Because You Left Quotes & Sayings

What I know is that she sets me on fire, and if you were to perform an intradermal test on me, you'd know when she was in it because you'd see the trails of blaze she left behind. Because that's what I feel at the mere thought of her, and I'd rather live my life in flames than be numb without her. — Claire Contreras

So you weren't in college."
"I wasn't, no." She takes another sip. "Your father was though. He was visiting for spring break. I mugged him."
"You what?"
"You have to understand I didn't make very much money, even with two jobs. It hardly even paid for my food. I couldn't fish, because-"
"You didn't want anyone to sense you in the water." Otherwise, she could have been pretty self-sufficient.
She nods. "So one day I see this group of cocky college students, spending money left and right. Pulling wads of cash out of their pockets to pay for small purchases, like ice cream." She rolls her eyes. "They were flashing it. They wanted people to know they were rich."
"Doesn't mean they wanted people to mug them," I mutter. — Anna Banks

When she was eighteen years old she had almost drowned in the Kennebec River, not because of the pummeling current, but because she couldn't come up with a casual phrase with which to call for rescue. "Help!" was such a cliche. By the time she was willing to scream, she had no breath left, and it was just blind luck that somebody saw her gasping and floundering and pulled her to shore. "Why didn't you say something?" they wanted to know, and she said, "I'm not a screamer." "Jesus," said one of them, "couldn't you have made an exception this one time?" "Apparently not," she said. — Jincy Willett

I've been 15 years in the nut ward, for trying to stop the trees from being cut down, from trying to rearrange the lifestyle of a bunch of people who don't want to change. But they're gonna change because a cold wind is blowing. You're gonna change or else there's going to be no life left on the planet Earth. — Charles Manson

I lift weights, but that's not my main focus. I'm a fighter now, and I want to evolve and make myself a well-rounded fighter, so obviously I'm not going to leave any stone unturned, when it comes to submissions, submission defense, striking, knees, leg kicks, and also learning to defend everything. It's not just an offensive sport because you're going to take some punches and you're going to give some punches. You've got to be able to handle both sides of the spectrum. I've brought in a number of highly trained trainers to help me evolve, and I believe we've left no stone unturned. — Brock Lesnar

Hey, there, Kizuki, I thought. Unlike you, I've chosen to live - and to live the best I know how. Sure, it was hard for you. What the hell, it's hard for me. Really hard. And all because you killed yourself and left Naoko behind. But that's something I will never do. I will never, ever, turn my back on her. First of all, because I love her, and because I'm stronger than she is. And I'm just going to keep on getting stronger. I'm going to mature. I'm going to be an adult. Because that's what I have to do. I always used to think I'd like to stay 17 or 18 if I could. But not any more. I'm not a teenager any more. I've got a sense of responsibility now. I' m not the same person I was when we used to hang out together. I'm 20 now. And I have to pay the price to go on living. — Haruki Murakami

We're not out of the woods yet, people," I said, and grimaced, my eyes cheating toward the trees growing on all sides. "No pun intended. Sloane, were you being serious when you said that most of that was Demi's blood? Because I'm not quite ready to condone beating her to death." "She got a nosebleed," said Sloane, reaching forward and taking my hand in hers. Her fingers left red stains on my skin. "Sure, I had to punch her four or five times to make that happen, but nosebleeds are a normal part of being a traitorous bitch who goes over to the dark side at the first sign of trouble. — Seanan McGuire

That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free. The men who had left his body in the street like some awesome declaration of their inviolable power would never be punished. It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished. But you were young and still believed. You stayed up till 11 P.M. that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said, "I've got to go," and you went into your room, and I heard you crying. I came in five minutes after, and I didn't hug you, and I didn't comfort you, because I thought it would be wrong to comfort you. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

She's contemplative; I can feel the air around her thick with her thoughts. "No," she says at last, "I want to believe you're being sincere but I know you're not. So I say no, because even if I allow myself to fantasize a little about our lives in a cabin on the beach, I still find myself being left by you. There's almost no scenario I can think of where we live happily ever after."
"There could be," I tell her and mean it at the moment. Maybe mean it for longer. Her fingers stop moving and she sighs. I open my eyes and she's staring down at me. The lights have come on around the parking lot and one of them shines directly into her face. She angelic, a neon seraphim under the brilliant skies of the spring. I can see us on our boat, eating our hand picked clams on the fire behind our place. I can see it so vividly I'm almost sure it's happened. — Jaden Wilkes

Don't despise people because of their defects or because of their lack of talents and gifts. Imagine if people did it for you, how many friends would you be left with? — Bangambiki Habyarimana

The inextinguishable lesbian spark. You've surely heard about it? The one that was first ignited at Lesbos, because Sappho was so sad every time a young woman left the academy that she wrote her a poem. Fancy being sad because someone leaves! Perverted, that's what I call it. Don't you? — Gerd Brantenberg

I don't care about my safety, I just care about you." I realized my mistake the moment the words left my lips. "You're so selfish, sister. And it's worse because you don't even realize how cruel you are. — Katherine Pine

Look, I've been doing this a long time. If I'm honest with you, then yes. The Families could have done both. The car thing is absolutely their style, like you said."

Luc frowned. "But you don't think they did it."

David shook his head. "No. Because you're alive. The Families wouldn't screw up twice." He left, closing the door behind him.

"If that was supposed to make me feel better," Curtis said, "it needed way more puppies. Or something from the chocolate family. — Nathan Burgoine

You will remember every day for the rest of your life because I was the one and you threw me away. And then he left. — Tarryn Fisher

This is for you, for us. I wanted a tattoo of you on my skin, because I can't show you the one you've already left on my heart. — Gina L. Maxwell

Dear Victor: Wow. That ... really got out of hand. I'm sending this cat in as a peace offering. I forgive you for all the stuff you wrote on the walls about my sister, and I'm going to just ignore all the stuff you wrote about my "giant ass" (turn cat over for rest) because I love you and you need me. Who else loves you enough to send you notes written on cats? Nobody, that's who. Also, I stapled a picture of us from our wedding day to the cat's left leg. Don't we look happy? We can be that way again. Just stop leaving wet towels on the floor. That's all I ask. I'm low-maintenance that way. Also, this cat needs to go on a diet. I shouldn't be able to write this much on a cat and still have room left over. — Jenny Lawson

People say that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. This is why unsolicited advice should be left to the professionals, because if life gives you lemons but doesn't also give you a whole lot of sugar, you're going to end up with some pretty awful-tasting lemonade. You might as well advise people that if life gives them a bag of wet sand they should make a stained glass window. — Cuthbert Soup

Author Martha Beck says of the ego, "Don't leave home without it." But do not let your ego totally run the show, or it will shut down the show. Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master - because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there's never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed. Left unmanaged, that kind of disappointment will rot you from the inside out. An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call "a hungry ghost" - forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed. Some version of that hunger dwells within all of us. We all have that lunatic presence, living deep within our guts, that refuses to ever be satisfied with anything. I have it, you have it, we all have it. My saving grace is this, though: I know that I am not only an ego; I am also a soul. And I know that my soul doesn't care a whit about reward or failure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

What did you learn?"
"Letting go of my past, because it's all soot, nothing is left
of it, if I wandered there for long I would be running in circles
in the dark, no hope, no life. And if I chose to live in those
places rebuilt from ashes, I can never get rid of the darkness
which would prevail underneath."
"The present is my ray of hope. I could have stayed there,
complaining about the gloominess of the light, and regretting
not having turned a corner to explore a new horizon at the same
time I needed to respect that light because it was my savior from
the dark. I learnt it finally and that's why I reached here today
and found you — Dixy Gandhi

I watched you. From the moment you walked in that bar, I saw you. Amongst all the shallow and the fake, you looked like sping, and then you got close and I was right because you smelled like jasmine. When you turned around to leave I thought I was wrong because why did someone as sweet as spring think that life wasn't meant for her? There was no light in your eyes, and somehow, even though I barely knew you, it left an ache in my chest. How could I let you walk away? — Kate McCarthy

She called me Nerdy because I wore glasses and read books and ate yogurt on my lunch break. I'm not really a nerd: I only aspire to be one. Because of the high-school-dropout thing, I'm a self-didact. (Not a dirty word, look it up.) I read constantly. I think. But I lack formal education. So I'm left with the feeling that I'm smarter than everyone around me but that if I ever got around really smart people - people who went to universities and drank wine and spoke Latin - that they'd be bored as hell by me. It's a lonely way to go through life. So I wear the name as a badge of honor. That someday I may not totally bore some really smart people. The question is: How do you find smart people? — Gillian Flynn

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films. — Sam Taylor-Wood

But the swamp don't mind. How could it? It's all just life, going over itself, returning and cycling and eating itself to grow. I mean, it's not that it's not Noisy here. Sure it is, there's no escaping Noise, not nowhere at all, but it's quieter than the town. The loud is a different kind of loud, because swamp loud is just curiosity, creachers figuring out who you are and if yer a threat. Whereas the town knows all about you already and wants to know more and wants to beat you with what it knows till how can you have any of yerself left at all? — Patrick Ness

I've been living in Portland for five months and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I probably won't really know for years because that's how it works right? You don't really develop feelings about a place till you've left it. It's like a girl or a dog. — Adam Rapp

I noticed you tore down Donovan's house."
He lifted his gaze until it locked with mine. "He's alive because he left town. His house chose to stay. It paid the price. — Darynda Jones

That's because those pages got torn to shreds when you left, now you both are in different chapters. He wants you - like always, and you want the hot guy down the street. Typical Frankie and Brody style. You guys dance one wild tango, if you ask me. — A.M. Willard

Keep your right up or there'll be nothing left of you." - 100 Bullets

I love this quote because it has double meaning. — Brian Azzarello

I know how to work a problem. Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don't let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left. It's good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused. — Carolyn Lee Adams

My father left ... but I tell my mom - and I told my mom this when I was a kid - I said, 'You know what, Mom? Good thing he left because you're a strong woman.' — J. R. Martinez

For Swan's birthday, Calla made pineapple upside-down cake, which is not the kind of cad you put candles on. So there was nothing to blow and make wishes on. Nobody missed the candles, because when you're eating pineapple upside-down cake, there is nothing much left to wish for — Jenny Wingfield

Left to my own devices, would I trade this for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? On some days. That's why it's such a blessing I'm not left to my own devices. Because the truth is I have amazing friends and a deep faith in God, to whom I can turn. I have a cool kid, a sweet boyfriend, darling pets. I've learned to pay attention to life, and to listen. I'd give up all this for a flatter belly? Are you crazy? — Anne Lamott

Why did you break up?"
"Because she didn't like what I became after I left the army."
"And what was that?"
He stares deep into my eyes. A sudden coolness overtakes the warmth. It sends an unexpected chill running through me. "Uncaring. Hard. Cold," he answers dryly.
I swallow down. "And what were you before?"
"Uncaring ... hard ... cold." He grins, his warmth instantly returning. — Samantha Towle

It is more than twenty years since we left the city. This is a serious chunk of time, longer than the years we spent living there. Yet we still think of Jerusalem as our home. Not home in the sense of the place that you conduct your daily life or constantly return to. In fact, Jerusalem is our home almost against our wills. It is our home because it defines us, whether we like it or not. — Yotam Ottolenghi

Don't go for the ones that know your worth even when you don't.
Even when you call them to pick you up because some fuck boy left you with only a few hickeys and no ride home.
Please don't pay attention to the boys who take your self hate and say 'you really don't see yourself the way others see you, do you?'
Oh god.
just don't fall in love with them.
Please, just don't.
Because it's the ones that kiss your eyelids and stretch marks that fuck you over.
It;s the ones that tell you the truth that bring you to your knees.
It's the good ones that leave you curled up in a ball for months begging for the bleeding in your gut to stop.
And it's all because they're the unforgettable ones.
The boys who leave so many marks of love on you that no one can compare.
God knows they're it.

Fuck.
You were it. — Unknown

I say to life, "You are very hard", and I also say: "We are blind, we prefer to be blind. It is easier ... ". Life has to be hard to have any affect on us; even now we hardly notice it. Beyond that can one go? I must. I add, "We are also blind to the miracles of good that come to us. We hardly heed them, we even protest against them". Then I am left where I was, appalled by the hardness of life, knowing we are forced to be unwilling heroes. Suddenly I wonder
is all hardness justified because we are so slow in realizing that life was meant to be heroic? Greatness is required of us. That is life's aim and justification, and we poor fools have for centuries been trying to make it convenient, manageable, pliant to our will. It is also peaceful and tender and funny and dull. Yes, all that. — Florida Scott-Maxwell

... there is no quicker way of growing old than undue indulgence in regular habits. Indeed it seems probable that the reason why so many people die sooner than they should is because they have organised their lives in such a way that there is nothing left for them to do. Change, as is well-known, is not only a law of Nature, but the very breath of existence. And if you rule change out of your life there no longer seems any reason why you should continue altogether. — Franklin Lushington

If you never leave where you come from, I don't think you'll ever figure out who you are, because how much is forced on you? How much of your personality is imposed instead of created? That's why I left. I think people need to leave in order to find their potential. — Katie Kacvinsky

Oh, my little sister. What have you done?" "What?" I asked innocently. "It seems that something of great value to the Scholar has disappeared. At exactly the same time you did. He and the Chancellor have turned the citadelle upside down looking for it. All surreptitiously of course, because whatever was taken apparently isn't a catalogued piece of the royal collection. At least that's the rumor among the servants." I pressed my hands together and grinned. I couldn't hide my glee. Oh, how I wish I had seen the Scholar's face when he opened what he thought was his secret drawer and found it empty. Almost empty, that is. I'd left a little something for him. — Mary E. Pearson

Georgia took once a creative-writing course, and what the instructor told her was: Too many things. Too many things going on at the same time; also too many people. Think, he told her. What is the important thing? What do you want us to pay attention to? Think.
Eventually she wrote a story that was about her grandfather killing chickens, and the instructor seemed to be pleased with it. Georgia herself thought that it was a fake. She made a long list of all the things that had been left out and handed it in as an appendix to the story. The instructor said that she expected too much, of herself and of the process, and that she was wearing him out.
The course was not a total loss, because Georgia and the instructor ended up living together. — Alice Munro

Let Love Move You ...
If you can't stop thinking of her, it's because her essence has left an imprint on your heart ... on your soul ...
Don't be afraid of this feeling; be nourished by it ...
Let it stir your entire being ...
Let it help release your greatest self ...
Let it inspire you to be loving ... to be respectful ... to be romantic ... to be intelligent ... to be passionate ... to be a good listener ... to be appreciative ...
Let this wonderful feeling move you to become a passionate love maker ... a ravenous seducer ...
Do not be afraid of this deep love! Let it reveal the best of you ...
Let this feeling encourage you to behave in an honest and sincere manner ...
So that you may be more than a person she would settle for ... so that you may be a person she would yearn for. — Steve Maraboli

People do go back, but they don't survive, because two realities are claiming them at the same time. Such things are too much. You can salt your heart, or kill your heart, or you can choose between the two realities. There is much pain here. Some people think you can have your cake and eat it. The cake goes mouldy and they choke on what's left. Going back after a long time will make you mad, because the people you left behind do not like to think of you changed, will treat you as they always did, accuse you of being indifferent, when you are only different. — Jeanette Winterson

I believe everyone should have a good death. You know, with your grandchildren around you, a bit of sobbing. Because after all, tears are appropriate on a death bed. And you say goodbye to your loved ones, making certain that one of them has been left behind to look after the shop. — Terry Pratchett

I will be forever grateful for your presence in my life. I am a much better human being because of you. The experience of loving you, living with you, was the greatest journey of my life thus far. You showed me an alternative to the man I was becoming.
I know I still have much to learn, much to accomplish, and I know my future is bright. I owe you the confidence I now have in myself. This is the confidence that could only come from the knowledge that a woman of your caliber loved me for who I am; for what you saw in me.
You are a great woman and I mean that in the strongest sense of the phrase. You feel deeply, think deeply, and live deeply. I admire so much about you. Regardless of whether our paths cross again, know that I am actively wishing you success and happiness. I pray that you will once again be part of my life. But if left with just the experience we've shared, I know my life was better because of it. — Emma Forrest

His finger pressed my lips to silence me. "So, tell me, my beautiful, little demon, how does it feel? Did you enjoy seducing Caleb to get what you wanted? Or were you so enraptured by the green of his eyes that you longed for his tongue in your mouth and his hands on your body?" I gasped, but he went on before I could respond. "Truthfully, I'd prefer the former, because it would mean since he's bailed on the deal, I'm the only one left to help you. I must warn you, however, it's going to take a whole lot of seduction to get me to help you now. — L.J. Kentowski

That last night," she said quietly. "Why did you say you hoped you'd never see me again?"
He hadn't said it; it had been his last thought when he'd turned to leave. But he didn't seem to notice the discrepancy as he looked at her now.
"Because," he began before faltering, his voice leaving on a sigh. His left hand reached to rake a path through his hair, scattering the inky thickness in all directions. "The more I learn of you, the more difficult it is to stay away. — Angela B. Wade

When I thought you'd died - "
"Don't say it," she choked out. "You don't have to relive that."
"No," he said. "I do. I have to tell you. It was the first time - even after all these years of expecting my own death - that I truly knew what it meant to die. Because with you gone ... there was nothing left for me to live for. I don't know how my mother did it."
"She had her children," Kate said. "She couldn't leave you."
"I know," he whispered, "but the pain she must have endured ... "
"I think the human heart must be stronger than we could ever imagine."
Anthony stared at her for a long moment, his eyes locking with hers until he felt they must be one person. Then, with a shaking hand, he cupped the back of her head and leaned down to kiss her. His lips worshiped hers, offering her every ounce of love and devotion and reverence and prayer that he felt in his soul.
-Anthony & Kate — Julia Quinn

But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day must be old. — William Congreve

I usually say, "Let's start with off-season clothes." I have a good reason for choosing off-season clothing for their first foray into this tidying gala. It's the easiest category for tuning in to one's intuition concerning what feels good. If they start with clothes they are currently using, clients are more likely to think, "It doesn't spark joy, but I just wore it yesterday," or "If I don't have any clothes left to wear, what am I going to do?" This makes it harder for them to make an objective decision. Because off-season clothes are not imminently necessary, it is much easier to apply the simple criterion of whether or not they bring you joy. — Marie Kondo

I didn't say, "I'll call you." I didn't hug her because of the wet clothes. Just a quick kiss. Then I turned and left. I made my way quietly down the hallway to the stairwell. I could tell she thought she wasn't going to see me again. I had to admit she might be right. The knowledge was as damp and dispiriting as my sodden clothes. I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me what I was afraid of. It had been this, the moment after, when I would come face to face with knowing that it would all end badly, if not this morning, then the next one. Or the one after that. — Barry Eisler

If you were searching. I also would have left a small indication that something so important, something so critical to your soul has disappeared. The sole reason a constellation exists is because it's a sum of its parts. To lose one of those parts ... it's painful and irreversible. — Katie McGarry

And I'm left with this girl, this Siren of Mixed Signals, this Norah. She's a fuck-good kisser, but clearly has some massive consistency issues. I ask her how the fuck she knows Tris, because that is leaving me completely confused, and at first she's looking at me like I'm this guy she didn't just start kissing out of nowhere, but then she's got her hand on my arm in a way that makes me really notice I have an arm, and then she's making to run away, and at the same time looking at me like I'm some cancer child. Then I take hold of her arm and she resists without really resisting. Finally she pulls away, only to touch my face in this way that reminds me exactly of her kiss.Then she calls me you poor schmuck. — David Levithan

You find joy in your inclusion in his work of redemption. You find hope in the glorious future that is to come. You are amazed by the fact that because Immanuel has invaded your life by his grace, you are never, ever alone. You find peace in the fact that grace means you are never left to the small resources of your own wisdom, righteousness, and strength. You meditate on God's glory and goodness, then celebrate. You rejoice in the fact that you no longer have to look for life in the people, situations, and locations around you, but you've been given life - life that is eternal. — Paul David Tripp

When a poet writes a poem, meaning arises - because the poet is not alone; he has created something. When a dancer dances, meaning arises. When a mother gives birth to a child, meaning arises. Left alone, cut off from everything else, isolated like an island, you are meaningless. Joined together you are meaningful. The bigger the whole, the bigger is the meaning. — Rajneesh

So we gave up. I'd finally had enough of chasing after a ghost who did not want to be discovered. We'd failed, maybe, but some mysteries aren't meant to be solved. I still did not know her as I wanted to, but I never could. She made it impossible for me. And the accident, the suicide, would never be anything else, and I was left to ask, Did I help you to a fate you didn't want, Alaska, or did I jsut assist in your willful self-destruction? Because they are different crimes, and I didn't know wheter to feel angry at myself for letting go.
But we knew what could be found out, and in finding out, she had made us closer- the Colonel adn Takumi and me, anyway. And that was it. She didn't leave me enough to discover her, but she left me enough to rediscover the Great Perhaps. — John Green

You, who only know love when in love, do not ask what it is, nor do you look for it. But when a woman once asked you if you were in love with love itself, you were evasive and escaped by answering: I love you. She persisted: Do you not love love? You said: I love you, because of you. She left you, because you could not be trusted with her absence. Love is not an idea. It is an emotion that can cool down or heat up. It comes and goes. It is an embodied feeling and has five, or more, senses. Sometimes it appears as an angel with delicate wings that can uproot us from the earth. Sometimes it charges at us like a bull, hurls us to the ground, and walks away. At other times it is a storm we only recognize in its devastating aftermath. Sometimes it falls upon us like the night dew when a magical hand milks a wandering cloud. — Mahmoud Darwish

No, It does. And if I left, you'd probably want to give me my jacket back. And if you did, I wouldn't be able to put it on, because the whole time I'd be knowing how perfectly it fit on you. How even though the sleeves are ridiculously too long and the collar is all fucked up and for all I know some guy named Salvatore is going to come in this very club and say, 'Hey, that's my jacket' and strike up a conversation and sweep you off your feet away from me- even though all those things are true or possibly true, I just can't ruin the image of you sitting there across from me wearing my jacket better than I, or anyone else could. If I don't owe it to you, and I don't owe it to me, I at least owe it Salvatore. — David Levithan

There are no manners left in America at all, because all you're doing is kicking the person next to you so that you can consume more, see more, and get more. — James Purdy

She looked at me. "What? Is there something wrong with my idea?"
"It's not very heroic," I said dismissively. "I was expecting something with a little more flair."
"Well, I left my armor and warhorse at home," she said. "You're just upset because your big University brain couldn't think of a way, and my plan is brilliant. — Patrick Rothfuss

It's got you thinking - you've never really known anyone who's died of natural causes, have you? Parents and grandparents, plus friends and neighbors and casual lovers, they've all left you too early, and in such ghastly ways. Cancers and violence, accidents and congenital defects, aneurysms of the brain and psyche. You've heard of people who've slipped peacefully away in their sleep, or in their favorite easy chairs, after ripe octogenarian lives, but suspect they must be mythical, in the company of unicorns and mermaids. If you didn't know better, you'd think there was a deliberate methodology behind it all, a gradual pattern of calamity spiraling inward until, at last, you're the only one left to be dealt with. You could be expected to think that, but don't, because you still keep your wits about you, thank god - So to speak. — Brian Hodge

This is my heart. You are touching it with your left hand. You are touching it with your left hand, not because you are left-handed, although you might be, but because I am holding it against my heart. What you are feeling is the beating of my heart. It is what keeps me alive. — Jonathan Safran Foer

My mind never left 20, because once it does, that's when you start to die. — Dick Dale

Every choice closes doors ," I said, "and at some point you are left in the little room of yourself. I think most people who get to that room go crazy because they're surrounded with missed possibilities and no principle to explain or justify why they made the choices they did. I don't invite unhappiness, Aaron. Avoiding conflict may not be the noblest principle, but it works for me. — Michael Nava

He pondered that a little while and then he asked, do Black people have to pay for their doctors, too? Because that's what TV programs had said. I smiled a little at this and told him it's not only Black people who have to pay for doctors and medical care; all people in America have to. Ah, he said. And suppose you don't have the money to pay? Well, I said, if you don't have the money to pay, sometimes you died. And there was no mistaking my gesture, even though he had to wait for the translator to translate it. We left him looking absolutely nonplussed, standing in the middle of the square with his mouth open and his hand under his chin staring after me, as in utter amazement that human beings could die from lack of medical care. It's things like that that keep me dreaming about Russia long after I've returned. — Audre Lorde

It's too soon, too fast. We don't even know each other."
"Says who?" Ethan demanded. "Who decides how long it should take? Who makes the rules?"
Erica shrugged because she really didn't know it just seemed like common sense.
He put his index finger under her chin and swept his thumb just under her lower lip. "I do know you." He whispered. "I know you love chocolate and hate roses. I know you are kind and compassionate and generous. I know you feed the homeless and the stray cat that lives behind your apartment. I know you are a hopeless romantic. You are fiercely loyal." His eyes took on a mischievous glint. "I know you are ticklish; I know what makes you moan; I know what makes you squirm." He kissed her softly. "I know when I am with you I don't want to be anywhere else." He kissed her again and this time she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Their tongues tangled in a duel that left her breathless. — Melissa Hale

You're so beautiful. Your eyes are like the water you see in those pictures of paradise. A color that can't be described because a word for it can't do it justice. And your hair is gold, like the sun. You're my paradise, Blue. You and Ark are all I have left."
"I'm yours, JD. If you want me, I'm yours."
"No, Blue," he whispers back. "You're ours. — J.A. Huss

I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.
Why not?"
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. ( ... ) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette. — Janet Fitch

Because time is not like space. And when you put something down somewhere, like a protractor or a biscuit, you can have a map in your head to tell you where you have left it, but even if you don't have a map it will still be there because a map is a representation of things that actually exist so you can find the protractor or the biscuits again. And a timetable is a map of time, except that if you don't have a timetable, time isn't there like the landing and the garden and the route to school. — Mark Haddon

A ship doesn't look quite the same from inside, does it? A wise sailor,' Robert said, fanning his arms, 'will one time stand upon the shore and watch his ship sail by, that he shall from then on appreciate not being left behind.' He grinned and added, 'Eh?'

George gave him a little grimace. 'Who's that? Melville? Or C.S. Forrester?'

It's me!' Robert complained. "Can't I be profound now and again?'

Hell, no.'

Why not?'

Because you're still alive. Gotta be dead to be profound.'

You're unchivalrous, George. — Diane Carey

Her death has had a huge effect on me. It felt like a big hole appeared on my left side - apparently your left side is your mother - which I thought could never be filled. Now I think what you have to do is fill it with yourself because your mother is part of you. I'm easing into that space, using it and being comforted by it. — Imelda Staunton

I probably would've kept slogging on that same chord change, because there's a tendency to have that happen. You get into the cadence in your mind, and it's hard to make the kind of left turn that you probably need to keep it really interesting. — Aimee Mann

Demons do not cry. You became a demon, because you couldn't cry anymore right? Humans cry and when their tears finally run dry, there's nothing left, not a demon nor a monster and one final prayer for death. So, laugh demon. Laugh that arrogant laugh of your and remember I beat you to it. — Alexander Anderson

You can see why the Marxist left would resist the idea that Hitler was a revolutionary. Because if he was, then either Hitler was a force for good, or revolutions can be bad. — Jonah Goldberg

Each time a man leaves a woman, he takes a piece of her heart with him when he goes. The next man comes along, and takes another piece, this time a big one. And then, she meets another. And he takes a piece. One day we look up and we've got this shriveled little sliver of a heart left, and that's all we've got to offer. After that, the men we meet call us bitches and cunts, and man haters. They think we're hardened, but we're not. It's just that we're heartless. And we're heartless because of you. — Scott Hildreth

It's not always wise to assume that just because the surface of the world appears undisturbed, life is where you left it. — Jan Ellison

[The maid] went on and on about how you and three casks of wine and three women spent the week before our wedding trying to...you know"--Adrienne muttered an unintelligible word--"your brains out."
"To what my brains out?"
"You know." Adrienne rolled her eyes.
"I'm afraid I don't. What was that word again?"
"Adrienne looked at him sharply. Was he teasing her? Were his eyes alight with mischief? That half-smile curving his beautiful mouth could absolutely melt the sheet she was clutching, not to mention her will. "Apparently one of them succeeded, because if you had any brains left you'd get out of my sight now," she snapped.
"It wasn't three." Hawk swallowed a laugh.
"No?"
"It was five."
"Adrienne's jaw clenched. She held her fingers up again. "Fourth--this will be a marriage in name only. Period."
"Casks of wine, I meant."
"You are not funny. — Karen Marie Moning

Death is always less painful and easier than life! You speak true. And yet we do not, day to day, choose death. Because ultimately, death is not the opposite of life, but the opposite of choice. Death is what you get when there are no choices left to make. Am I right? — Robin Hobb

I use the [vulgar] words because apparently these words do not corrupt morally. I'm from the street in New York, hung around in a tough neighborhood. It was common to curse, you make your point. It's a very effective language. I try not to overdo it. It's never to shock. I know where it fits, it's never to shock. There's no shock value left in words. — George Carlin

That's what I want, a mental evidence I can feel. I don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in. I want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel. But there's no way to do that. In order to believe in a thing you've got to carry it with you. You can't carry the Earth, or a man, in your pocket. I want a way to do that, carry things with me always, so I can believe in them. How clumsy to have to go to all the trouble of going out and bringing in something terribly physical to prove something. I hate physical things because they can be left behind and become impossible to believe in them. — Ray Bradbury

I opened my mouth to tell her that nothing could kill me, not now, but she said, 'Not kill you. Destroy you. Dissolve you. You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an "I." No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and points ... — Neil Gaiman

I think I got left behind somewhere, because, you know, I'm still a romantic — Grace Coddington

Of course, everyone's going to freak out when you show up at school."
"Freak out? Why?"
"Because you're so much hotter now than when you left." She shrugged. "It's true. Must be a vampire thing."
Simon looked baffled. "I'm hotter now?"
"Sure you are. I mean, look at those two. They're both totally into you." She pointed to a few feet in front of them, where Isabelle and Maia had moved to walk side by side, their head bent together.
Simon looked up ahead at the girls. Clary could almost swear he was blushing. "Are they? Sometimes they get together and whisper and stare at me. I have no idea what it's about."
"Sure you don't." Clary grinned. "Poor you, you have two cute girls vying for your love. Your life is hard. — Cassandra Clare

It was already there," he said. "Someone left it behind. They didn't want it. The super said they couldn't even rent the apartment for a few weeks because it takes up the whole bedroom and nobody wanted to pay to take it out. Can you believe it? A Steinway." "Lucky that you play," she said. She — Alice McDermott

Why am I the expert all of a sudden?"
"Of the two of us, you have more stalking experience."
He leaned back. "Really?"
"Yes. When you let yourself into my apartment before we were dating, did you fidget while you watched me?"
"Will you let it go?" he growled.
"No."
"I didn't fidget. I checked on you to make sure you hadn't gotten yourself killed. I wanted to know that you weren't dying slowly of your wounds, because you have no sense and half of the time you couldn't afford a medmage. I didn't stand there and watch you. I came in, made sure you were okay, and left. It wasn't creepy."
"It was a little creepy."
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Worked how?"
"You're still alive."
"Yes, of course, take all the credit. — Ilona Andrews

He raped me, Agent Calhoun, he hit me but he didn't kill me. As long as I'm breathing,
I've got fight in me and luckily I'm breathing."
It was at that he whispered, "You aren't like a lot of women."
"Yes I am," I whispered back. "I'm like all women. You see this but inside there's
something else that I won't let you see or him see but it's the mess he left me. But that's
mine. No one gets to it. Everything you get and he gets is a show. One thing you learn really
quickly and really well when that kind of thing happens to you is to be a fucking great
actress. You don't have a choice in that because a man like that does something like that to
you, you lose having choices. The only choice you have is what role you intend to play. I
picked my role and that ... that Agent Calhoun is what you see. — Kristen Ashley

Why don't you give up drinking?"
"Because I don't choose. It doesn't matter what a man does if he's ready to take the consequences. Well, I'm ready to take the consequences. You talk glibly of giving up drinking, but it's the only thing I've got left now. What do you think life would be to me without it? Can you understand the happiness I get out of my absinthe? I yearn for it; and when I drink it I savour every drop, and afterwards I feel my soul swimming in ineffable happiness. It disgusts you. You are a puritan and in your heart you despise sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures are the most violent and the most exquisite. I am a man blessed with vivid senses, and I have indulged them with all my soul. I have to pay the penalty now, and I am ready to pay. — W. Somerset Maugham

I mean, a lot of people don't realize it, but fashion is one of the most racial industries left out there now. Radio and music aren't. Television and movies aren't. Even commercials now are showing interracial couples. You see a lot of diversity in TV shows, but you don't see that in fashion. You think there would be some, because the consumer is of all colors and all shades. But you don't see that in fashion. — Tyson Beckford

And when you hang from the gallows. When the door beneath you opens, when your feet do the Devil's Dance, then you will realize in that moment that this has all been for nothing, because there will be no one left to pull your feet. — Pierce Brown

This is what meditation means: how to be not identified with the mind - how to create a space between yourself and your own mind. It is difficult because we never make any separation. We go on thinking in terms that the mind means me: mind and me are totally identified. If they are totally identified, then you will never be at peace; then you will never be able to enter the divine, because the divine can be entered only when the social has been left behind. — Rajneesh

I WAS seriously hurt because of you. Seeing you in another guy's arms, kissing him ... It shredded me, Eva. Cut me open and left me bleeding. I kicked he ass in self-defense. — Sylvia Day

So, it was that bad? That you couldn't just leave Layton behind but had to flee the entire continent?"

"Mm," Felix said noncommittally. His voice went raw. "I am sorry I left like that."

"It's okay. You don't belong here. You were a wild toad caught in a mason jar."

"With a stick and a leaf."

"Hold on . . . am I the stick in this metaphor? Because I have lost some weight . . ."

"I didn't know what I was doing. There was something uncomfortable about it."

"I can't imagine what."

"Certainly not The Little Mermaidcomforter. That felt oh-so-right. — Shannon Hale

Life is a precious commodity, Charles. It's time you achieved your full potential and learned the true value of things." "You're talking like a Stalinist!" I cried. "People don't get jobs to achieve things and learn values! They do it because they have to, and then they use whatever's left over to buy themselves nice things that make them feel less bad about having jobs! — Paul Murray

He left her a note in her right slipper that said when I was alone yesterday I was happy, and I wanted you to know. Because look at how much you've done in me. — Mikl Paul

The whole art of allowing the truth to take possession of you is of being vulnerable, of being open, of being in a let-go. Or in other words, the whole art consists of one word, "surrender". And that's what sannyas is, that's my definition of a sannyasin: a man who is surrendered to existence so totally that he never thinks in terms of achievement any more, because he is no more. Who is there to achieve? - he has disappeared totally, he has not left even a trace behind. In that very moment, when you are just a pure nothingness, truth arrives. It is a gift of God. — Rajneesh

I love you, she said, and I knew she meant it because she spoke the words from the heart at the center of her chest. This, at least, had not been left behind at the hospital. — Augusten Burroughs

I had nothing left to give.
I not only had nothing left to give, I just had nothing.
And I was going to keep it that way.
If you had nothing, you couldn't feel more pain because you had nothing left to lose. — Kristen Ashley

In the South you are ashamed of being a virgin. Boys. Men. They lie about it. Because it means less to women, Father said. He said it was men invented virginity not women. Father said it's like death: only a state in which the others are left and I said, But to believe it doesn't matter and he said, That's what's so sad about anything: not only virginity and I said, Why couldn't it have been me and not her who is unvirgin and he said, That's why that's sad too; nothing is even worth the changing of it ... — William Faulkner

When you believe without knowing you believe that you are damaged at your core, you also believe that you need to hide that damage for anyone to love you. You walk around ashamed of being yourself. You try hard to make up for the way you look, walk, feel. Decisions are agonizing because if you, the person who makes the decision, is damaged, then how can you trust what you decide? You doubt your own impulses so you become masterful at looking outside yourself for comfort. You become an expert at finding experts and programs, at striving and trying hard and then harder to change yourself, but this process only reaffirms what you already believe about yourself
that your needs and choices cannot be trusted, and left to your own devices you are out of control (p.82-83) — Geneen Roth

In my work, you get used to criticisms. Of course you do, because there are a lot of people trying to get you down, but I always cheer up immensely if one is particularly wounding because I think well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left. That is why my father always taught me: never worry about anyone who attacks you personally; it means their arguments carry no weight and they know it. — Margaret Thatcher

You can't make someone your everything because when they are gone you have nothing left. — Kate McGahan

I don't have a reason to lie to you. Not now.' Jace's gaze remained steady. 'And quit baring your fangs at me. It's making me nervous.'
'Good,' Simon said. 'If you want to know why it's because you smell like blood.'
'It's my cologne. Eau de Recent Injury.' Jace raised his left hand. It was a glove of white bandages, stained across the knucles where blood had seeped through. — Cassandra Clare