"

On one wall of the stairwell a half-buried sign remained legible. Mustering his modest command of pre-Deluge English, he whispered the words haltingly:

FALLOUT SURVIVAL SHELTER
Maximum Occupancy: 15

Provision limitations, single occupant: 180 days; divide by actual number of occupants. Upon entering shelter, see that First Hatch is securely locked and sealed, that the intruder shields are electrified to repel contaminated persons attempting entry, that the warning lights are ON outside the enclosure…


The rest was buried, but the first word was enough for Francis. He had never seen a “Fallout,” and he hoped he’d never see one. A consistent description of the monster had not survived, but Francis had heard the legends. He crossed himself and backed away from the hole. Tradition told that the Beatus Leibowitz himself had encountered a Fallout, and had been possessed by it for many months before the exorcism which accompanied his Baptism drove the fiend away.

Brother Francis visualized a Fallout as half-salamander, because, according to tradition, the thing was born in the Flame Deluge, and as half-incubus who despoiled virgins in their sleep, for, were not the monsters of the world still called “children of the Fallout”? That the demon was capable of inflicting all the woes which descended upon Job was recorded fact, if not an article of creed.

The novice stared at the sign in dismay. its meaning was plain enough. He had unwittingly broken into the abode (deserted, he prayed) of not just one, but fifteen of hte dreadful beings! He groped for his phial of holy water."

— A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.

"One time Orson Welles was waxing eloquent to me on the subject of the divine Greta Garbo, whose mystery and magical artistry he adored. Of course I agreed but, I said (still being a bit pedantic), wasn’t it too bad that, of all her more than two dozen silent and sound films, she had acted in only two really great pictures. Welles looked at me for a long moment, then said quietly, “You only need one…"

— Peter Bogdanovich - Blogdanovich

"Reading with comprehension and insight, not passing standardized tests, is the essence of achieving a useful education and therefore achieving true freedom; there is no freedom without freedom of thought. There is no freedom of thought without having something inside your head to think. Getting something in there is achieved through reading. Reading, that is to say, taking in the accumulated history of ideas, thought, theories, the life works, and the biographies of all who have come before you, is the only legitimate way to take up membership in a global community of thinkers and to claim your heritage as part of a new generation of those thinkers."

— Rayfield Waller - Letter to a Young Intellectual Olde School

"It’s enthralling that someone working on such a large scale [as Malick in The Tree of Life] has such faith in the protean sensory power of movies: “sensory” not in a mind-numbing summer blockbuster way, but in a way that stimulates thought, reflection, and a healthy degree of discomfort at having to make sense of what you are seeing, both narratively and emotionally."

— Kevin B. Lee - Essential Images: Malick + Apichatpong = “Quick Billy”

"Actually I do not think that there are any wrong reasons for liking a statue or a picture…There are wrong reasons for disliking a work of art."

— E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

"

I think Cassavetes himself would appreciate my honesty when I say I’ve always had mixed feelings about his work before now; there are scenes and moments that destroy me (in a good way), and other moments that feel false, bombastic, or just seemed sloppy. I had trouble grasping the films as a whole, and long chunks would consequently bore me as I floated adrift on the sea of emotion, until some undeniably explosively awesome moment would happen. But the films always haunted me. What I see now is how his films improve over repeated viewings — from seeing them consecutively, getting on his wavelength, and learning to speak his language. These films are like people, interesting and complicated people. You don’t always understand them at first, but as you get to know them, all of their quirks make more and more sense. They reveal themselves.

Rewatching his films, I often have an epiphanous moment when the code cracks, and suddenly the whole crazy experience falls into place. I immediately want to see the whole movie again, or at least revisit it in my mind, now that I know how it’s all working. His films are like relatives; my feelings towards them change as I get older, and as I understand them better. I may still hate the way my mother screams like she’s witnessed a murder just because she drops something in the kitchen, but more and more it becomes inextricably interwoven with my deeper understanding of who she is, and why I love her.

"

— Hadrian Belove, Cinefamily programmer, in an email about the currently in-progress John Cassavetes series.

"[Ernst Lubitsch] could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly."

— Billy Wilder

Heart to Heart: Venus Zine's Q&A with Jenny and Johnny

jennylewis:

Jenny: So, how much can you bench press?

Jonathan: I measure it in Jennies. How many Jennies.

Jenny: I don’t think you can bench press me.

Jonathan: I guarantee you I could. Definitely could. Two of you maybe. One and a half for sure.

"I’m interested in the people who are inclined to be a little bit sad, who maybe see things in a sepia tone but without being mopes necessarily."

— Emily Haines (via haystack)

(Source: la-mort-meduses, via fuckyeahemilyhaines)

Yeah, that about covers it.

  • Bishop: You trust this man?
  • River Song: I absolutely trust him.
  • Bishop: He's not some kind of madman?
  • River Song: I absolutely trust him.