considerable value in my life. 

- The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

Exactly

The new Room & Board Vela sofa in Delamont Cloud is exactly what I've wanted.

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Quotable

{via the rules of ladies}

Home inspiration

Cool stripey art that looks DIY-able.

{via design crisis}

Home inspiration

That string of lights...

{via apartment therapy}

Home inspiration

{via apartment therapy}

Home inspiration

DIY art.

{via coco+kelley}

Persian rugs

I've hated my living room rug pretty much since we bought it. Realized it's just not working with the rest of our furniture, and since it's black, never ever looks clean.

For years I've been making fun of my mama because of her old school "too traditional" oriental rug.

Then I saw the light - that a persian rug would totally fix my decorating dilemma - and have been trying to steal it from her to no avail.

My new office happens to be a few blocks from the oriental rug district in NYC - a tiny little swathe near midtown east that is just one dark, intimidating-looking persian rug palace after another. 

Today I finally went in. 

I want all of them.

Wishlist: Pretty trays

{$43 from leif shop}

Home inspiration

Love this entire apartment.

White walls. Neutral furniture. Colorful accents.

{via apartment therapy, where else?}