"The walls recede, the roof vanishes, and you float quite naturally

You float uprooted, dragged off, lifted high

You are transported, immortalized, saved, honored

Thanks to that subtle, continuous rhythm…"

— Reinaldo Arenas, from "The Parade Ends"

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Corin Redgrave applies his makeup backstage at the Lyric theatre, where he appeared as Duke Ferdinand in a musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost, 1959 (via)

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"It would be... heartless terror. Yes. Terrible, and...

Very great. To shed your skin, every old skin, one by one and then walk away, unencumbered, into the morning."

— Tony Kushner, from Angels in America

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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Landscape by the Lake, c. 1865-70 (via)

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"In the valleys, where the song
of the weary farmer sounds,
and when I sit and mourn
the illusions of youth fading,
and on the hills where I recall
and grieve for my lost desires
and my life's lost hope, I think of you
and start to shake."

— Giacomo Leopardi, from "To His Lady," trans. Jonathan Galassi