Been Through So Much Quotes & Sayings

I have been struck by the way all the young people I've met through coming back to music are so much more generous-spirited with each other than I remembered people being. It gives me hope. — Vashti Bunyan

Habit is the explanation of why we seem to forget things so quickly. Yesterday we were under fire, to-day we act the fool and go foraging through the countryside, to-morrow we go up to the trenches again. We forget nothing really. But so long as we have to stay here in the field, the front-line days, when they are past, sink down in us like a stone; they are too grievous for us to be able to reflect on them at once. If we did that, we should have been destroyed long ago. I soon found out this much: - terror can be endured so long as a man simply ducks; - but it kills, if a man thinks about it. Just — Erich Maria Remarque

I've never been good at writing letters, so I hope you'll forgive me if I'm not able to make myself clear.
I've been thinking about you constantly since I left, wondering why the journey I'm on seemed to have led through you. I know my journey's not over yet, and that life is a winding path, but I can only hope it somehow circles back to the place I belong.
That's how I think of it now. I belong with you.
It is almost as if a part of you is with me. I want to believe that's true. No, change that - I know it's true. Before we met, I was as lost as a person could be, and yet you saw something in me that somehow gave me direction again. It was you, that I had been looking for all along. And it's you who is with me now.
I realize that I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone. In the short time we spent together, we had what most people can only dream about, and I'm counting the days until I can see you again. Never forget how much I love you. — Unknown

I had been hearing on-the-ground buzz that white folks were moving to places like Bend, Oregon, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and St. George, Utah. That led me to discover through census data that these towns were already extremely white and they were becoming, in most cases, even whiter. Statistics could only tell me so much; in order to get to the spirit and essence of it, I had to immerse myself. — Richard Benjamin

I am very much a scientist, and so I naturally have thought about religion also through the eyes of a scientist. When I do that, I see religion not denominationally, but in a more, let us say, deistic sense. I have been influence in my thinking by the writing of Einstein who has made remarks to the effect that when he contemplated the world he sensed an underlying Force much greater than any human force. I feel very much the same. There is a sense of awe, a sense of reverence, and a sense of great mystery. — Walter Kohn

I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been. — Etta James

Moreover, it is so important that people have the opportunity to share their stories and have them documented. There have been large-scale oral history projects after many events, from September 11th to Hurricane Katrina. Many oral history projects are much more confined, but equally valuable. We can learn about different working conditions, living conditions, trauma experiences and much more through oral history. — Patricia Leavy

Sometimes, and I don't know why, everything I want to say to you presses upon me with great intensity, like a crowd of people all trying to squeeze through a narrow door at once. And I have said nothing to you, less than nothing, for everything I have written recently has been false - not fundamentally, of course, because fundamentally everything is true - but with so much confusion and falseness on the surface that no one could be expected to see through it. — Franz Kafka

And so began the years of my internment, where I was locked away from all human things, imprisoned in my solitude like Rapunzel imprisoned in the tower. I knew instinctively that I was still very much alive within the tomb, that what was good and kind and loving and generous in me still existed in the very depths of my being, buried beneath layers of fire and ice. But I also knew that I was incapable of rising from the tomb myself, of bursting forth on my own through the thick layers that surrounded me. It was as if a spell had been cast; the only thing that could break it now was a human word, a human touch.
Which never came. — Susan Speranza

- My friend is dying. Can you cure him or not?
Her voice caught on the word friend. Percy was a lot more than that. Even boyfriend really didn't cover it. They'd been through so much together, at this point Percy was part of her - sometimes a annoying part, sure, but definitely a part she could not live without. — Rick Riordan

Are broken windows a new decorating theme around here?" Archer asked, coming up behind Jenna and me and poking his head into the parlor.
"So it would seem," I said. I was still looking outside when a faint light appeared in the gloom. It took me a minute to realize that it was from Cal's cabin. Was someone out there? Was Cal out there?
But just as quickly as it had appeared, the light went out again. Frowning, I turned from the doorway, and I went to slip my arm through Archer's. Then I remembered what Nausicaa had said earlier. Now wasn't exactly the best time for PDA, probably.
The three of us trailed behind everyone else into the ballroom. Here, at least, things looked more or less the same. Of course, the ballroom had always been one of the more bizarre rooms at Hex Hall, so that didn't say much. Still, I was relieved to see the familiar jumble of tables and chairs and not, like, tree stumps or whatever. — Rachel Hawkins

They stood in silence for a few moments with Ryan watching him carefully. He was fiddling with his t-shirt and scuffing his sneaker against the floor as he appeared to turn something over in his mind. His expression went through a variety of metamorphoses before he finally sighed and shook his head.
"Y'know, I'm not a big expert on this stuff. I've never even been in a real relationship and I'm twenty-five, but like..." He trailed off for a minute, bit his lip and then shrugged before pressing on. "But I saw the way both of you guys were at the start of this whole thing, and if you two could have that kind of intense fire stuff considering the way you both were... I dunno, I wouldn't give up so easy. But then again, maybe I read too much fanfic. — Santino Hassell

I learned so much about myself from reading this script and doing this movie [Shelter] because the level of judgment and the lack of humanity I saw in myself was disgusting. I never took into account what a homeless person might have been through. — Paul Bettany

It was simply that Morgan was right for Theo in ways he couldn't begin to explain. From little things such as Morgan already knowing so much about Theo - like the fact that he had no siblings - and accepting the way that Ben was still a very important part of his life, all the way through to arguing about absolutely fucking everything, Morgan was just right for him. It wouldn't have mattered if he'd been twenty-one or sixty-one instead of twenty-eight. He was perfect for Theo. — Con Riley

She hadn't realised how low her self esteem had been, first during her relationship, when she tried to turn herself into someone else, and then when recovering from the break up.
Because however much she was a part of the decision to break up, she still felt bruised and battered, never thought she'd have the energy to go through all this again with someone new.
It has been so much easier, since they separated, to be cocooned with her family, to nest in her cosy home and allow life to carry on for others, outside the safety of her house. — Jane Green

Never before in modern times has so much of the world been simultaneously hit by a confluence of economic and financial turmoil such as we are now living through. — Timothy Geithner

For the remainder of the meal, Ruairi sat and listened while the woman laughed at Fagan's jesting, cast smiles at Fagan, and asked him questions about Ruairi's home. Clearly Ruairi couldn't answer, so his only option was to sit mute. Perhaps this wasn't one of his most brilliant ideas. Mistress Denny must think him daft. He took another drink from his tankard and tried to think of all the ways to kill the captain of his guard. Her gentle laugh tinkled through the air. Her nearness was overpowering, but it had been quite a long time since he had shared his bed with a woman. When visions suddenly appeared of the sultry temptress lying beneath him, a cynical inner voice cut through his thoughts. He hated when his cock ruled his mind.
Ruari brought his tankard to his lips and took another big gulp, quickly realizing he needed something much stronger than what was in his cup. — Victoria Roberts

And the humans were brutish and ungovernable. They had killed one another so frequently that murder had been an accepted part of life. The various tortures they'd devised over the few millennia they'd lasted had been too much for me; I hadn't been able to bear even the dry official overviews. Wars had raged over the face of nearly every continent. Sanctioned murder, ordered and viciously effective. Those who lived in peaceful nations had looked the other way as members of their own species starved on their doorstep. There was no equality to the distribution of the planet's bounteous resources. Most vile yet, their offspring - the next generation, which my kind nearly worshipped for their promise - had all too often been victims of heinous crimes. And not just at the hands of strangers, but at the hands of the caretakers they were entrusted to. Even the huge sphere of the planet had been put into jeopardy through their careless and greedy mistakes. — Stephenie Meyer

The little box that was given to me was by no means unique. I'd heard of prayer boxes, and I knew what they were for.
... Any scrap of paper will do, anywhere, anytime of the day or night. The important part, in a world of fractured thoughts, hurried moments, and scattershot prayers, is to take the time to think through, to write down, to clarify in your own mind the things you're asking for, the things you're grateful for, the things your're troubled about, the hopes you've been nurturing.
And then?
Put them in the box and ...
Let. Them. Go.
That's what trust is. It's letting go of the worry. It's the way of peace and also the way of God. such a hard road to travel for people like me, who are worriers. When I'm writing a story, I control the whole universe. In life ... not so much. Actually, not at all. Things happen that I hadn't anticipated and wouldn't choose and can't change. That's the tough part. — Lisa Wingate

If I'm away from you for more than an hour, I can't stop thinking about you. I carry you in my spirit. I pray for you more than I pray for myself ... I know you don't believe in fairy tales. But, if you did, I'd want to be your knight in shining armor. You've been through so much. I don't want to see you hurt anymore. Now I may not be able to give you all that your used to. But I do know I can love you past your pain. I don't want you to worry about anything. You just wake up in the morning, that's all you have to do and I'll take it from there ... There's one condition ... You have to be my wife — Tyler Perry

I really do think how we frame things determines so much of our experience, and I've been talking to a lot of oncologists, like, why don't we call them transformation suites and give people transformation juice and have guides that support people when they're going through chemo so you could actually burn away what needs to be burned away, as opposed to this dread, terror, horror, which is a very different experience. — Eve Ensler

I feel like I've survived so much, and been through so much. And sometimes I miss the innocence of those times. Life was different. New York was different. The music business was different. I miss the simplicity of it, the naivete of everyone around me. — Madonna Ciccone

What if we changed the story that has been peddled to us over thousands of years by those religions that want to control us, that this life is merely a stepping stone to something better or something worse, and that we can only achieve the better by passing through the doors of their institutions and following their rules? What if we trash this arcane story which has caused so much suffering and hostility, and accept that we have already arrived in heaven and that there is nothing more gorgeous than here and now? — Danny Scheinmann

...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they would not replay in my head, but they did. In all these moments--some tear-soaked, some life-defining, but all character-building moments--I have felt vulnerable.
And I believe these feelings of vulnerability--when a person feels scared and alone and overwhelmed and pissed off, wen the sting of unfairness bites deep--while miserable to live through, are the basis for writing compelling fiction. — Jessica Page Morrell

I've spent so much time with my dad traveling and seeing the ground-level change that we've been able to make through philanthropy and trip over trip, time over time, country over country, home after home we've been invited into, given tea, given food that people didn't have to give us, I mean all of these things. — Howard Warren Buffett

I has always thought the world was good, that everyone could find the beauty in themselves. Everyone could honor, and forgive, and live a full and gorgeous life, even when the hands they'd been dealt weren't easy.
But what Davenport had been born into had taken so much from her, leaving her with just the wickedest and the worst. Her father had given her life, and then taken every scrap of joy or freedom, and even now that he was dead, all he had left her with was a deep, abiding hatred for what she was.
Her power was tremendous, working through her, but it had gone to rot, and without someone to help her and to love her, she did not know how to take it back. — Brenna Yovanoff

Africa has been going through so much for so many years; it's time that it stands up the way other nations are standing up. — Nas

Some part of me ... had been waiting, since Kelp's death, for certainty that God ... was either dead or malicious. On the cot, now, in the rain-shadowed room with the medicine smells, I knew it was worse than that. They were a challenge, a dare: you must look at the horrors of the world and find a way back to faith in spite of what you saw. I had a glimpse of what the purer version of myself might be capable of: enduring the loss, keeping the rage and disgust down, finding meaning through suffering. But it was only a glimpse. There was so much shame, and the shame made me angry at the thought of getting better. — Glen Duncan

Generally, I think people are just going through the motions now. There's so much stuff that people are doing today that has already been done. I kind of like that new Savages record, but I don't know why they take themselves so seriously. — Zachary Cole Smith

So," Riley asked, "what have you got for me?" Taking his hand, she placed it palm-down over her heart. It would hurt like a bitch, she thought, but he was hers to protect as much as she was his.
"Me." And she opened up her soul, laid herself bare. The mating bond shoved through her body like white lightning, hot and wild and right. Incredibly, wonderfully right. His energy was different from hers - wolf, not leopard - but it laced itself with her own until their combined strength was far greater than either would've ever been alone.
"Wow." He blinked, swaying on his feet. "Damn. — Nalini Singh

He had forgotten that God saw through the silk robes to the sinful heart, that the only wealth worth having was treasure in heaven, and that even the king had to kneel down in church. Feeling that everyone else was so much more powerful and sophisticated than he was, he had lost sight of his true values, suspended his critical faculties, and placed his trust in his superiors. His reward had been treachery. — Ken Follett

So far I have restrained myself. For how much longer, I do not know.
I have never known such happiness, shot through with such misery. Only four days have passed, they tell me. But that is not true. It has been decades since I saw
you last.
You will find me a stooped old man when we meet again. Perhaps I might even need a pair of spectacles to recognize your veil.
But I remain always,
Your servant,
C.
One of Christian's onesided letters to the Baroness — Sherry Thomas

I've been through so much in my career in F1, particularly in 1995, and I did achieve so much that I thought that it's not worth it any more to push your luck further. [on his retirement — Mika Hakkinen

From that time on they both looked forward to sleeping together. I might even say that the goal of their lovemaking was not so much pleasure as the sleep that followed it. She especially was affected. Whenever she stayed overnight in her rented room (which quickly became only an alibi for Tomas), she was unable to fall asleep; in his arms she would fall asleep no matter how wrought up she might have been. He would whisper impromptu fairy tales about her, or gibberish, words he repeated monotonously, words soothing or comical, which turned into vague visions lulling her through the first dreams of the night. He had complete control over her sleep: she dozed off at the second he chose. — Milan Kundera

I've learned so much through life. Starting off in Asia, the cultures, the people you meet, the poverty you see. It's been a great education for me, and I've loved every minute of it. — Vijay Singh

Since we'd both been through so many of the same things, she and I, and we were an awful lot alike - too much. And because we'd both been hurt so badly, so early on, in violent and irremediable ways that most people didn't, and couldn't, understand, wasn't it a bit ... precarious? A matter of self-preservation? Two rickety and death-driven persons who would need to lean on each other quite so much? not to say she wasn't doing well at the moment, because she was, but all that could change in a flash with either of us, couldn't it? the reversal, the sharp downward slide, and wasn't that the danger? since our flaws and weaknesses were so much the same, and one of us could bring the other down way too quick? — Donna Tartt

The mercy of God is infinite too, and the man who has felt the grinding pain of inward guilt knows that this is more than academic. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Abounding sin is the terror of the world, but abounding grace is the hope of mankind. however sin may abound it still has its limits, for it is the product of finite minds and hearts; but God's much more" introduces us to infinitude. Against our deep creature-sickness stands God's infinite ability to cure. The Christian witness through the centuries has been that "God so loved the world ... "; it remains for us to see that love in the light of God's infinitude. His love is measureless. It is more: it is boundless. It has no bounds because it is not a thing but a facet of the essential nature of God. His love is something He is, and because He is infinite that love can enfold the whole created world in itself and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside. — A.W. Tozer

I definitely am a huge lover of comedy, and it's only through doing so many comedies that I've realised how much of an influence they've been on me. — Bradley Cooper

Lately I have been feeling hulihudu. And everything around me seemed to be heimongmong. These were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be "confused" and "dark fog."
But really, the words mean much more than that. Maybe they can't be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only Chinese people have, as if you were falling headfirst through Old Mr. Chou's [Mr. Sandman's] door, then trying to find your way back. But you're so scared you can't open your eyes, so you get on your hands and knees and grope in the dark, listening for voices to tell you which way to go.
I had been talking to too may people ... to each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true, I was certain of it, at least at the moment I told it. — Amy Tan

Much like books, she could tell how voiceless things had provided a brand of companionship more compatible to his nature than human friendship had ever been. These things, locked in their inanimate ways, fed him ideas, she thought. They whispered their tales to him through unmoving lips and he listened, opening himself to their world so much more than any normal passerby. That much was evident in the way he'd taken the photos, as if he'd caught each soulless thing in a candid moment of secret animation. Like they'd sensed him coming and so turned themselves his way because they knew that he held the power to translate their silence into words. — Kelly Creagh

After living in Smokey Hollow these three months my bearded face was darkened to a tan, and for more than a moment, I couldn't tell what color I was. Black is what I saw and what I expected to see. I grabbed a towel and rubbed to get a clear look. No, I was white. At least my skin was. I had been through so much with my family here, and all I had seen was black faces, that I forgot for a split second that I wasn't black too. For weeks after the flood in the bathroom, I remembered the morning I forgot my skin color. — Peter Jenkins

The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me. — James Gray

I've been able to find just as much interesting, exciting music through the Internet and iTunes ... The personal interaction is not the same, and I'm not walking out of a store with a physical thing, so there's definitely an element that is lost, for sure. — Colin Hanks

This man, who had been through so much hardship, was not just generous; he was too good to be true. He put me first. He was concerned for my well-being. — M. Clarke

On this up trip I saw a little towhead (infant island) half a mile long, which had been formed during the past nineteen years. Since there was so much time to spare that nineteen years of it could be devoted to the construction of a mere towhead, where was the use, originally, in rushing this whole globe through in six days? — Mark Twain

The West, for many centuries, has been dominated by a highly rationalistic mindset that presumes to express and explain the nature of God through words. The East has only recently begun to express its understanding of God in those ways. For the most part, Eastern Christianity has always recognized that it can only say so much about God in finite, human ways before it must go silent before the mystery of the Infinite and Unspeakable. Instead of defining ultimate reality in theological concepts, the East has relied upon its artists, musicians, and poets to proclaim what can only be understood in the heart. — Peter Pearson

Much of what I have learned, as well as much of my intellectual enjoyment, has come through problem solving. Through the years, I've found it more and more difficult to tell when I was working and when playing, for it has so often turned out that what I have learned playing with problems has been useful in my serious work. — Frederick Mosteller

You miss them so much when they deploy, and you want them to be home, but then when they are, things aren't perfect. And you feel as if they should be. Depending on the deployment and what I'd been through, I also had emotions ranging from sadness to anxiety to anger. — Chris Kyle

Your greatest need is not a spouse. Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God - and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Christ. So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need? Trust His sovereignty, trust His wisdom, trust His love. — C.J. Mahaney

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

I didn't read many comics as a kid - I've always been a really fast reader, and I would fly through a comic book in a few minutes and be so mad that it ended so quickly. But now that I've been in the business, I tend to look at the panels so much more carefully, and realize that so much of it is about the art; I don't think I got that before. — Jane Wiedlin

Well, you know, I've been in so many writing workshops, writing classes, and to the right of me and to the left of me, there's always somebody much more talented than I am. And what I figured out is they're not willing to go through the rejection, which is enormous, and then the compromise that comes with, you know, editing your work. And so I decided a long time ago that I didn't have to be 'talented'; I just had to be persistent, and that that was something I could control. The persistence. — Kate DiCamillo

Ric Flair is one of the most entertaining guys to sit down with and by entertaining I don't mean he has catchy phrases, but that he's been through so much and his experiences are so genuine I could listen to him talk all day. — John Cena

I'm through accepting limits 'cause someone says they're so Some things I cannot change But till I try, I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of Losing love I guess I've lost Well, if that's love It comes at much too high a cost! — Stephen Schwartz

Una furtiva lacrima had been the only really beautiful thing in her life. Wiping away her own tears she tried to sing what she heard. But her voice was as crude and out of tune as she was. When she heard it she started to cry. It was the first time she'd ever cried, she didn't know she had so much water in her eyes. She cried, blew her nose no longer knowing what she was crying about. She wasn't crying because of the life she led: because, never having led any other, she'd accepted that with her that was just the way things were. But I also think she was crying because, through the music, she might have guessed there were other ways of feeling, there were more delicate existences and even a certain luxury of soul. — Clarice Lispector

I guess sometimes it's not so much about how long you've known someone, but about what you've been through together. — S.J. Watson

I don't love football the way I once loved the game. I don't look at it as fun anymore, and it definitely used to be fun. A lot of the fun has been taken away from it, I guess, because you go through so much on the field and off the field. — Eric Dickerson

I'm so exhausted with worry, I go to bed early that day. But hours later, I'm still awake. I can't seem to fall asleep. Not without him by my side. When did I become so addicted to Jake? Why do I crave his company? Since forever, my conscience responds. After my father's death, I went off the deep end because he was not there. I sought the BDSM lifestyle, not because I yearned for it, but because I wanted the pain. If Jake had been there, somehow I could have muddled through the aftermath of my father's funeral without looking for someone to tie me up and administer punishment. I wanted to be beaten as an outlet for my agony. Not that it made any difference. Even after I flew to Brazil, the pain was still there. It still is. And I know why. Because he's not by my side. As much as I want him to be here with me, he never signed on to babysit me for life. — Magda Alexander

As he rose to his feet he noticed that he was neither dripping nor panting for breath as anyone would expect after being under water. His clothes were perfectly dry. He was standing by the edge of a small pool - not more than ten feet from side to side in a wood. The trees grew close together and were so leafy that he could get no glimpse of the sky. All the light was green light that came through the leaves: but there must have been a very strong sun overhead, for this green daylight was bright and warm. It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive. — C.S. Lewis

I think part of your attraction to him is the draw of the unknown, of being different, even special. He is so out of the ordinary that you feel pulled to that because you yourself are not so ordinary. You're alone. And sometimes the pain of so much loss is written across your face. You wear it like an adornment and that causes other people to wonder about you; they can't relate to you and what you've been through, but you can relate to him in his dark state. — Donna Lynn Hope

I had often thought that if I managed to live through the war I wouldn't expect too much of life. How could one resent disappointment in love if life itself was continuously in doubt? Since Belgorod, terror had overturned all my preconceptions, and the pace of life had been so intense one no longer knew what elements of ordinary life to abandon in order to maintain some semblance of balance. I was still unresigned to the idea of death, but I had already sworn to myself during moments of intense fear that I would exchange anything - fortune, love, even a limb - if I could simply survive. — Guy Sajer

You're absolutely right. Our little town is a hole. It always has been and still is. But now it is a hole into the future. We're going to dump so much through this hole into your lousy world that everything will change in it. Life will be different. It'll be fair. Everyone will have everything that he needs. Some hole, huh? Knowledge comes through this hole. And when we have the knowledge, we'll make everyone rich, and we'll fly to the stars, and go anywhere we want. That's the kind of hole we have here — Arkady Strugatsky

Like a comet pulled from orbit,
As it passes a sun.
Like a stream that meets a boulder,
Halfway through the wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
I have been changed for good

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring,
By a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a skybird,
In a distant wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you,
Because I knew you,
I have been changed for good. — Stephen Schwartz

We have been conditioned since birth with the belief that satisfaction of these inner needs comes through our interaction with the world. We seek inner fulfillment through what we have or what we do, through the experiences the world provides, and through the ways others behave toward us. This is the meme that governs so much of our thinking and behavior: the meme that says whether or not we are content with life depends on what we have and what we do. Prevalent as this meme may be, it seldom provides any lasting satisfaction. A person may gather a great deal of wealth, but is he really more secure? More than likely, he will soon find new sources of insecurity. Are my investments safe? Will the stock market crash? Can I trust my friends? Should I employ "security" companies to protect my possessions? — Peter Russell

Sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to feel how you feel until it passes. I think one of the problems we all have is thinking that feeling sad is wrong. No. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad for as long as you need to.
Just don't get lost in there, and forget you are more than your sorrow. You are so much more beautiful and strange than the struggles that you've been through. You are far stronger the moment you realize that. Not many people will understand that strength isn't feeling nothing, it's feeling everything and continuing to move forward despite it. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore

I found myself listening to Walter Bjork's fascinating radio program Bible Questionnaire (WFME, Orange, N.J.), and a caller asked where in the Bible one would find the statement "Neither borrower nor lender be." The poor host flipped like mad through his concordance without success. Naturally, since the quote is not from the Bible at all, but from Shakespeare's Hamlet! But it sounded biblical, so caller and host alike attributed it to scripture. Can it have been much more difficult to naively attribute wise sayings to Jesus? — Robert M. Price

But what a path it has been! I have had to pass through so much foolishness, so much vice, so much error, so much nausea and disillusionment and wretchedness, merely in order to become a child again and be able to start over. But all of this was just and proper. — Hermann Hesse

I work very physically as an actor. The biggest thing for me has been the challenge of how to be this person with the personal transformation that's going on for me physically ... That hasn't been easy. It's been an awesome challenge for me ... because so much of how I access character is through my body. — Kerry Washington

Quietly, Macey went through her options. Even though the masked men were asking for cell phones, the gunmen were making so much noise that she was sure someone had already called 911. The obvious exits were blocked, and the elevators had no doubt been disabled. The men moved with confidence and order, but they weren't trying to be quiet. There was nothing covert at all about this operation.
Unlike the boy beside her. — Ally Carter

Sometimes, in a summer morning,
having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise
till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,
in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or
flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at
my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant
highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the
hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but
so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals
mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I
minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some
work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing
memorable is accomplished. — Henry David Thoreau

The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true. — Sarah Dessen

As he looked back upon man moving through History, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! and to such little purpose! ... Hedonism ... was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is but itself a moment. — Oscar Wilde

i am confident i am over you. so much that some mornings i wake up with a smile on my face and my hands pressed together thanking the universe for pulling you out of me. thank god i cry. thank god you left. i would not be the empire i am today if you had stayed.

but then.

there are some nights i imagine what i might do if you showed up. how if you walked into the room this very second every awful thing you've ever done would be tossed out the closet window and all the love would rise up again. it would pour through my eyes as if it never really left in the first place. as if it's been practicing how to stay silent so long only so it could be this loud on your arrival. can someone explain that. how even when the love leaves. it doesn't leave. how even when i am so past you. i am so helplessly brought back to you. — Rupi Kaur

We live in a supermarket of ideas, faiths, practices, theories, ideologies, and much else besides. Never in human history have there been so many movements and ideas struggling to attract our attention. Added to this, the Western world is swamped by material goods and the Western mind is dominated by the goal of material success. In all this confusion, Zen stands out as a voice of sanity. It represents a different way of seeing the world, one based upon the rediscovery of who we really are and have always been, through revealing to us our true nature. — David Fontana

But since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, things haven't been fair. Bad things happen to good people. But if we wait for justice, we are putting our lives under the control of those who hurt us. Better far to take God's solution of grief and forgiveness and grow through the unfair situation. Remember that God himself didn't demand fairness and justice for us; rather, he valued his relationship with us so much that he went to the cross for us: "Christ died for the ungodly" (Romans 5:6). — Henry Cloud

It's been amazing to play the same character through so many adventures. And it's so strange because my life has changed so much over these years, but 'Twilight' and Edward Cullen will always be a part of me. It's been my whole life. My whole 20s. And I wouldn't have it any other way. — Robert Pattinson

Everything good takes a great amount of effort. Like, things went wrong with 'Prozac Nation' so much, and it went through so many rejections and incarnations, but I felt so much that it needed to exist. But if I hadn't been so persistent and insistent, it wouldn't have happened. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

For the first time, she became vividly aware of how much of her life she had spent with her husband. It had been a period of time utterly devoid of happiness and spontaneity. A time that she'd so far managed to get through only by using up every last reserve of perseverance and consideration. All of it self-inflicted. — Han Kang

I'd been through so much, falling short again and again, and only recently had found a place where who I was, right now, was enough. — Sarah Dessen

You are in love, at a point where pride and apprehension scuffle within you. Part of you wants time to slow down: for this, you say to yourself, is the best period of your whole life. I am in love, I want to savour it, study it, lie around in languor with it; may today last forever. This is your poetical side. However, there is also your prose side, which urges time not to slow down but hurry up. How do you know this is love, your prose side whispers like a sceptical lawyer, it's only been around for a few weeks, a few months. You won't know it's the real thing unless you (and she) still feel the same in, oh, a year or so at least; that's the only way to prove you aren't living a dragonfly mistake. Get through this bit, however much you enjoy it, as fast as possible; then you'll be able to find out whether or not you're really in love. — Julian Barnes

What the fuck does it take to show you motherfuckers, what does it fucking take what do you want how much do you want because I am willing and I'll stand before you and I'll raise my arms and give you my chest and throat and wait, and I've been so old for so long, for you, for you, I want it fast and right through me
Oh do it, do it motherfuckers, do it do it you fuckers finally, finally, finally. — Dave Eggers

Once I was in New York, I completely had no interest for a long time in what happened in China because I had been through so much. Seeing my father's life struggle and so many whole generations lose their potential or possibility in their lives. Just being pushed into this political struggle and the damage done not only to their lives but their relatives. — Ai Weiwei

How easy it is for me to live with you, Lord!
How easy it is for me to believe in You!

When my mind is distraught
and my reason fails,
when the cleverest people do not see further
than this evening and do not know
what must be done tomorrow -
You grant me the clear confidence,
that You exist, and that You will take care
that not all the ways of goodness are stopped.

At the height of earthly fame I gaze
with wonder at that path
through hopelessness -
to this point, from which even I have been able to convey
to men some reflection of the light which comes from You.

And you will enable me to go on doing
as much as needs to be done.
And in so far as I do not manage it -
that means that You have allotted the task to others. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

So much of my life had been spent taking and taking and taking. Thinking it was all about me, believing that everything came down to me and how I felt, what I wanted. Even in my grasping attempts to know God, I did exactly that: I grasped. I sought. Sometimes I waited. But I never opened myself, spread my soul wide as an offering so He could come and capture me. I never let Him run strong fingers through my soil, watering it with His grace so my fruit could grow and grow above the weeds that threatened to choke it out. — Nicole Baart

It had been a long fifteen years. So much had changed in both their lives. Both hearts somehow sadly hardened. "Let us just make it through," Claire whispered her desperate plea. It was her only prayer, one she said over and over again. An almost cynical laugh erupted out of her as she turned one last time to say goodbye to her father's tombstone. That was her prayer? That was all she could come up with to say to God? Then so be it. — Laura Aranda

***A LATE-NIGHT EXCERPT***
I realized much later that I actually visited 33 Himmel Street in that period of time. It must have been one of the few moments when the girl was not there with him, for all I saw was a man in bed. I Knelt. I readied myself to insert my hands through the blankets. Then there was a resurgence - an immense struggle against my weight. I withdrew, and with so much work ahead of me, it was nice to be fought off in that dark little room. I even managed a short, close-eyed pause of serenity before I made my way out. — Markus Zusak

I get so much as a whiff of you not doing what you should be doing to get her through this, I have no problem stepping back in. She deserves someone who will treat her right." "I feel you," I said, nodding. Maybe a lesser man would have been pissed. He had outright just declared that if I slipped up, he planned on stealing my woman out from under me. But, that being said, no woman could be stolen if she was being treated right. — Jessica Gadziala

It took me many years to lose my spirit, to unlearn thinking and forget the unity. Isn't it just as if I had turned about slowly and was on a long detour from being a man to being a child, from a thinker to a childlike person? And yet, this path has been very good, and the bird in my chest has not died. But what a path this has been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, so many vices, so many errors, so much disgust, so many disappointments and woes just to begin again. But it was fitting this way; my heart says "Yes" to it and my eyes smile at it. I've had to experience despair. I've had to descend to the most foolish of all thoughts
the thought of suicide
in order to be able to experience divine grace, to hear "Om" again, to be able to sleep and awaken properly again [ ... ] Where else might my path lead me? This path is foolish; it moves in loops, and perhaps it is going around in a circle. Let it go where it likes; I want to follow it. — Hermann Hesse

Red had a deep loathing of the night before them. He had been through so much combat, had felt so many kinds of terror, and had seen so many men killed that he no longer had any illusions about the inviolability of his own flesh. He knew he could be killed; it was something he had accepted long ago, and he had grown a shell about that knowledge so that he rarely thought of anything further ahead than the next few minutes ... — Norman Mailer

Jennie was beginning to accept how much she cared for him. He'd been her friend for so long. Her support in so many ways. He protected her. He cared for her without question whenever she needed him.
But there was more than that. He made her feel special. Cherished. He made her laugh and he held her when she cried. So many men would have walked away from her a long time ago considering what she'd put him through. She knew it would never have crossed Chad's mind to do that. — Lori Ryan

Tell me you didn't really watch Nausicaa."
Miho tried to keep a serious face, which must have been difficult enough in her flannel Hello Kitty pajamas. But the girl was a terrible liar. She smirked.
"No. Kiki just ended. So much for our Miyazaki marathon."
"We got through two movies," Sakura said. "Tonight, that's a marathon."
They'd wanted to watch movies tonight, just to clear their minds, and had agreed on nothing violent. All three of them loved the films of Miyazaki, who had become perhaps the most successful director in Japan while making only animated films. Kara had vetoed Howl's Moving Castle because she'd seen it too recently, and they had all seen My Neighbor Totoro far too many times, so they had started with Spirited Away. — Thomas Randall

Here they found themselves year after year- a group of busy, youngish women who had eased their cars impatiently through the archaic streets of Rosedale, who had complained for a week previously about the time lost, the fuss over the children's dresses, and, above all, the boredom, but who were drawn together by a rather implausible allegiance- not so much to Miss Marsalles as to the ceremonies of their childhood, to a more exacting pattern of life which had been breaking apart even then but which survived, and unaccountably still survived, in Miss Marsalles's living room. — Alice Munro

Darling checked his temper as he saw the hurt in Maris's eyes. "I know, Mari. I'm sorry." The two of them had been through so much in their lives. Best friends since they'd started preschool together twenty-three years ago. Through thick and thin, brothers to the bitter end. That had been their childhood pledge to each other. Little had they known then how many times that bond would be tested. Never — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Mozambique is having an economic resurgence but still four out of 10 people there have HIV or AIDS ... There's astounding conditions but what I was left with ... was the power of the human spirit there and the fact these people have been through so much and they were still dancing in the streets — Leonardo DiCaprio

Ah, Toulouse, you have travelled too much. You know the gods of a hundred lands, those of the trees and mountains, the sky and sea, the stars and planets, of demons and angels, and even the Master of the Cosmos. But I am speaking of God. There are others, I'm sure, but only one God who created even great Zeus and Rama. Yet travel is like philosophy: a few years of it will perk the eye to differences, which you shall be able to notice with ease. Yet living as I have, travelling to lonely lands and through a thousand metropolises and hidden woods, you rather see the similarities. All becomes one, and God too becomes one. Not the sum of all those gods here, but beyond them, a being few philosophers have truly grasped. He has always been one, but he is severed in our minds. So it is up to us to piece him back together. If our souls possess a clarity beyond what our mortal nature can bestow, we shall see him. — Mary-Jean Harris

Nick watched her intently as he tried to sort through the anarchy of his thoughts. His usual appetite had vanished after their walk this morning. He had not eaten breakfast ... had not done anything, really, except to wander around the estate in a sort of daze that appalled him. He knew himself to be a callous man, one with no honor, and no means of quelling his own brutish instincts. So much of his life had been occupied with basic survival that he had never been free to follow higher pursuits. He had little acquaintance with literature or history, and his mathematical abilities were limited to matters of money and betting odds. Philosophy, to him, was a handful of cynical principles learned through experience with the worst of humanity. By now, nothing could surprise or intimidate him. He didn't fear loss, pain, or even death.
But with a few words and one awkward, innocent kiss, Charlotte Howard had devastated him. — Lisa Kleypas

I remember watching rioters in Panama, for example, smashing shop windows, allegedly in the name of freedom and democracy, but laughing as they did so, searching for new fields of glass to conquer. Many of the rioters were obviously bourgeois, the scions of privileged families, as have been the leaders of so many destructive movements in modern history. That same evening, I dined in an expensive restaurant and saw there a fellow diner whom I had observed a few hours before joyfully heaving a brick through a window. How much destruction did he think his country could bear before his own life might be affected, his own existence compromised? — Theodore Dalrymple

But if you have derived any benefit from the reproaches and wrongs which you have received, if they have put you upon examining your own heart, if they have made you more careful how you conduct, if they have convinced you of the value of a sanctified temper; will you not forgive them? Will you not forgive one who has been instrumental of so much good to you? What though he meant it for evil? If through the Divine blessing your happiness has been promoted by what he has done, why should you even have a hard thought of him? — John Flavel

We are living through the most exciting, challenging and most critical time in human history. Never before has so much been possible; and never before has so much been at stake. — Peter Russell

I know no surer way of shaking off the dreary crust formed about the soul by the trying to do one's duty or the patient enduring of having somebody else's duty done to one, than going out alone, either at the bright beginning of the day, when the earth is still unsoiled by the feet of the strenuous and only God is abroad; or in the evening, when the hush has come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them wonder at the meanness of the day just past, at the worthlessness of the things one has struggled for, at the folly of having been so angry, and so restless, and so much afraid. Nothing focusses life more exactly than a little while alone at night with the stars. What are perfunctory bedroom prayers hurried through in an atmosphere of blankets, to this deep abasement of the spirit before the majesty of heaven? And as a consecration of what should be yet one more happy day, of what value are those hasty morning devotions, — Elizabeth Von Arnim