Quotes & Sayings About Confusion Of Love

You have been to hell, Ketut?"
He smiled. Of course he's been there.
What's it like in hell?"
Same like in heaven," he said.
He saw my confusion and tried to explain. "Universe is a circle, Liss."
He said. "To up, to down
all same, at end."
I remembered an old Christian mystic notion: As above, so below.
I asked. "Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?"
Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell, you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss." He laughed.
Same-same," he said. "Same in end, so better to be happy in journey."
I said, "So, if heaven is love, then hell is.. "
Love, too," he said.
Ketut laughed again, "Always so difficult for young people to understand this! — Elizabeth Gilbert

He bit his lip, struggling to make words out of the war waging itself in his chest.
"I don't know what this makes me," he managed at last.
Hook laughed, not unkindly. "It makes you whatever you want it to make you. — Austin Chant

I'd set out to write a book about how we learn to trust our own experience in the face of confusion, doubt, and anxiety. What I ended up with is the story of how we love each other in spite of immense limitations — Heather Sellers

War was so many things, and not the least of which confusion. What was wrong? What was right, for that matter?
Was killing right or wrong? Brave or cowardly? Human nature or unnatural behavior of creatures too smart for their own good?
Loyalty, betrayal, hate, love, fear, friendship, teamwork, violence. War was connected to all of these. Hard work, sadness, suffering, discipline, chaos, questions, few answers, strategy, bravery, foolishness, death, life.
And both winning and losing were only two small aspects of the word war. — Kenzie Kovacs-Szabo

It always seems as though the definition of love will remain debatable by an opinionated world. — Criss Jami

Why do we love the idea that people might be secretly working together to control and organise the world? Because we don't like to face the fact that our world runs on a combination of chaos, incompetence and confusion. — Jonathan Cainer

Isn't it strange that the emotions of love and the afflictions of lust are look-alike, bewildering women from discerning the lover from a seducer, and unfortunately for them the language of love and the dialect of lust have a common alphabet causing this confusion. — BS Murthy

What a wonder is it, that two natures infinitely distant, should be more intimately united than anything in the world; and yet without any confusion! That the same person should have both a glory and a grief; an infinite joy in the Deity, and an inexpressible sorrow in the humanity! That a God upon a throne should be an infant in a cradle; the thundering Creator be a weeping babe and a suffering man, are such expressions of mighty power, as well as condescending love, that they astonish men upon earth, and angels in heaven. — Thomas Goodwin

For several moments he did not move from the doorway: he heard the girl's soft, thin voice rise above the murmur of the assembled guests she served. She raised her head, and suddenly he met her eyes; they were pale and large and seemed to shine with a light within themselves. In some confusion he backed from the doorway and turned into the sitting room; he found an empty chair in a space by the wall, and he sat there looking at the carpet beneath his feet. He did not look in the direction of the dining room, but every now and then he thought he felt the gaze of the young woman brush warmly across his face. — John Edward Williams

But this is what ... people are so often and disastrously wrong in doing: they (who by their very nature are impatient) fling themselves at each other when love takes hold of them, they scatter themselves, just as they are, in all their messiness, disorder, bewilderment ...
And what can happen then? What can life do with this heap of half broken things that they would like to call their happiness, and their futures?
And so each of them loses himself to the other for the sake of the other person, and loses the other. And loses the vast possibilities ... in exchange for an unfruitful confusion, out of which nothing more can come, nothing but a bit of disgust, disappointment and poverty. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Christians struggle with hypocrisy because of our core confusion about what Christianity means. We tend to believe that Christianity is more about being good than about following Jesus.5 If we believe this, when we try to share our beliefs with others, we talk more about attending church, praying a sinner's prayer, and becoming a good person than about Jesus. The result is that we become known for morality, not for our love of Jesus. — Dale Fincher

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Love is doing what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest joy. What will enthrall the beloved this way is the glory of God. Love means doing all we can, at whatever cost to ourselves, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God. When they are, they are satisfied and God is glorified. Therefore loving people and glorifying God are one. — John Piper

Giovanni smiled his humble, grateful smile and told me in as many ways as he could find how wonderful it was to have me there, how I stood, with my love and my ingenuity, between him and the dark. Each day he invited me to witness how he had changed, how love had changed him, how he worked and sang and cherished me. I was in a terrible confusion. Sometimes I thought, but this is your life. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting. Or I thought, but I am happy, And he loves me. I am safe. Sometimes, when he was not near me, I thought, I will never let him touch me again. Then, when he touched me, I thought it doesn't matter, it is only the body, it will soon be over. When it was over I lay in the dark and listen to his breathing and dreamed of the touch of hands, of Giovanni's hands, or anybody's hands, hands which would have the power to crash me and make me whole again. — James Baldwin

She wanted to hug him and at the same time she kind of wanted to slap him. — Liane Moriarty

For you see, the face of destiny or luck or god that gives us war also gives us other kinds of pain: the loss of health and youth; the loss of loved ones or of love; the fear that we will end our days alone. Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war. The special gift of that suffering, I have learned, is how to be strong while we are weak, how to be brave when we are afraid, how to be wise in the midst of confusion, and how to let go of that which we can no longer hold. In this way, anger can teach us forgiveness, hate can teach us love, and war can teach us peace. — Le Ly Hayslip

We watched each other evolve into parents, with all the fear, rage and confusion evolution can involve. Our eight-year-old is the incarnation of our union; we are forever fused by her blood. My old take on romance seemed vaguely ludicrous, as affected as a pair of spats. I no longer saw the point in 'getting back to normal', that pantomime of pretending nothing had changed; I wanted to evolve from sexual posturing into a deeper consciousness, that of love. — Antonella Gambotto-Burke

It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name ... That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still. — Frederick Buechner

The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love ... the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion. — Benjamin Franklin

As we embrace the mystery of love, we see that it contains not an absence of error, but the presence of grace. It contains not the absence of anger or pain, but the presence of forgiveness and healing. Not the absence of disharmony or confusion, but the presence of peace and clarity.
To make a home into a sanctuary, we must be willing to make room in our hearts for one another's limitations, as well as our gifts. For it is here in this sacred space of the home and family, so brimming with life, so full of every emotion available to our hearts, that we learn what it means to love within all the nuances of an intimate relationship. — Shea Darian

What I like about narrative in general is when there is some incongruity between the form and content. Let's say, mixing up the gothic with a coming-of-age narrative. Telling a love story that's also a monster story. Mixing up superhero tropes with your monster tropes. I like category confusion. — Kelly Link

Essentially, love is the Donnie Darko of feelings: Anyone who brags, "I, like, totally get it man," is either full of crap or really, really high (or they watched the commentary on the DVD). — Andrea Lavinthal

I write to understand my circumstances, to sort out the confusion of reality, to exorcise my demons. But most of all, I write because I love it! — Isabel Allende

I'm ... pretty sure I'm in love with Travis,"
My eyes still focused on the pavement, I handed Travis his phone, and then reluctantly peered up at his expression. A combination of confusion, shock, and adoration scrolled across his face.
He scanned my face with careful hope in his eyes. "You love me?"
"It's the tattoos," I shrugged.
A wide smile stretched across his face, making his dimple sink into his cheek. "Come home with me," he said, enveloping me in his arms.
My eyebrows shot up. "You said all that to get me in bed? I must have made quite an impression."
"The only thing I'm thinking about right now is holding you in my arms all night."
"Let's go," I smiled. — Jamie McGuire

The real purpose of meditation is this: to teach a man how to work himself free of created things and temporal concerns, in which he finds only confusion and sorrow, and enter into a conscious and loving contact with God in which he is disposed to receive from God the help he knows he needs so badly, and to pay to God the praise and honor and thanksgiving and love which it has now become his joy to give. — Thomas Merton

There is a time when every person who encounters Jesus, who believes Jesus is the Son of God, decides that they will spend their life following Him. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, make this decision the minute they meet Him, the minute they become a Christian. Others, like the Apostle Peter, endure years of half-hearted commitment and spiritual confusion before leaping in with all their passion. Still others may enjoy some benefits of God's love and grace without entering into the true joy of a marriage with their maker. — Donald Miller

The central law of all organic life is that each organism is intrinsically isolate and single in itself. The moment its isolation breaks down, and there comes an actual mixing and confusion, death sets in. — D.H. Lawrence

Flowering. Love cannot be held long within categories, likewise the poetry celebrating love. You might say that love loves confusion and not be far wrong. Love is metamorphosis, rapid and radical, agile, full of vigor and levity. Love — Jalaluddin Rumi

In our household doubts more troubling than these were suffered in silence. The spiritual void I have seen in so many of Istanbul's rich, Westernised, secularist families is evident in these silences. Everyone talks openly about mathematics, success at school, football and having fun, but they grapple with the most basic questions of existence - love,compassion, religion, the meaning of life, jealousy, hatred - in trembling confusion and painful solitude. They light a cigarette, give their attention to the music on the radio, return wordlessly to their inner worlds. — Orhan Pamuk

While I generally find that great myths are great precisely because they represent and embody great universal truths (and will explore several such myths later in this book), the myth of romantic love is a dreadful lie. Perhaps it is a necessary lie in that it ensures the survival of the species by its encouragement and seeming validation of the falling-in-love experience that traps us into marriage. But as a psychiatrist I weep in my heart almost daily for the ghastly confusion and suffering that this myth fosters. Millions of people waste vast amounts of energy desperately and futilely attempting to make the reality of their lives conform to the unreality of the myth. — M. Scott Peck

When I understand myself, I understand you, and out of that understanding comes love. Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action which produces further confusion, further misery. We fill our hearts with blueprints for world reform and do not look to that one resolving factor which is love. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Feel compassion for your own heart that was broken open by grief or confusion.

Then tune in to the other level of that experience. Some part of you was heroic inside that moment of your life.

Some part of you was looking out for you, wanting you to make it through, encouraging you to love and heal and be larger than the message you were getting. Access the hero inside your own story.... — Laurie Perez

The course of true love never die run smooth — William Shakespeare

I wish I was as true an artist as you so that I could find a way to tell you what you've become to me. America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-warm day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion — Kiera Cass

The causes of familial discord and distance are countless, but the results are often the same: secrecy, blame, sadness, hurt, confusion, and feelings of loss and grief. — Sharon Salzberg

The truth is that Dr. Juvenal Urbino's suit had never been undertaken in the name of love, and it was curious, to say the least, that a militant Catholic like him would offer her only worldly goods: security, order, happiness, contiguous numbers that, once they were added together, might resemble love, almost be love. But they were not love, and these doubts increased her confusion, because she was also not convinced that love was really what she most needed to live. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Never believe someone cares for you because of other people's reactions. Sometimes you have to drown out the noise from the crowd, in order to figure out if there is a song playing between the two of you or simply annoying static that you thought was a tune. — Shannon L. Alder

You might be unsure about the true nature of God (or the life force in the universe) even if you have well defined religious beliefs. I say this because you might have been taught two conflicting ideas about God. You might have been consciously told God was love, but at the same time been subconsciously taught He might condemn you if you aren't good enough. These two ideas don't mesh and they cause a great deal of confusion for most people. — Kimberly Giles

The Hegelian babble about the real being the true is therefore the same kind of confusion as when people assume that the words and actions of a poet's dramatic characters are the poet's own. We must, however, hold fast to the belief that when God - so to speak - decides to write a play, he does not do it simply in order to pass the time, as the pagans thought. No, no: indeed, the utterly serious point here is that loving and being loved is God's passion. It is almost - infinite love! - as if he is bound to this passion, almost as if it were a weakness on his part; whereas in fact it is his strength, his almighty love: and in that respect his love is subject to no alteration of any kind. There — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Nobody knew how it all began, neither Homer nor Hesiod. Nor Ovid nor Vergil. But it was said that at the beginning, there was Chaos, which meant confusion & disorder, & there was Eros, which meant love. And confusion & disorder were what all those who were smitten by love [Eros] felt at the beginning & what all lovers felt when they fell out of love. Thus, it appeared that confusion & disorder [Chaos] was the flip-side of love & that Eros was the other face of chaos. And, thus, Eros & Chaos were in fact one. And the poets saw other aspects of Eros, such as Himeros[Passion or Desire], Anteros[Reciprocal or Mutual Love] & Pothos[Longing]. And they also saw other aspects of Chaos, such as Phobos[Fear] & Deimos[Terror]. And that since Eros & Chaos were one,all these aspects of the two were the aspects of love. — Nicholas Chong

Sanskrit has different words to describe love for a brother or sister, love for a teacher, love for a partner, love for one's friends, love of nature, and so on. English has only one word, which leads to never-ending confusion. — Sharon Salzberg

The door closed behind her, and Ed just stood there - unable to connect with the present reality. It was as though he had been zapped by a stun gun of words, and the effect had made him momentarily immobile. A few minutes passed, and he broke free from the paralyzing shock. He walked into the bedroom that he and Laura had once shared. Now, like him, it was missing her presence. Pictures had been taken off of the dresser, the scented candles were gone, and her pillow was not on the bed. He walked over to the closet, opened it up, and found that her clothes, and shoes were also gone. He looked around the half empty room, and found himself venturing into a tormenting cycle of confusion. A livid syrup had just been poured out onto a panicked waffle that had been setting on a perturbed plate for several daunting months, and Ed suddenly found himself acquiring an unhealthy appetite for destruction. Tears began to fall down his face, and an inward storm began to rage. — Calvin W. Allison

Ambushed by my emotions, I now found myself caught up in an unexpected whirlwind of confusion, embarrassment, hope, and excitement ... Was this love? Is this how it felt when you loved someone? A thousand thoughts and impressions a second, with no time or ability to focus on a single one, because the only thing I could see was her.
Cassie.
Whatever else I knew or wanted, would now
and always
be overshadowed by her. In my head, this sounded extreme, but at the same time, I knew it was true. The center of my world had shifted in what felt like a single second and I realized it was too late for me. There was no way back from here. — Melanie Cusick-Jones

Vonnegut's war was necessary. And yet it was massacre and screaming and confusion and blood and death. It was the mammoth projection outward of the confused inner life of men. In war, the sad tidy constructs we make to help us believe life is orderly and controllable are roughly thrown aside like the delusions they are. In war, love is outed as an insane, insupportable emotion, a kind of luxury emotion, because everywhere you look, someone beloved to someone is being slaughtered, by someone whose own beloved has been slaughtered, or will be, or could be. — George Saunders

In every crisis, doubt or confusion, take the higher path - the path of compassion, courage, understanding and love. — Amit Ray

A chaos of mind and body - a time for weeping at sunsets and at the glamour of moonlight - a confusion and profusion of beliefs and hopes, in God, in Truth, in Love, and in Eternity - an ability to be transported by the beauty of physical objects - a heart to ache or swell- a joy so joyful and a sorrow so sorrowful that oceans could lie between them ... — T.H. White

Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action, which produces further confusion, further misery. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

Life is full of confusion. Confusion of love, passion, and romance. Confusion of family and friends. Confusion with life itself. What path we take, what turns we make. How we roll our dice. — Matthew Underwood

There seems to be a vast amount of confusion in the Western world concerning these matters, but love and sexual activity are not synonymous: Only by becoming inhuman can the human being pretend that they are. The mare is not obliged to love the stallion, nor is the bull required to love the cow. They are doing what comes naturally. — James Baldwin

Hello, Mary.'
It was like hearing a note of divine calm after a dissonant passage of music. My confusion died away. — Jennifer Paynter

[The humanities] invite - they compel - us to confront the truth about ourselves and help us to inhabit with greater understanding the disjointed condition of longing and defeat that defines the human condition. Achilles' reflections on honor and memory and the fleeting beauty of youth; Shakespeare's defense of love against the powers of "sluttish time" Kant's struggle to put our knowledge of certain things on an unchallengeable foundation so as to place the knowledge of others forever beyond reach; Caravaggio's painting of the sacrifice of Isaac, which depicts a confusion of loves that defeats all understanding; and so on endlessly through the armory of humanistic works: the subject is always the same. The subject is always man, whose nature it is to yearn to be more than he is. — Charles Murray

I think spring is inside me. I feel spring awakening, I feel it in my entire body and soul. I have to force myself to act normally. I'm in a state of utter confusion, don't know what to read, what to write, what to do. I only know that I'm longing for something ... — Anne Frank

There must be amidst all the confusions of the hour a tried and undisturbed remnant of persons who will not become purveyors of coercion and violence, who are ready to stand alone, if it is necessary, for the way of peace and love among men. — Rufus Jones

You are at once both the quite and the confusion of my heart. — Nico J. Genes

We black women must forgive black men for not protecting us against slavery, racism, white men, our confusion, their doubts. And black men must forgive black women for our own sometimes dubious choices, divided loyalties, and lack of belief in their possibilities. Only when our sons and our daughters know that forgiveness is real, existent, and that those who love them practice it, can they form bonds as men and women that really can save and change our community. — Marita Golden

The young man was sort of ... well ... peering at this shovel, and Lisey knew not by his face but by the whole awkward this-way-n-that jut of his lanky body that he didn't have any idea what he was seeing. It could have been an artillery shell, a bonsai tree, a radiation detector, or a china pig with a slot in its back for spare silver; it could have been a whang-dang-doodle, a phylactery testifying to the pompetus of love, or a cloche hat made out of coyote skin. It could have been the penis of the poet Pindar. This guy was too far gone to know. — Stephen King

Twilight is the first series of books I've ever read. I didn't get into the Harry Potter series, even though I love the movies. Twilight really caught my attention and held it. I'm really excited to see the book adapted to film and excited that our band gets to be a part of the phenomenon. I chose the title "Decode" because the song is about the building tension, awkwardness, anger and confusion between Bella and Edward. Bella's mind is the only one which Edward can't read and I feel like that's a big part of the first book and one of the obstacles for them to overcome. It's one added tension that makes the story even better. — Hayley Williams

He had been violently confused by her real presence in the opposite inaccessible corner. For months he had been possessed by the imagination of her. She had been distant and closed away, a princess in a tower, and his imagination's work had been all to make her present, all of her, to his mind and senses, the quickness of her and the mystery, the whiteness of her, which was part of her extreme magnetism, and the green look of those piercing or occluded eyes. Her presence had been unimaginable, or more strictly, only to be imagined. Yet here she was, and he was engaged in observing the ways in which she resembled, or differed from, the woman he dreamed, or reached for in sleep, or would fight for. — A.S. Byatt

There is a popular notion about prayer that assumes that the thing asked for ought to be the object of faith - "Lord, give me this or that," wherefore "this" and "that" become the realities. No. The Bible states the absolutes that we can be certain of: the character of God, His love, His will that we be conformed to His Son's likeness, His sovereign control of all the universe. When faith latches on to those realities that we do not see with our eyes, it can never be confounded. If it makes the thing asked for its object, faith itself will dissolve if the Lord's answer is no, not yet or wait. In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion (Ps. 71:1, KJV). D — Elisabeth Elliot

Love, love, love, love is all you can do, even in the face of bitterness, pain, anger, confusion, it's the only thing to keep you steady and stop you biting back. — Jay Woodman

I have a lot of confusion about his love for me, but what I have never been confused about is my love for him. I love Cal. That's it. There's been nothing I've been able to do to stop loving him yet. No matter how angry or how frustrated I get. He knows the exact moment, to do the exact thing to make me fall in love with him all over again. — Portia Moore

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life, it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer business we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love ... and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure. — Paul E. Miller

Do you see that patch of blue in the sky, fighting to be seen through the clouds?"

"Yes." She nodded, but her brows were scrunched in obvious confusion as to what his point would be.

"That was my life when I met you. After Mellie died, my life was a constant rainy day. I couldn't imagine the sun ever shining again. Then I met you, and the dark clouds started to drift away. I could see blue skies again and they were pushing out the clouds. As I got to know you, there were more blue skies and sunshine in my life. — Leah Atwood

God never promised us an easy life. He never promised that we wouldn't suffer, that we wouldn't feel despair and loneliness and confusion and desperation. What he did promise was that in our suffering we would never be alone. And though we may sometimes make ourselves blind and deaf to his presence he is beside us and around us and within us always. We are never separated from his love. And he promised us something else, the most important promise of all. That there would be surcease. That there would be an end to our pain and our suffering and our loneliness, that we would be with him and know him, and this would be heaven. — William Kent Krueger

We are born male. We must learn to be men. Remember, strength is a force. It is an attribute of the heart. Its opposite is not weakness and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention. If you are able to discern the path with heart and follow it even when at the moment it seems wrong, then and only then are you strong. Remember the words of Tao te ching. "The only true strength is a strength that people do not fear." Strength based in force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave. — Kent Nerburn

I don't want my life to not be the way I expected.
I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid.
I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgement, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies.
I am afraid of me.
Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me.
I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said 'No, I don't understand.' You're brave because you are here. — Emily Trunko

Cole had made this commitment to save Beckett from hell. So he had to keep it, no matter how endlessly his soul cried in the corner of the church, begging and reaching for Kyle. At that moment he'd built a wall between her soul and his. Confusion turned to anger, which turned to panic as Kyle tried desperately to bring him back, to reconnect.
She tried to kiss the truth out of him, but he turned his head and held her at bay. She fell to her knees, but he just shook his head. His future was predetermined. Even if banishing this newborn love sliced his heart in half, it had to be done. — Debra Anastasia

Why do I keep thinking of her alluva sudden?! Especially when the only time my face gets red and my heart starts puonding ... is when I see him! -Syaoran Li — CLAMP

Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

You, yesterday's boy,
to whom confusion came:
Listen, lest you forget who you are.
It was not pleasure you fell into. It was joy.
You were called to be bridegroom,
though the bride coming toward you is your shame.
What chose you is the great desire.
Now all flesh bares itself to you.
On pious images pale cheeks
blush with a strange fire.
Your senses uncoil like snakes
awakened by the beat of the tambourine.
Then suddenly you're left all alone
with your body that can't love you
and your will that can't save you.
But now, like a whispering in dark streets,
rumors of God run through your dark blood. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I never asked you to earn me. I want only that you should need me. Your path is not one of merit. Bring the recurring desires of your mind to me, every time they emerge. They cannot shock me, for I willed them! Bring me your confusion, your fear, your craving, your anxiety, your inability to love the world, your hesitation to serve, your jealousy, all the deficiencies that defy your spiritual disciplines. — Sathya Sai Baba

a body betrayed
a heart destroyed
a mind in confusion
and yet a woman
is capable of taking pain
and transforming it into triumph — R H Sin

Fpr ome aftermppm a week leading up to the formal, the entire senior school body would pile into our massive gymnasium and learn dances that we would NEVER DANCE AGAIN, except at our own children's formals, perhaps. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves into the task as if we were living in a Jane Austen novel and this was the only way we would ever fit into society. (from How to Be Happy: A Memoir of Love, Sex and Teenage Confusion) — David Burton

Most adult children of toxic parents grow up feeling tremendous confusion about what love means and how it's supposed to feel. Their parents did extremely unloving things to them in the name of love. They came to understand love as something chaotic, dramatic, confusing, and often painful - something they had to give up their own dreams and desires for. Obviously, that's not what love is all about. Loving behaviour doesn't grind you down, keep you off balance, or create feelings of self-hatred. Love doesn't hurt, it feels good. Loving behaviour nourishes your emotional well-being. When someone is being loving to you, you feel accepted, cared for, valued, and respected. Genuine love creates feelings of warmth, pleasure, safety, stability, and inner peace. — Susan Forward

When I was a young priest in the 1960s and 1970s, there was much experimentation and confusion in the Church. Teachers and clergy were encouraged to communicate an experience of God's love, but to do it without reference to the Creed, the sacraments, or the tradition. — Donald Wuerl

God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one — Rumi

America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-war day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion.
You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that's all it would manage to do.
You said that to get things right one of us would have to take a leap of faith. I think I've discovered the canyon that must be leaped, and I hope to find you waiting for me on the other side.
I love you, America.
Yours forever,
Maxon — Kiera Cass

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car. — Brennan Manning

I spend these days in confusion, trying my best to fathom the significance of that shade....

Trying to fathom the suitable answers to my ambiguities, if they can be called as such." - Basil — Amna Iqbal

You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my offer of myself in marringe, you could draw me to any good - every good - with equal force. — Charles Dickens

The men in my life have always been the folks who are wary of using the word 'love' lightly. They are wary because they believe women make too much of love. And they know that what we think love means is not always what they believe it means. Our confusion about what we mean when we use the word 'love' is the source of our difficulty in loving. If our society had a commonly held understanding of the meaning of love, the act of loving would not be so mystifying. — Bell Hooks

I was tired. Tired of men, tired of moving, tired of being scared, tired of being confused. But who was I kissing? I'm not one to sit quietly, anywhere. — Deborah Rodriguez

'Confusion is the last stop on the way to clarity,' he told me. 'The part of your mind that thinks it knows it all is butting up against a bigger idea. It's only a matter of time until the smaller thought gives way to the greater. Don't fight it. Just try to enjoy the ride.' — Alan Cohen

Now, in their love, which was stronger, there were the seeds of hatred and fear and confusion growing at the same time: for love can exist with hatred, each preying on the other, and this is what gives it its greatest fury. — T.H. White

We don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise.
We are oppressed at being men - men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Abuse manipulates and twists a child's natural sense of trust and love. Her innocent feelings are belittled or mocked and she learns to ignore her feelings. She can't afford to feel the full range of feelings in her body while she's being abused - pain, outrage, hate, vengeance, confusion, arousal. So she short-circuits them and goes numb. For many children, any expression of feelings, even a single tear, is cause for more severe abuse. Again, the only recourse is to shut down. Feelings go underground. — Laura Davis

I run to the high mountains
I pour my heart out to the skies
I sing of the summer song
While the sky above dance in the yellow light.
The cool breeze fools the sun above
Takes a run, wins the mighty fight.
Your light then comes to me with warmth,
A view my heart wants.
Love to me is the song you write.
The tricks you play with the endless sky
And with the icy wind you find a disguise.
You burn me like sun that burns up
In the blue abyss.
With the ink of my emotions
You write a song of Fire and Ice. — Jaishree Garg

On differing perspectives:

"At birth, we're yanked from a warm, safe place and thrust into a world we have no way of comprehending. Childhood is a constant routine of punishment and confusion. Hell we're depressed and misunderstood as teenagers, then frightened and unprepared as we become adults. In midlife, we watch as our youth slowly slips away; our dreams for greatness becoming pathetic memories. Old age brings loneliness, infirmity, and the constant fear of death."

"At birth, we're rescued from a dark, silent place and ushered into a world full of wonder. Childhood is a magical time, free from responsibility. We're curious and filled with energy as teenagers, and then challenged to reach our full potential as we become adults. In mid-life, we watch as our pretensions slowly slip away, our dreams for happiness finally becoming realized. Old age brings wisdom, wonderful memories, and a passionate love of life. — Rick Reynolds

The few moments of heaven were not worth the hell he put me through when he was done. — Abbi Glines

And then they were kissing. Something exploded within his chest burning away the tension and confusion and fear. Burning away the hurt of seconds earlier. For a moment it felt like nothing mattered anymore. Like nothing would matter ever again. — James Dashner

You see somethin' ya want, baby?"
"Maybe. I'm checking things out. Seeing if I'm interested," I shot back with my own evil grin.
"I see something I want," he drawled as he came toward me.
"You do?"
"Hell yeah, I do," he murmured. "I love chocolate." What? My excitement turned to confusion. His arm reached out beside me and took the piece of chocolate cake I'd brought him. — Abbi Glines

A dragon is a confusion at the heart of things, a law unto himself. He embraces good, evil, and indifference; in his own nature he makes them indivisible and absolute. He knows who he is. Surely you see that... Put it this way. Dragons all love life's finer things- music, art, treasure- the works of the spirit; yet in their personal habits they're foul and bestial- they burn down cathedrals, for instance, and eat maidens- and they see in their whimsical activities no faintest contradiction... Dragons never grow, never change... Believe me, nothing in this world is more despicable than a dragon. They're a walking- or flying- condemnation of all we stand for, all we pray for our children, nay, for ourselves. We struggle to improve ourselves, we tortuously balance on the delicate line between our duties to society and our duties within- our duties to God and our own nature. — John Gardner

How to love is the real question. We all know to love and to keep loving more, but man's confusion comes from the differing opinions on how to love. The Church will always be accused of not loving enough by human standards - which should be its motivation to love more - however that is, in many cases, because its focus is and should also be to love on levels of eternal significance. This is the level of love that will inevitably go unnoticed by those who do not believe in eternity. — Criss Jami

Ignore any loss of nerve, ignore any loss of self-confidence, ignore any doubt or confusion. Move on believing in love, in peace, and harmony, and in great accomplishment. Remember joy isn't a stranger to you. You are winning and you are strong. Love. Love first, love always, love forever. — Anne Rice

He'd find out, he thought and nodded as he rose. " Are you worried about you? "
It surprised her, the gentleness in his voice, the light brush of his knuckles over her jaw. She could lean against him, she realized with a jolt. She could lay her head on that shoulder, close her eyes, and for a moment at least, everything would be all right.
She nearly stepped forward before she decided it would be foolish. " You're not going to be nice to me, are you? "
" Maybe. " It might have been the confusion in her eyes, or that sultry scent that wafted from her skin, but he needed to touch. He laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed while his eyes stayed on hers. " Do you need help? — Nora Roberts

Love must be invisible. No one ever sees it coming. It sneaks up behind you, bashes you over the head and leaves you in a state of stunned confusion for the rest of your life. — G.J. Walker-Smith

The truth is that Juvenal Urbino's suite had never been undertaken in the name of love, and it was curious, to say the least, that A militant Catholic like him would offer her only worldly goods: security, order, happiness, contiguous numbers that, once they were added together might resemble love, almost be love. But they were not love, and these doubts increased her confusion, because she was not convinced that love was what she really needed to live. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom. — Thomas Merton

I've a long time trying to love
a brother whose only way of touching me is pain.
A long time escaping into music.
Practice, lessons, rehearsals that protect me
from the hurting parts of life.
I've been winning awards, applause,
acclaim for my trumpets since I was in grade school.
But love?
The word catches in my throat.
Do I love anything?
Have i forgotten how? — Stasia Ward Kehoe