Beside Yourself Quotes & Sayings

IMPOSSIBLE FRIENDSHIPS For example, with someone who no longer is, who exists only in yellowed letters. Or long walks beside a stream, whose depths hold hidden porcelain cups - and the talks about philosophy with a timid student or the postman. A passerby with proud eyes whom you'll never know. Friendship with this world, ever more perfect (if not for the salty smell of blood). The old man sipping coffee in St.-Lazare, who reminds you of someone. Faces flashing by in local trains - the happy faces of travelers headed perhaps for a splendid ball, or a beheading. And friendship with yourself - since after all you don't know who you are. — Adam Zagajewski

No matter what you do with your life during the day, there's always that moment when you have to wake up with yourself, with yourself and with the person that's sleeping beside you. That's the person that you make a home with, discuss life's big decisions with, share your finances, eat, shop, maybe parent with. That's the person you share your body with forever, kiss, touch, the one you sit on the couch with and watch movies, the one who gives you a hug when you've had a rough day. That's the person you put up a Christmas tree with and arrive home with for the holidays, the person you watch grow old and who still loves you when you're not as nice to look at, the one who holds your hand when you're dying. And none of that had anything to do with wrestling. — Eli Easton

But sitting here beside this girl as unknown to him now as outer space, waiting for whatever she might say to unfreeze him, now he felt like he could see the edge or outline of what a real vision of hell might be. It was of two great and terrible armies within himself, opposed and facing each other, silent. There would be battle but no victor. Or never a battle- the armies would stay like that, motionless, looking across at each other and seeing therein something so different and alien from themselves that they could not understand, they could not hear each other's speech as even words or read anything from what their faces looked like, frozen like that, opposed and uncomprehending, for all human time. Two hearted, a hypocrite to yourself either way. — David Foster Wallace

I love you, Kitten."
How puny those words seemed compared to the feelings strafing mine, but his voice vibrated as he said them. Then he crouched beside me.
"I would never hurt you that way save for one reason: to keep you safe. I can live with your anger, your retribution ... bloody hell, despise me if you must, but don't expect me to behave as though you aren't the most important thing in my life. You are, and I will let no one, yourself included, bring you to harm. — Jeaniene Frost

Look not for refuge to anyone beside yourself. Heed fast to the truth as a lamp. — Gautama Buddha

Well," said Ash, and she got out of her own bed and came to sit beside Jules. "I've always sort of felt that you prepare yourself over the course of your whole life for the big moments, you know? But when they happen, you sometimes feel totally unready for them, or even that they're not what you thought. And that's what makes them strange. The reality is really different from the fantasy. — Meg Wolitzer

Do you take pride in your hurt?' Samuel asked. 'Does it make you seem large and tragic? ... Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience ... there's all that fallow land, and here beside me is all that fallow man. It seems a waste. And I have a bad feeling about waste because I could never afford it. Is it a good feeling to let your life lie fallow? — John Steinbeck

Do you really believe what you do in the service of your country, for the men you fight beside, is something you need to explain to me?" My voice was just above a whisper, my face a breath from his.

"You think you have to justify yourself to me? Me? Someone who's never had to march umpteen miles with 150 pounds on her back, or been shot at, or gone days on little to no sleep? Someone who hasn't spent the last ten years in harsh conditions, with few comforts, someone who's never been asked to do incredibly difficult things to keep people safe?" I kissed him again, the tips of my wet fingers resting lightly on his jaw. "Where would we all be without people like you? — Amy Harmon

You've got this amazing creature- yourself- that can breathe, dance, and cry. And you have a certain amount of moments (maybe a few million moments-but moments they are) and you have this chance to do absolutely anything- to reach out to another vulnerable & true. To dance on the roof of euphoria and pray beside the ocean to let go. We have the chance every moment to Be Alive and give to this world who needs each one of us so badly. — Sabrina Ward Harrison

Here's who it's not okay to share a bed with: Anyone who makes you feel like you're invading their space. Anyone who tells you that they "just can't be alone right now." Anyone who doesn't make you feel like sharing a bed is the coziest and most sensual activity they could possibly be undertaking (unless, of course, it is one of the aforementioned relatives; in that case, they should act lovingly but also reserved/slightly annoyed). Now, look over at the person beside you. Do they meet these criteria? If not, remove them or remove yourself. You're better off alone. — Lena Dunham

I was hoping Miss Lucy Webster," Mrs. Travers began, nodding to the young lady standing beside her, a young lady Wilhelmina realized must be Miss Griswold's stepsister, "was mistaken when she sought me out and whispered that she'd seen you disappear with Mr. Wanamaker, but . . . clearly that is not the case. So . . . explain yourself, Miss Radcliff." "Ah . . . well, you see . . ." "I'll take it from here, darling," Edgar said, moving a step away from the bench he'd risen from the moment Mrs. Travers had marched into the room. Presenting Mrs. Travers with a bow, he straightened. "Allow me to assure you, Mrs. Travers, that there is absolutely nothing untoward transpiring at the moment. In fact, it is my great pleasure to disclose to you that, right in the midst of your delightful ball, Miss Wilhelmina Radcliff has finally agreed to become . . . my wife. — Jen Turano

You were ambitious - for your life, what it was like when you woke up in the morning, and not for some attainment. Like most people who did not answer a particular calling from an early age, you placed work beside yourself; any occupation would fill up your day but not your heart. I liked that about you. I liked it enormously. — Lionel Shriver

It's a long haul bringing up our children to be good; you have to keep doing that - bring them up - and that means bringing things up with them: Asking, telling, sounding them out, sounding off yourself - finding, through experience, your own words, your own way of putting them together. You have to learn where you stand, and make sure your kids learn [where you stand], understand why, and soon, you hope, they'll be standing there beside you, with you. — Erik Erikson

You make yourself strong because it's expected of you. You become confident because someone beside you is unsure. You turn into the person others need you to be. — Jodi Picoult

Grace," I said, my vision swirling now because of her blood smeared across my wrists, "Can you hear me?"
She nodded then stumbled to her knees. I knelt beside her; her eyes were huge and afraid and my heart was breaking. "I'll come find you, I said. "I promise I'll come find you. Don't forget me. Don't-don't lose yourself. — Maggie Stiefvater

You've gotta love yourself enough to look INSIDE you & not BESIDE you for your joy, confidence, & self worth. — Mandy Hale

Miss Velvet."
"Lord, darlin'. You're the only man in this state who would tip his hat to a whore." She ushered the other women along and stopped beside Jake. "You haven't been back to see me, darlin'."
"No, ma'am."
"You won't be coming back to see me, will you?"
He shook his head. "No, ma'am. I won't."
She smiled, a warm, pretty smile. "It's just as well. A man like you, darlin', shouldn't have to pay a woman. You take care of yourself now, you hear?"
He returned her smile. "Yes, ma'am. I will."
She reached out, touching the raised comer of his mouth with the tip of her finger. "Lord, darlin', I don't know how any woman could walk away from that smile. — Lorraine Heath

Quick, somebody call the caretaker!' Gemma's stage voice rang out loud and clear. 'There's some trash here that needs to be taken out.' She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. 'Christ, it reeks, too,' she said, pinching her nose. 'What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don't expect you to have heard of the adage "less is more". — Aurelia B. Rowl

I am _not_ a woman from your village."
His eyes narrowed. "No, you are not, for if you were, you would be grateful for the better fate Connor has won for you with his blood. Rather than thinking only of yourself, you would be beside him now, tending his hurts. — Pamela Clare

A great teacher never strives to explain his vision. He simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself. — Bobby Ray Inman

Tell me about yourself."
"Myself?" He looks confused.
"Yes," I say, patting the mattress.
"You know all there is to know," he says, sitting beside me.
"Not true," I say. "Where were you born? What's your favourite season? Anything."
"Here. Florida," he says. "I remember a woman in a red dress with curly brown hair. Maybe she was my mother, I'm not sure. And summer. What about you?" The last part is said with a smile. He smiles so infrequently that I consider each one a trophy. — Lauren DeStefano

My times of silence before God are very important to me now. I put everything else down, every word away, and I am with the Lord. When I'm quiet, life falls into perspective for me. I have a very active mind and I'm a worrier, but in those moments when I choose to put that away, I rest beside the Shepherd in still places. Why don't you give yourself a gift today? Turn off the television or the car stereo, put down the newspaper or the business plan, and in the quietness, rest for a while beside the Shepherd of your soul. — Sheila Walsh

It is the rarest of qualities: to feel something - anything - for someone beside yourself. And in my experience it is rarer still to have empathy for people you don't know. — Francine Prose

You'll never stop changing, but that doesn't
mean you have to drift in the wind. Every day, you can take
the person you've been, and the new things you've witnessed,
and make your own, honest choice as to who you should become.
Whatever happens, you can always be true to yourself. But
don't expect to end up with the same inner compass as anyone
else. Not unless they started beside you, and climbed beside
you every step of the way. — Greg Egan

You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it. Predator or prey; there is no shame to being either one. — Robin Hobb

Good can be a stifling word, a word that makes you hesitate and stare at a blank page and second-guess yourself and throw stuff in the trash. What's important is to get your hands moving and let the images come. Whether it's good or bad is beside the point. Make art. — Austin Kleon

Doctor controlled his anger. "Tom," he said, "Tom, boy. Pull yourself together. Go back and lay cold cloths - cold as you can get them. I don't suppose you have any ice. Well, keep changing the cloths. I'll be out as fast as I can. Do you hear me? Tom, do you hear me?" He hung the receiver up and dressed. In angry weariness he opened the wall cabinet and collected scalpels and clamps, sponges and tubes of sutures, to put in his bag. He shook his gasoline pressure lantern to make sure it was full and arranged ether can and mask beside it on his bureau. His wife in boudoir cap and nightgown looked in. Dr. Tilson said, "I'm walking over to the garage. Call Will Hamilton. Tell him I want him to drive me to his father's place. If he argues tell him his sister is - dying. — John Steinbeck

That's the thing about love stories: Just because one ends, that doesn't mean it failed. A cherry pie isn't a failure just because you eat it all. It's perfect for what it is, and then it's gone. And exchanging the truest parts of yourself - all the things you are - with someone? What a slice of life. One I'll carry with me into every single someday.
I lie down in the cool grass beside him as planets collide above us and we stay like this for a long time, down to every last crumb. My cheeks are wet, but oh, my heart - it is so full. — Emery Lord

Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert, wait till the incomprehensible power ... that has broken you restores you a little, I say a little, for henceforth you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more. — Marcel Proust

Let's take a break." "But I have to go home to get ready." He sat down and tugged her down beside him. "So, you're still going with me?" She smiled. "I have to go with you. You're the only one who will appreciate my green dress." He chuckled and pulled her close. "You'll be gorgeous." "Croak, croak," she mumbled. "Emily, when are you going to start seeing yourself as beautifully as I do? — Lorna Seilstad

At times, the confident lose confidence, the patient lose their cool, the generous act selfish, and the knowledgeable second guess what they know. And guess what? We're all human. We all make mistakes, we lose our tempers, and we get caught off guard. We stumble, we slip, and we spin out of control sometimes. But that's usually the worst of it. We all have our moments. Most of the time, we're remarkable. So stand beside the people you love through their trying times of imperfection, and offer yourself the same courtesy. For more tips on how to live a productive life, read "The Angel Affect" and join the mission. — Anonymous

Keep your opinions to yourself. I think it's important that I stay neutral on politics and remain hard to understand. I don't want to be pigeonholed as conservative, liberal, independent or anything. I back the man for the things the man believes in, not whether it says "R" or "D" down there beside his name. — Merle Haggard

But even work stops at some point. And you find yourself looking around, taking stock of your life, and you realize that you don't give a shit about where you worked, or what you did to bring in money, but you care about the lives you touched. The love you shared. The family you created. You care about who is standing beside you when the shit hits the fan. — J. Sterling

Liar," I mumble, swimming in nausea and coughing up blood. My arms and legs feel weighted, and sticky streams ooze out of the gouges in my skin. "You left me."
"I'm still here, aren't I?" Morpheus guides me down beside Ivory and exposes her birthmark, touching it to mine. Heat flashes along my body. "I've always believed in your power. For the queen I saw in you even as a child ... for the woman you could never see in yourself. My faith is as unchanging as my age. — A.G. Howard

Loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. you can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough, never enough never ever enough . — Tahereh Mafi

As a little girl I always expected that one day adventure would happen to me - someday a tornado would whisk me away to Oz, or I'd fall down a rabbit hole, or David Bowie would kidnap me and take me to his labyrinth where he'd sing me songs and feed me magic peaches. (I still sorta wish David Bowie would kidnap me, but that's beside the point.) As I get older, I realize you have to make adventure happen for yourself. I hope this cookbook helps you, dear reader, to make some tasty adventures for yourself - and maybe throw some really awesome LARP parties. — Cassandra Reeder

That's the girl, as Grandma Win would say. Put one foot on the first stair, then the other one beside it, like when you were three. You need to take care of yourself, because who else will? There. — Margaret Atwood

After breakfast, determined to pass as little of the day as possible in company with Lady Lowborough, I quietly stole away from the company and retired to the library. Mr. Hargrave followed me thither, under pretence of coming for a book; and first, turning to the shelves, he selected a volume, and then quietly, but by no means timidly, approaching me, he stood beside me, resting his hand on the back of my chair, and said softly, 'And so you consider yourself free at last?'

'Yes,' said I, without moving, or raising my eyes from my book, 'free to do anything but offend God and my conscience. — Anne Bronte

You walked into this village with a thunder tiger beside you. You have slain demons with your own hands. Are the old myths really that hard to believe?
'They wouldn't be myths otherwise, would they?'
'Then have a care, Yukiko-chan,' Daichi smiled. 'Keeping the company of the last arashitora in Shima sounds like an excellent way to become a myth yourself. — Jay Kristoff

It was quite a wedding and as I stood there watching I realized something I'd forgotten a long time ago. Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there's also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who's been standing beside you all along. — Greg DePaul

And so when you have lost everything, no more roads, no direction, no fixed signs, no ground, no thoughts able to resist other thoughts, when you are lost, beside yourself, and you continue getting lost, when you become the panicky movement of getting lost, then, that's when, where you are unwoven weft, flesh that lets strangeness come through, defenseless being, without resistance, without batten, without skin, inundated with otherness, it's in these breathless times that writings traverse you, songs of an unheard-of purity flow through you, addressed to no one, they well up, surge forth, from the throats of your unknown inhabitants, these are the cries that death and life hurl in their combat. — Helene Cixous

Close your eyes. Let a smile as big bright and bold as a disco chorus blaze across your face. Fall in love with the universe and everything in it. See yourself for one moment as the subject of every love song ever written. And as she drifts to sleep beside you, start a brand new song. — J.C. Lillis

Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.
This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world
No, YOU move. — J. Michael Straczynski

Look upon yourself as a tree planted beside the water, which bears its fruit in due season; the more it is shaken by the wind, the deeper it strikes its roots into the ground. — Margaret Mary Alacoque

In a village you can't sack or fight with someone, as you'll find yourself stuck beside them in the hairdresser's next morning. — Jilly Cooper

In my view, the spurning of DID is highly connected with knowing and not knowing about child sexual abuse. Side by side with denial of childhood trauma and of severe dissociation, is an unmistakable cognizance of dissociative processes as they are embedded in our language. We regularly say things such as, "pull yourself together", "he is coming unglued", "she was beside herself", "don't fall apart", "he's not all there", "she was shattered", and so on. — Elizabeth Howell

And even when you're ready to let go. When you're ready to break free. When you're ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend standing beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough never enough never ever enough. Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion. Sometimes — Tahereh Mafi

Grant, O Lord my God, that I may never fall away in success or in failure; that I may not be prideful in prosperity nor dejected in adversity. Let me rejoice only in what unites us and sorrow only in what separates us. May I strive to please no one or fear to displease anyone except Yourself. May I see always the things that are eternal and never those that are only temporal. May I shun any joy that is without You and never seek any that is beside You. O Lord, may I delight in any work I do for You and tire of any rest that is apart from You. My God, let me direct my heart towards You, and in my failings, always repent with a purpose of amendment. — Thomas Aquinas

At no point, anywhere in Seattle, is there a clear and obvious route to an interstate. And, if you find yourself magically right beside an interstate on-ramp, you can safely assume that it's leading the wrong direction. You might say to yourself, "Self, if I've found the on-ramp going this direction, surely the on-ramp going the other direction must be right nearby!" But you'd be wrong. This place was designed by crack addicts, I'm convinced of it. — Cherie Priest

She gave a little delicate sniff. "You're supposed to be explaining yourself. When one's lifemate refuses to claim his woman, there should be a reasonable explanation."
"You have no desire for me to claim you," he pointed out.
"That's beside the point."
Dark Lycan, Christine Feehan — Christine Feehan

Prayer is an act of faith. Just by praying to God, you are declaring our trust in someone other than yourself. Your faith is increased as you pray and watch how God answers your prayers. God says in Jeremiah 33:3, Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know. God is awesome in power and there is never a time when He is not beside you. He is faithful and holy. — Charles Stanley

How do you make someone love you? For the very young, there can be nothing harder in the world. You may try as hard as you like: place yourself beside them, cook their favourite food, bring them wine or sing the love songs that you know will move them. They will not move them. Nothing will move them. You will waste days interpreting the simple banalities of a phone call; months staring at their soft lips as they talk; you will waste years watching a body sitting in a chair and willing every muscle to take you across the room and do a simple thing, say a simple word, make them love you and you will not do it; you will waste long nights wondering how they cannot feel this - the urge to embrace, the snow melt in the heart when you are near them - how they can sit in that chair, or speak with those lips, or make a call and mean nothing by it, hide nothing in their hearts. Or perhaps what they hide is not what you want to see. Because surely they love someone. It simply isn't you. — Andrew Sean Greer

Letter from Griffith-- "I know it is difficult, but do work harder to control yourself. Mother was beside herself with worry when she found you rolling on the floor laughing over a book you were reading."
The memory brought a curve to Miranda's lips. It had been a very funny book. — Kristi Ann Hunter