When you’ve dedicated your life to words, it’s important to go out eloquently.
Ernest Hemingway: “Goodnight my kitten.” Spoken to his wife before he killed himself.
Jane Austen: “I want nothing but death.” In response to her sister, Cassandra, who was asking her if she wanted anything.
J.M Barrie: “I can’t sleep.”
L. Frank Baum: “Now I can cross the shifting sands.”
Edgar Allan Poe: “Lord help my poor soul.”
Thomas Hobbes: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap into the dark,”
Alfred Jarry: “I am dying…please, bring me a toothpick.”
Hunter S. Thompson: “Relax — this won’t hurt.”
Henrik Ibsen: “On the contrary!”
Anton Chekhov: “I haven’t had champagne for a long time.”
Mark Twain: “Good bye. If we meet—” Spoken to his daughter Clara.
Louisa May Alcott: “Is it not meningitis?” Alcott did not have meningitis, though she believed it to be so. She died from mercury poison.
Jean Cocteau: “Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying.”
Washington Irving: “I have to set my pillows one more night, when will this end already?”
Leo Tolstoy: “But the peasants…how do the peasants die?”
Hans Christian Andersen: “Don’t ask me how I am! I understand nothing more.”
Charles Dickens: “On the ground!” He suffered a stroke outside his home and was asking to be laid on the ground.
H.G. Wells: “Go away! I’m all right.” He didn’t know he was dying.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “More light.”
W.C. Fields: “Goddamn the whole fucking world and everyone in it except you, Carlotta!” “Carlotta” was Carlotta Monti, actress and his mistress.
Voltaire: “Now, now, my good man, this is no time for making enemies.” When asked by a priest to renounce Satan.
Dylan Thomas: “I’ve had 18 straight whiskies…I think that’s the record.”
George Bernard Shaw: “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
Henry David Thoreau: “Moose…Indian.”
James Joyce: “Does nobody understand?”
Oscar Wilde: “Either the wallpaper goes, or I do.”
Bob Hope: “Surprise me.” He was responding to his wife asking where he wanted to be buried.
Roald Dahl’s last words are commonly believed to be “you know, I’m not frightened. It’s just that I will miss you all so much!” which are the perfect last words. But, after he appeared to fall unconscious, a nurse injected him with morphine to ease his passing. His actual last words were a whispered “ow, fuck”
Salvador Dali hoped his last words would be “I do not believe in my death,” but instead, they were actually, “Where is my clock?”
Emily Dickinson: “I must go in, the fog is rising.”
hello, i don't really know how to describe these, but i was wondering if you knew any poems with slightly specific and 'homey' lines that make you feel warm inside like the line "we're eating pasta (with pesto plus garlic)" from june jordan's poem. it's totally fine if you don't, sorry for being so specific !! :)
do you know, these are my favourite kind of poems and I love that you thought of this line it’s probably one of my favourites lines ever written. these are poems who give me a similar warm feeling:
“West Coast Episode” by June Jordan (“the color of the rug was green / and out beyond the one room / of our love / the world was mostly / dry”)
“In Time” and “Wish” by W. S. Merwin (“and we stood up / and started to dance without music / slowly we danced around and around / in circles and after a while we hummed / when the world was about to end / all those years all those nights ago”)
“Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken (I'm thinking My plant, his chair, / the ashtray that we bought together. I'm thinking This is where / we live. When we were little we made houses out of / cardboard boxes. We can do anything. It's not because / our hearts are large, they're not, it's what we / struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring / your friends. It's a potluck, I'm making pork chops, I'm making / those long noodles you love so much.”)
“Aubade” by Yanyi
“For Grace, After a Party” by Frank O’Hara (And someone you love enters the room / and says wouldn't / you like the eggs a little / different today? / And when they arrive they are / just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather / is holding.”)
“On the Back Porch” by Dorianne Laux (“I want to stay on the back porch / while the world tilts / toward sleep, until what I love / misses me, and calls me in.”)
“You made crusty bread rolls” by Gary Johnson (“How simple life is. We buy a fish. We are fed. / We sit close to each other, we talk and then we go to bed.”)
“During the Impossible Age of Everyone” by Ada Limón (“Your shoes are piled up with mine, and the heat / comes on, makes a simple noise, a dog-yawn. / People have done this before, but not us.”)
“when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story” by Gwendolyn Brooks
“Red Brocade” by Naomi Shihab Nye (“Your plate is waiting.” !!!)
“Perhaps the Worlds Ends Here” by Joy Harjo (“The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. (...) Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.”)
“This Hour” by Sharon Olds (“Even if we wanted to / we could not describe it, / the end of the second glass when I begin to / weep and you start to get sleepy—I love to / drink and weep with you”)
“Onions” by William Matthews
(in case you wanted to know because i fucking love this language)
ad astra per aspera - to the stars through difficulties
alis volat propriis - he flies by his own wings
amantium irae amoris integratio est - the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love
ars longa, vita brevis - art is long, life is short
aut insanity homo, aut versus facit - the fellow is either mad or he is composing verses
dum spiro spero - while I breathe, I hope
ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem - with the sword, she seeks peace under liberty
exigo a me non ut optimus par sim sed ut malis melior - I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better than the bad
experiential docet - experience teaches
helluo librorum - a glutton for books (bookworm)
in libras libertas - in books, freedom
littera scripta manet - the written letter lasts
mens regnum bona possidet - an honest heart is a kingdom in itself
mirabile dictu - wonderful to say
nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit - there is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part
omnia iam fient quae posse negabam - everything which I used to say could not happen, will happen now
poeta nascitur, non fit - the poet is born, not made
qui dedit benificium taceat; narrat qui accepit - let him who has done a good deed be silent; let him who has received it tell it
saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit - often, it is not advantageous to know what will be
sedit qui timuit ne non succederet - he who feared he would not succeed sat still
si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war
struit insidias lacrimis cum feminia plorat - when a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears
sub rosa - under the rose
trahimir omnes laudis studio - we are led on by our eagerness for praise
urbem latericium invenit, marmoream reliquit - he found the city a city of bricks; he left it a city of marble
ut incepit fidelis sic permanet - as loyal as she began, so she remains
or: a few of my favourite poems about dying, being dead, & the ones who are left behind. some melancholic, some upbeat, some morbid, some euphemistic, some sombre, some tongue-in-cheek, some direct, some not, all good. in no particular order:
“on death, without exaggeration“, wisława szymborska (oh, it has its triumphs, / but look at its countless defeats, / missed blows, / and repeat attempts!)
“the suicide’s room”, wisława szymborska (a lamp, good for fighting the dark / a desk, and on the desk a wallet, some newspapers / carefree buddha and a worried christ / seven lucky elephants, a notebook in a drawer.)
“the letters of the dead”, wisława szymborska (poor dead, blindfolded dead, / gullible, fallible, pathetically prudent.)
(can you see that i’m very fond of wisława szymborska?)
“harlod’s leap”, stevie smith (it may have killed you / but it was a brave thing to do.)
“not waving but drowning”, stevie smith (i was much further out than you thought / and not waving but drowning)
“a meeting”, wendell berry (he has, / i know, gone long and far, / and yet he is the same / for the dead are changeless.)
“the dead”, billy collins (the dead are always looking down on us, they say)
“memory”, hayden carruth (my dear, / how could you have let this happen to you?)
“her long illness”, donald hall (daybreak until nightfall, / he sat by his wife at the hospital / while chemotherapy dripped / through the catheter into her heart.)
“this is a photograph of me”, margaret atwood (the photograph was taken / the day after i drowned.)
“owl song”, margaret atwood (i do not want revenge, i do not want expiation, / i only want to ask someone / how i was lost, / how i was lost)
“anne sexton’s last letter to god”, tracey herd (i have just lunched with an old friend / saying goodbye and something / ‘she couldn’t quite catch’.)
“ophelia’s confession”, tracey herd (i didn’t drown by accident. it was a suicide. / at least let me call my mind my own / even when my heart was gone beyond recall.)
“the promise”, marie howe (he looked at me as though he couldn’t speak, as if / there were a law against it, a membrane he couldn’t break.)
“aubade”, philip larkin (being brave / lets no one off the grave. / death is no different whined at than withstood.)
“lady lazarus”, sylvia plath (and i a smiling woman. / i am only thirty. / and like the cat i have nine times to die.)
“edge”, sylvia plath (her bare / feet seem to be saying: / we have come so far, it is over.)
“sylvia’s death”, anne sexton (what is your death / but an old belonging, / a mole that fell out / of one of your poems?)
“a curse against elegies”, anne sexton (also, i am tired of all the dead. / they refuse to listen)
“tomorrow they’ll cut me open”, anna swir (i have many powers in me. i can live, / i can run, dance and sing. / all of that is in me, but if need be, / i’ll walk away.)
“biology teacher”, zbigniew herbert (in the second year of the war / our biology teacher was killed / by history’s schoolyard bullies)
“dedication”, czesław miłosz (you whom i could not save / listen to me.)
“dirge without music”, edna st. vincent millay (they are gone. / they are gone to feed the roses.)
the rosie probert scene in “under milk wood”, dylan thomas (remember her. / she is forgetting. / the earth which filled her mouth / is vanishing from her.)
“do not go gentle into that good night”, dylan thomas (old age should burn and rave at close of day; / rage, rage against the dying of the light)
“a quoi bon dire?”, charlotte mew (and everybody thinks that you are dead, / but i.)
“myth”, natasha trethewey (you’ll be dead again tomorrow, / but in dreams you live. so i try taking / you back into morning.)
“i watched you disappear”, anya krugovoy silver (are you there? where? / are the others there, too?)
“i am asking you to come back home”, jo carson (my mamma used to say she could feel herself / runnin’ short of the breath of life. so can i. / and i am blessed tired of buryin’ things i love.)
“the night where you no longer live”, meghan o’rourke (was there gas station food / and was it a long trip)
“condolence”, dorothy parker (but i had smiled to think how you, the dead, / so curiously preoccupied and grave, / would laugh, could you have heard the things they said.)
“death at daybreak”, anne reeve aldrich (i shall pass dawn on her way to earth, / as i seek for a path through space.)
“fear no more the heat o’ the sun”, william shakespeare (golden lads and girls all must, / as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.)
“sonnet xciv”, pablo neruda (don’t call up my person. i am absent. / live in my absence as if in a house.)
“funeral blues”, w. h. auden (the stars are not wanted now; put out every one, / pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, / pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood)
“the drowned children”, louise glück (but death must come to them differently, / so close to the beginning.)
“because i could not stop for death”, emily dickinson (the carriage held but just ourselves – / and immortality.)
#55daysofvocabulary
Jewellery
Love
Grain
Forest
Kitchen | Kitchen 2
Family | family 2
Make up
Clothing
Computer activity
Musical instrument
Wedding
Tableware
Easter
Spring
Favorite dish
Friendship
Pets
Bedroom
Outdoor activities
Breakfast
Bevarage
Night out
Crafting
Christmas
Lunch
Accessories
Body
Book genre
Birthday
Summer
Beach
Dinner
Meat
Film genre
Holiday
Vegetarian Food
Work
Hair cut
Living room
Dairy
School
Autumn
Bakery
Cutlery
City buildings
Electronic device
Bathroom
Fish
Winter
Vegetables
Board games
Garden
Fruit
Decoration
Take away food
Animals & Plants:
Animali | More
Cane & Gatto
Giardini, Orti, Fiori, Piante
Uccelli
Curiosities:
– Piemontese / Inglese –
Abbreviations/Acronyms
Basta!
Che noia!
Ho fame
I’m sorry
sbucciare, sgusciare, pelare
Ho sonno | Buonanotte/ Sleep
Tumblr Terms | Tumblr dashboard | Social media
Opposites words + drawings
What do you do? (FARE expressions)
Random Vocabs -> FR/ES/EN/IT: uno | due | -> FR/EN/IT: uno -> IT: uno
Food:
Cibi & Bevande | Dolci
Caffè
Colazione / Breakfast
Cooking/Baking | More
Pasti / Meals
Holidays:
Amore / San Valentino | direct approach slang words
Carnevale
Christmas Vocabulary | NYE
Halloween | Ognissanti (1st/2nd of November)
Pasqua/Easter
People & Needs:
Appoinments/Invitations
Body | from head to shoulders | from shoulders to belly | from belly to feet
Describing people (physical + feelings + emotions)
Clothes
Complimenting
Emergenze (Emergencies)
Endearment words | Pet names | Ti amo VS Ti voglio bene VS Mi piaci
Hairdresser / Parrucchiere
Introduce yourself
Lgbtqa Vocabulary | Lgbt+ | non binary (writing)
People
Period
Pick up lines
Primo Soccorso / Medical Vocab | Medical vocab II | Medical Vocab III
Refugees | Phrasebook for refugees
Places:
A casa
Al cinema
Al mare / In spiaggia
Al ristorante
Countries (countryside + Nations)
Directions/Ways/Streets (Tourism/Lost in a town)
Dove?
Fly to Italy
Geografia + Astronomia
In città
In montagna
Libreria / Biblioteca
Negozi (shops)
Ocean
Places
Scuola
Working at the office
Random Stuff:
Adjectives
Appliances (kitchen)
Arte /Art
Astrology | Space | Astrologists and Tarot readers
Colori | Colors things
Careers
Driving-related
Emotions
Fantasy (genre)
Farm Words (ENG; FRA; ITA)
Free time | Hobbies
Internet
Math (video + vocabs)
Make up
Musical instruments | Music
Nautical terms
News
Quando? | Che giorno è oggi?
Phone related
Politics
Positive Vibes
Scrittura (writing)
Speaking / Writing
Sport | Football (World Cup)
Squid Game
Things you do in the morning
Tourism and travels
Verbi
War / Ukraine’s invasion
Seasons / Weather:
Autunno | p2
Che tempo fa?
Cold/Freddo | How to say the weather is crazy cold
Estate | How to say the weather is crazy hot
Winter Vocabulary
Oggi piove | Rain
Natural disasters
Reaction words
poems about the moon 🌒
Worm Moon by Mary Oliver
Moon Song by Roy Ivan Johnson
To Catch the Moon by Chong Bum Kim
Morning Song by Sara Teasdale
Not The Moon by Margaret Atwood
Everyone Is Asleep by Enomoto Seifu-jo
The Sweetness of Dogs by Mary Oliver
The Moon Looked Into My Window by E. E. Cummings
Dear Moon by Warsan Shire
The Poet Of Ignorance by Anne Sexton
Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later by Margaret Atwood
Will You Come? by Edward Thomas
If My Hands Could Peel by Federico García Lorca
Days Of Kindness by Leonard Cohen
The Moonlight by Noah Buchholz
The Moon was But a Chin of Gold by Emily Dickinson
What We Have by Warsan Shire
buy me a coffee
Pt 1 | pt 2
Emails to make your life easier
college tips for english majors (or other reading heavy humanities)
School tips
Guessing strategies for multiple choice questions
Shit grade?
Things i wish i knew before going to university
5 things you can do to prep for the next academic year
Psychology practicals tips
Understanding over Detail
Study tips for ex gifted academics
Study in a brain friendly way
Study tips that aren't bullshit
Emmastudies' study tips masterpost
How do i study for _____?
Study tips for accounting students
How to study for a subject you don't take a fancy for
Think like a four year old method
How to study hundreds of pages in the shortest time possible
Managing attention for online learning
random things I do to fool my brain into staying interested during online study
How to survive online school
How to make online learning easier
Self care during study
Self check in during study sessions
Study break ideas
Types of motivation
Guide to studying well (masterpost)
Should your notes be pretty?
How to fix your study schedule
How to deal with study burnout
Books for self studying chinese
Replacement bookshop if u don't want to buy from amazon
Free books
Reading with adhd
ADHD resources
Get stuff done adhd edition
Bored/artsy masterpost
Boredom cheat sheet
Vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained
How to live in the ghibli aesthetic™
Dealing with the worst case scenario
Apartment hacks masterpost
How to put "ran a studyblr" in an application
Resume writing for someone with no experience
Editing studyblr pictures
How to start a studyblr 101
Debunking productivity myths
Using the memory you have
Masterpost of everything
cultural academia pt. 2
here’s pt. 1
This is a continuation of spreading cultural books to end eurocentrism in academia. There’s definitely more “dark academia” books that fit the aesthetic this time around! Thank you to everyone who added books in the notes of the first post- I just put all those suggestions together in this list so complete credit to everyone who made these suggestions <3
Chinese:
Shen Congwen
Geling Yan
From Emperor to Citizen
Life and Death in Shanghai by Niem Cheng
Jin Ping Mei by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng
Japanese:
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Sonezaki Shinju by Chikamatsu Monzaemon
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami
Works of Oe
Tosa Nikki by Ki no Tsurayuki
Torikaebaya Monogatari
Ise Monogatari by Ariwara no Narihira
A Fool’s Love by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro
The Golden Death by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro
Hell Scene
I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Edogawa Ranpo
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
The Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
Flower Tales by Yoshiya Nobuko
Books of Hayashi Fumiko
Books of Enchi Fumiko
The Demon’s Sermon on the Marrial Arts by Issao Chozanshi
Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Fool’s Life by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Thai:
Garin’s Uncanny Files
Irani/Persian:
Disoriental by Negar Djavadi
Mesopotamia:
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Pakistani:
Poetry of Allama Iqbal
Works of Saadat Hassan Manto
My Feudal Lordand Blasphemy by Tehmina Durrani
The Reluctant Fundmamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Raja Gidh by Bano Qudsia
Four Tragic Romances of Punjab (Heer Ranjha, Mirza Sahiba, Sassi Punnun, and Sohni Mahiwal)
The Crow Eaters by Bapsi Sidhwa
Indian:
Ramayana by Valmiki
Nonviolent Soldier of Islam by Eknath Easwaran
The Wildlings by Nilanjana Roy
Sivagamiyin Sapatham by Kalki Krishnamurthy
Chitralekha
Chandralekha
Rabindranath Tagore’s short stories
Works of Satyajit Rai
Byomkesh Bakshi
Munshi Premchand (Godan, Gaban, Nirmala)
The River Sutra
Mehlua
(comics)
Nagraj
Chacha Choudhary
Lotpot
Champak
Nandan
Vikram Betal
(poets)
The Golden Threshold by Sarojini Naidu
Gitanjali
Works of Ruskin Bond
Mahadevi Verma
Hajari Prasad Divedi
Arabian:
Hayy Ibn Yaqzan by Ibn Tufail (he lived in Al-Andalus but was Arab I believe)
Filipino:
Works of Nick Joaquin
Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
The Eight Muses of the Fall By Edgar Calabia Samar
Isabelo’s Archive by Resil B. Mojares
Noli Me Tangere by Dr. Jose Rizal
El Filibusterismo by Dr. Jose Rizal
Indonesian:
Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Saman by Ayu Utami
The Years of the Voiceless
Beauty is Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
(poets)
Sapardi Djoko Darmono
Chairil Anwar
Sustardji Calzoum Bachri
W.S. Rendra
Taufik Ismail
Wiji Thukul
NH Dini
Dee Lestari
Mira W.
Malaysian:
Garden of Evening Mists
Brazilian:
O Ateneu by Raul Pompeia
Ursula by Maria Firmino
The Hidden Cause; The Alienist by Machado de Assis (short stories)
The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma by Lima Barreto
Barren Lives by Graciliano Ramos
Child of the Dark by Carolina Maria de Jesus
Rebellion in the Backlands by Euclides da Cunha
Macunaima by Mario de Andrade
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado
Captain of the Sands by Jorge Amado
Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuna
City of God by Paulo Lins
Budapest by Chico Buarque
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis
Poems by Vinicius de Moraes
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Antologia Poetica by Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Senhora by Jose de Alencar
Colombian:
Works of William Ospina
Chilean:
Works of Isabelle Allende
Mexican:
Poems by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz
Laura Esquivel
El Vampiro de la Colonia Roma by Luis Zapata Quiroz
(authors)
Gerardo Murillo
Ruben M Campos
Maria Enriqueta Camarillo de Pereya
Aura by Carlos Fuentes
El Llano by Juan Rulfo
La Casa Junto Al Rio by Elena Garro
Amparo Davila
Guadalipe Duenas
Ines Arredondo
Fransisco Tario
Max Aub
Bernado Couto Castillo
Amado Nervo
Adriana Diaz Enciso
Emiliano Gonzalez
H. Pascal (poetry of vampires and ghosts)
Tequila Gotico: Literatura Gotica en Mexico (published in magazine/good intro to gothic lit in Mexico)
Argentinian:
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato
Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges
Nigerian:
Americanah by Chimamanda Adiche
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Malian:
Fatoumata Keita
Senegalese:
Amadou Kane
Cheik Anta Diop
Sudanese:
Season of Migration to the North
Native American:
Works of Leslie Marmon Silko
Canadian:
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan (Ghanan-Canadian)
Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese (Indigenous Canadian-Ojibwe)
Birdie by Tracie Lindberg (Indigenous Canadian-Cree)
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican-Canadian)
British:
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (Jamaican-British)
American:
Works of Gwendolyn Brooks
Works of Langston Hughes
A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava (Colombian-American)
Once again, if your country wasn’t included, that doesn’t mean it’s not important!! Please continue to add more books with their countries in the notes and correct me if I’ve made a mistake!!