“I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn’t.”

— Alan Moore, book Watchmen

Dr. Malcolm Long, Watchmen #6
Watchmen (1986–1987)
Context: I looked at the Rorschach blot. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, shadows pooled beneath it, but it didn’t. It looked more like a dead cat I once found, the fat, glistening grubs writhing blindly, squirming over each other, frantically tunneling away from the light. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: In the end, it is simply a picture of empty meaningless blackness. We are alone. There is nothing else.

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Alan Moore274

English writer primarily known for his work in comic books 1953

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

July 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“If I didn’t think the sun looked at me a little, I wouldn’t look at it.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Si no creyera que el sol me mira un poco, no lo miraría.
Voces (1943)

“I look out the window sometimes to seek the color of the shadows and the different greens in the trees, but when I get ready to paint I just close my eyes and imagine a scene.”

Grandma Moses (1860–1961) American artist

As quoted in TIME magazine, Vol. 52 (1948)

“I am quite incapable of doing them [making landscapes], even the shadow. My trees look like spinach and my sea like heaven knows what.... [the Mediterranean landscape was] the devil to paint, precisely because it is so beautiful.”

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) French painter

young Lautrec comments his own paintings of the landscape, when he was c. 15 years old.
Source: 1879-1884, T-Lautrec, by Henri Perruchot, p. 46 - remark to his friend Etienne Devismes - in Nice, 1879