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NGC 6543, Cat's Eye

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(…) to move nothing and to touch nothing as though I were a ghost or here in a dream and I know it is a dream that has no age in this dream the same river is still here the house is the old house and I am here in the morning in the sunlight and the same bird is singing

W.S. Merwin, from The Other House in “Garden Time"

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Pauline Chase as Joan of Arc.

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Lightning Strikes, Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany

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Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (2015), dir. Yoji Yamada

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I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

– Miranda July, from “Ten True Things,” No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories (Scribner, 2007)

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St. Francis preaches to the birds

Panel from the "Tavola Bardi", attributed to Coppo di Marcovaldo, 1245-1250

Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence

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The tender, unearthly magic of the Spring has crept into my heart. I hear the song of birds, I smell new odors, see new colorings, and the softness of the air melts me. And I feel. Oh, God, how deeply I feel, and grieve and rejoice.

Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry dated 27 March 1922, featured in The Early Diary of Anais Nin, 1920-23

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Hitler Youth circa 1939. Photograph: Heinrich Hoffmann

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The Annunciation Robert Fowler (1853–1926) Walker Art Gallery