Happy After So Long Quotes & Sayings

We assured Phelan that we were more than happy to let him have you and your menagerie," Leo retorted. "After that, he said he needed to think." "About what?" Beatrix demanded. "What is there to think about? Why is it taking him so long to make a decision?" "He's a man, dear," Amelia explained kindly. "Sustained thinking is very difficult for them. — Lisa Kleypas

It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound. — Willa Cather

He was happy because, after such a long study, experimentation, and struggle, he could at last affirm the ultimate truth: there never were and never would be any madmen in Itaguai or anywhere else. — Machado De Assis

Heaven has its business and earth has its business: those are two separate things. Heaven, that's the angels' pasture; they are happy; they don't have to fret about food and drink. And you can be sure that they have black angels to do the heavy work like laundering the clouds or sweeping the rain and cleaning the sun after a storm, while the white angels sing like nightingales all day long or blow in those little trumpets like they show in the pictures we see in church. — Jacques Roumain

When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I'm feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When I'm feeling happy, it's part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone. — Frederick Buechner

No matter how the road winds and turns, as long as you are there at the end of it I'll be happy, Rowdy. — Jay Crownover

All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already. Now, looking out the tunnel of trees over the ravine at the sky with white clouds moving across in the wind, I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move, and it is slow in starting. But you are not alone because if you have every really loved her happy and untragic, she loves you always; no matter whom she loves nor where she goes she loves you more. — Ernest Hemingway,

I don't think people were put here to be happy. I think if you decide to be an artist or a writer, you automatically accept the responsibility of being alone. However, after your 50 or 60 years are up you'll be able to look back and see this output that you've done that will endure long after you're gone, and will continue to fill the minds of millions of people. — Jim Steranko

On, I don't think I'm a genius!' cried Josie, growing calm and sober as she listened to the melodious voice and looked into the expressive face that filled her with confidence, so strong, sincere and kindly was it. 'I only want to find out if I have talent enough to go on, and after years of study be able to act well in any of the good plays people never tire of seeing. I don't expected to be a Mrs. Siddons or a Miss Cameron, much as I long to be; but it does seem as if I had something in me which can't come out in any way but this. When I act I'm perfectly happy. I seem to live, to be in my own world, and each new part is a new friend. I love Shakespeare, and am never tired of his splendid people. Of course I don't understand it all; but it's like being alone at night with the mountains and the stars, solemn and grand, and I try to imagine how it will look when the sun comes up, and all is glorious and clear to me. I can't see, but I feel the beauty, and long to express it. — Louisa May Alcott

When we look in to the long avenue of the future, and see the good there is for each one of us to do, we realize, after all, what a beautiful thing it is to work, and to live, and to be happy. — Robert Louis Stevenson

They were submerged in wild strawberry hunts, swimming and water skiing, horse rides, sing alongs, and nature walks on miles of trails disappearing into the saintly aspens. Awards hung from cabins' flag poles, and each day ended with camp fire vespers at sunset with Logan's Bible stories and more singing. The exhausted, happy youngsters were packed, day after day, and long into the night, with sugar-coated cereals, candy, soft drinks, and God. — Dianne Kozdrey Bunnell

Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.
But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it. — Cameron Dokey

We had a kind of pity for each other; we were both afflicted permanently with a feeling of sad helplessness because we were unable to make each other happy in this way. But nothing stopped us from choosing other partners. We did not. That I did not, isn't surprising, because of that quality in me I call lethargy, or curiosity, which always keeps me in a situation long after I should leave it. — Doris Lessing

Months later, in a different world, Nechuma will look back on this evening, the last Passover when they were nearly all together, and wish with every cell in her body that she could relive it. She will remember the familiar smell of the gefilte, the chink of silver on porcelain, the taste of parsley, briny and bitter on her tongue. She will long for the touch of Felicia's baby-soft skin, the weight of Jakob's hand on hers beneath the table, the wine-induced warmth in the pit of her belly that begged her to believe that everything might actually turn out all right in the end. She will remember how happy Halina had looked at the piano after their meal, how they had danced together, how they all spoke of missing Addy, assuring each other that he'd be home soon. She will replay it all, over and over again, every beautiful moment of it, and savor it, like the last perfect klapsa pears of the season. — Georgia Hunter

I'm one of those artists that doesn't actually hate my old hits. I love Boston music. I really like 'More than a Feeling.' After playing it to myself in a basement for such a long time, I'm happy to do it out on stage. — Tom Scholz

For the farsighted, the folks in the know, life is a deer park, where gentle breezes and fragrant grape leaves keep you company, complete with afternoon foot-soakings, peaceful snoozes, fine hounds and desirable wenches, the hell with all care; a long life, a nice pipe from time to time, mellow dinners: that's the way to spend life, life that digs your grave even now, steadfastly, like the ever-burrowing mole. To want nothing, and ask only for peace and quiet. Hope for nothing besides fair weather on the morrow. Trust no one, believe no one, think no extraordinary thoughts, just live, live, and love; fall asleep, and wake up healthy ... Wear comfy slippers and pass the night in a feather bed. Live out a happy and long old age, the best part of life. To get an honest night's sleep, and then a snooze after lunch, let out a few whoops, fight and make up. — Gyula Krudy

Normality is like a home to us and everyday life a mother. After a long incursion into great poetry, into the mountains of sublime aspiration, the cliffs of the transcendent and the occult, it is the sweetest thing, savouring of all that is warm in life, to return to the inn where the happy fools laugh and joke, to join with them in their drinking, as foolish as they are, just as God made us, content with the universe that was given us, and to leave the rest to those who climb mountains and do nothing when they reach the top. — Fernando Pessoa

On this thanksgiving, I would like to thank that one girl, who never lost hope despite all odds were against her, who always worked, and moved on, despite losing all friends just after leaving school, a time when you need friends the most! Who had immense strength and will-power and so much inspiration inside her that she ended up being happy, satisfied, and successful, all alone.
That one girl who always smiles in the mirror, and says, 'Bitch, you have a long way to go, and you gotta travel all alone, depending upon anyone will make you weak, so buck up, there's a lot you gotta do!' On this thanksgiving, I thank myself, my soul for being so majestically robust!
I would have thanked other people, but sadly, nobody ever helped me, more than I helped myself ... — Mehek Bassi

After a long, labored sigh, I said, "She was really happy when I got there. I'm pretty sure she was suicidal when I left."
"You do have that effect on people. — Darynda Jones

What can I say to you that I haven't already said? What can I give you that I haven't already given? Is there anything of me that isn't yours already? My body, my mind, my heart, even my soul. Everything that is me belonged to you long before this, and it shall be yours long after this. I will follow you anywhere and everywhere you lead. I will keep you and anyone created with our love safe from all harm. From this day on, I choose you, my beloved, to be my wife. To live with you and laugh with you; to stand by your side, and sleep in your arms; to bring out the best in you always, and, for you, to be the most that I can. I promise to laugh with you in good times, to struggle with you in bad; to wipe your tears with my hands; to comfort you with my words; to mirror you with my soul; and savor every moment, happy or sad, until the end of our lives and beyond. — Jamie McGuire

At Evensong one night, while Holly played at sax and Mrs. Bethel Utemeyer joined in, I saw him: Holiday, racing past a fluffy white Samoyed. He had lived to a ripe old age on earth and slept at my father's feet after my mother left, never wanting to let him out of his sight ... I waited for him to sniff me out, anxious to know if here, on the other side, I would still be the little girl he slept beside. I did not have to wait long: he was so happy to see me, he knocked me down. — Alice Sebold

Not forever-after, for Time, the thief, eventually takes all things into his dusty storehouse, but they were happy, as these things go, for a long while. — Neil Gaiman

There are spirits in Hawaii. They're very protective and very good and they watch over these islands. I must confess, they're not entirely happy with what they see, with the way the civilization is moving. But they're patient. They've been here for a long time, and they'll be here long after the human beings have ceased to inhabit the islands. — Frederick Lenz

For sense gratification, a man in the mode of passion wants some honor in society, or in the nation, and he wants to have a happy family, with nice children, wife and house. These are the products of the mode of passion. As long as one is hankering after these things, he has to work very hard. Therefore it is clearly stated here that he becomes associated with the fruits of his activities and thus becomes bound by such activities. In order to please his wife, children and society and to keep up his prestige, one has to work. Therefore the whole material world is more or less in the mode of passion. — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

After long stormes and tempests sad assay, Which hardly I endured heretofore: in dread of death and daungerous dismay, with which my silly barke was tossed sore: I doe at length descry the happy shore, in which I hope ere long for to arryue: fayre soyle it seemes from far and fraught with store of all that deare and daynty is alyue. Most happy he that can at last atchyue the ioyous safety of so sweet a rest: whose least delight sufficeth to depriue remembrance of all paines which him opprest. All paines are nothing in respect of this, all sorrowes short that gaine eternall blisse. — Edmund Spenser

Now he was gone.
She said a silent prayer. Sent it up to heaven.
Sam, if you can hear me, I hope you've got nice food where you are. Some vegetables like these. They're meant to be good for you. So eat them all up, like I'm doing. When I die I'll come and see you, and we'll be together again. But for now I'm going to think of you safe and happy and playing knights with a friend.
Love from Ella. Your sister.
P.S. I got a good long turn with Godzilla today after we got here. Godzilla is very happy.
P.P.S. I forgot, you never met Godzilla. He is a puppy and is very cute. He belonged to a boy called Joel who got killed by monkeys. I think the monkeys were sick. Monkeys are usually nice. At least in stories.
P.P.P.S. Maybe you'll meet Joel where you are. Say hello. He is nice.
P.P.P.P.S. Good night, Sam. The others call you Small Sam. To me you're just Sam - my brother.
I miss you. I wish I was with you. — Charlie Higson

Felt it for the first time when I was working on the legal codes and drafts of the Enlightenment. They were based on the belief that a good order is intrinsic to the world, and that therefore the world can be brought into good order. To see how legal provisions were created paragraph by paragraph out of this belief as solemn guardians of this good order, and worked into laws that strove for beauty and by their very beauty for truth, made me happy. For a long time I believed that there was progress in the history of law, a development towards greater beauty and truth, rationality and humanity, despite terrible setbacks and retreats. Once it became clear to me that this belief was a chimera, I began playing with a different image of the course of legal history. In this one it still has a purpose, but the goal it finally attains, after countless disruptions, confusions, and delusions, is the beginning, its own original starting point, which once reached must be set off from again. — Bernhard Schlink

They caught up with each other's news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome - after two months of having to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers - appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two lovers, but this too was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. ~ on the comforts of home. — Zadie Smith

For the first time in a long time, I drive with no music. I'm not happy-not happy about Jane and Mr. Randall Water Polo Doucheface IV, not happy about Tiny abandoning me without so much as a phone call, not happy about my insufficiently fake fake ID-but in the dark on Lake Shore with the car eating up all the sound, there's something about the numbness in my lips after having kissed her that I want to keep and hold onto, something in it that seems pure, that seems like the singular truth. — John Green

That's just the kind of anxiety reality TV hopes to inspire in female viewers. After all, as advertisers have long understood, it's far easier to shill cosmetics and clothing - not to mention Match and and Bally Fitness memberships - to insecure women scared of being alone than to it is to self confident people who believe they're beautiful, lovable, and capable of being happy just as they are. — Jennifer L. Pozner

For a moment, I thought of the word happy and it was a word that just, well, it felt like it was visiting me. I knew it wouldn't last for very long and I'd be sad again and then it would be worse because it's one thing to be sad and it's another thing to be sad once you've been happy. Being sad after you've been happy is the worst thing in the world. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

It didn't and doesn't turn out well. There is no happy ending to the story of sorrow if you are born with a predilection for despair. The world is, after all, a coarse and brutal and cruel place. It's only a matter of how long you can live with it. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

Year after year of dirty snow and bitter winds ... houses and whole districts of people who aren't really unhappy, but worse, who are neither happy nor unhappy; people who are ugly because they're neither ugly nor beautiful; creatures that are dismally neutral, who long without longings as though they're unconscious, unconsciously suffering from being alive. — Eugene Ionesco

Of all the universal lies she accepted unquestioningly, the happy ending was the most absurd. The hero and heroine lived happily ever after, and the ending seemed indisputable, definitive. No questions asked about how long love or happiness lasts in that 'forever' that can be divided into lifetimes, years, months. Even days — Arturo Perez-Reverte

The smallest breach of royal behaviour is deserving of complaint. After a film premiere, she attended a party where she enjoyed a long conversation with Liza Minnelli. The following morning it was pointed out that it was not done to attend these occasions. It had a happy result however. She enjoyed a rapport with the Hollywood star who talked at length about her difficult life and told her simply that when she felt down she thought of Diana and that helped her endure. It was a touching and very honest conversation between two women who have suffered much in life and has since formed the basis of a long-distance friendship. — Andrew Morton

I haven't been in the film world long enough to really understand the gravity of 'Big Hero's' success. I'm just happy that it is translating well internationally and that the story and the characters are loved by audiences around the world, and everything that's come after that has been secondary to the initial response. — Ryan Potter

Rayna beamed as she hugged everyone good-bye and accepted their wishes for a long and happy relationship. Sage looked dazed.
"How did it go?" I asked.
"I think your mother just arranged peace in the Middle East while brokering a marriage deal for Rayna and me."
"I'm not surprised. How many kids are you having?"
"Four. But we can't start until she's twenty-six, three years after the wedding. Oh, and we're honeymooning at the minister's beach house in Tel Aviv."
"That's nice. I'll have to pop in for a visit."
Sage just shook his head, still shell-shocked.
"Piri forgive you yet?" Ben grinned.
"I don't think so. She put an inch of garlic on everything she served me."
"Don't take it personally. There's lots of garlic in Hungarian food," I assured him.
"Including my chocolate torte," Sage added.
"Okay, you can take that personally," I admitted. — Hilary Duff

What does somebody like you want? More power? More toys? More sex?"
"All of the above. All the time."
"Greedy bugger."
"Kid, let me tell you something. Most people spend their short time in this world less than half alive. They wander through their days in a haze of responsibility and resentment. Something happens to them not long after they're born. They get conflicted about what they want and start worshipping the wrong gods. Should. Mercy. Equality. Altruism. There's nothing you should do. Do what you want. Mercy isn't Nature's way. She's an equal opportunity killer. We aren't born the same. Some are stronger, smarter, faster. Never apologize for it. Altruism is an impossible concept. There's no action you can make that doesn't spring from how you want to feel about yourself. Not greedy, Dani. Alive. And happy about it every single fucking day. — Karen Marie Moning

Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren't about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy? — Ben Shapiro

I loathed being sixty-four, and I will hate being sixty-five. I don't let on about such things in person; in person, I am cheerful and Pollyannaish. But the honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty. The long shadows are everywhere - friends dying and battling illness. A miasma of melancholy hangs there, forcing you to deal with the fact that your life, however happy and successful, has been full of disappointments and mistakes, little ones and big ones. There are dreams that are never quite going to come true, ambitions that will never quite be realized. There are, in short, regrets. Edith Piaf was famous for singing a song called "Non, je ne regrette rien." It's a good song. I know what she meant. I can get into it; I can make a case that I regret nothing. After all, most of my mistakes turned out to be things I survived, or turned into funny stories, or, on occasion, even made money from. But — Nora Ephron

People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel
before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away. — Zadie Smith

My friend Wicker once said to be careful what and how you say what you're really thinking to a woman. After much screwing up in that department with Emma, I've learned it's not what you should hide, but what you say that makes her react the way she does. If I am unable to make myself clear, as I so often do, it's more likely going to go to pot if I try to explain how I really feel. Instead, I rework in my brain what she needs to hear. I don't always nail it, but I'm getting better at it. And it's always the truth even if it isn't how I see it.
Is it deceiving? No. It's being considerate and aware that she is an emotional creature, and that for some crazy reason, craves my attention. I love to make her happy. My jumbled up mess of a mind isn't important in the long run if it just confuses her. So I chose words carefully. When something goes right, I use it over and over again. -Ames — Cyndi Goodgame

telling him how people had thought the same thing long before he and his brother were born, that it was the hubris of each generation to think this anew, to think that their time was special, that all things would come to an end with them. His father said it was hope that made people feel this, not dread. People talked of the end coming with barely concealed smiles. Their prayer was that when they went, they wouldn't go alone. Their hope was that no one would have the good fortune to come after and live a happy life without them. Thoughts — Hugh Howey

And the weird weird thing about this story of Angela's Ring was that it didn't even have a point to it, no happy ending, no lesson to be learnt.
It was like one person's cry of pain, echoing out on and on and on trough the generations, even after that person was long long dead. — Chris Beckett

My first and foremost goal when I joined the Yankees was to win the world championship. Certainly, it's been a long road and very difficult journey. But I'm just happy that after all these years we were able to win and reach the goal that I had come here for. — Hideki Matsui

It's not too late," he says. "Zahra, I - "
"Sh." I lay a finger across his lips. "Don't say it. You will marry Caspida, and you will learn to love each other. You will live a happy life, long after my lamp has passed to new hands."
"I won't make my third wish," he says. "That's the answer! If I don't make the wish, you can stay here in the palace for as long as you want. You'll never have to go back to your lamp. We can fight off anyone who tries to take you from me. — Jessica Khoury

(from the author Q&A)
Q. After you wrote the book, however much time has passed, do you think back and wish you could write more, or that you could somehow create more of their world?
A. I never wish I could go back and write more, no. I spent a long, long time trying to write the book that became The Fault in Our Stars and to be completely honest with you, I am entirely happy that the story is no longer my problem and is now your problem. — John Green

In the first place, no man is happy but strives his whole life long after a supposed happiness which he seldom attains, and even if he does it is only to be disappointed with it. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Them smile. One read: Having Cheese Makes You Happy. Sometimes Hem and Haw would take their friends by to see their pile of Cheese at Cheese Station C, and point to it with pride, saying, "Pretty nice Cheese, huh?" Sometimes they shared it with their friends and sometimes they didn't. "We deserve this Cheese," Hem said. "We certainly had to work long and hard enough to find it." He picked up a nice fresh piece and ate it. Afterward, Hem fell asleep, as he often did. Every night the Littlepeople would waddle home, full of Cheese, and every morning they would confidently return for more. This went on for quite some time. After a while Hem's and Haw's confidence grew into the arrogance of success. Soon they became so comfortable they didn't even notice what was happening. As — Spencer Johnson

I loved the country so that I was happy as you are after you have been with a woman that you really love, when, empty, you feel it welling up again and there it is and you can never have it all and yet what there is, now, you can have, and you want more and more, to have, and be, and live in, to possess now again for always, for that long, sudden-ended always; making time stand still, sometimes so very still that afterwards you wait to hear it move,and it is slow in starting. — Ernest Hemingway,

I had an uneventful few days," it told her. "The most exciting thing was an hour-long lecture from the headmaster on taking our studies seriously. He said next year's exam will arrive sooner than we think."
"No, they won't," Valkyrie said, frowning. "They'll arrive next year, exactly when we expect them."
"That's what I told him," the reflection nodded. "I don't think he's comfortable with logic, because he didn't look happy. He sent me to the Career Guidance counsellor, who asked me what I wanted to do after college."
Valkyrie stowed her black clothes. "What did you say?"
"I told her I wanted to be a Career Guidance counsellor. She started crying, then accused me of mocking her. I told her if she wasn't happy in her job then she should look at other options, then pointed out that I was already doing her job better than she was. She gave me detention. — Derek Landy

Christie was one of that large class of women who, moderately endowed with talents, earnest and true-hearted, are driven by necessity, temperament, or principle out into the world to find support, happiness, and homes for themselves. Many turn back discouraged; more accept shadow for substance, and discover their mistake too late; the weakest lose their purpose and themselves; but the strongest struggle on, and, after danger and defeat, earn at last the best success this world can give us, the possession of a brave and cheerful spirit, rich in self-knowledge, self-control, self-help. This was the real desire of Christie's heart; this was to be her lesson and reward, and to this happy end she was slowly yet surely brought by the long discipline of life and labor. — Louisa May Alcott

I suggested that the system put all the potential offending [sexually abusive] alters in an internal prison. Jennifer said that would take too long. An alter popped out and said, "Just a minute," and then, after a brief silence, announced that they had "killed" all the offender alters; they were lying in the inside world dead, covered in blood! I was not very happy with such drastic measures, but accepted it for the interim, knowing I could rely on Jennifer to tell me if the risk recurred. I made a list of the "dead" alters.
The next morning Jennifer called; she had dreamed about sexually abusing a child. I asked her to look for more related memories before we met in the evening. She had to "reincarnate" all the dead alters to find the memories. (We already had a method for doing this, as some alters had previously experienced internal "death" in "disasters" in the inner world; when they were made new internal bodies, they became alive again.) — Alison Miller

Tristan and Yvaine were happy together. Not forever-after, for Time, the thief, eventually takes all things into his dusty storehouse, but they were happy, as these things go, for a long while. And then Death came in the night and whispered her secret into the ear of the eighty second Lord of Stormhold, and he nodded his grey head and said nothing more — Neil Gaiman

Encounters are after all merely future farewells and he could live with that as long as they both got happy endings. Even if it meant they didn't get it together. — BeccaAmon

I hope to have told you all this myself," Bail Organa's voice said. "I hope we have enjoyed many more happy years as a family, that we have seen the Empire fall, and that we have gone forth together to find General Kenobi and your brother. If so, this recording can serve only one purpose. You must be listening after my death, so let this be my chance to say once again how much I love you. No other daughter could ever have brought me more joy." Tears welled in Leia's eyes, but she fought them back. If she began to sob, she wouldn't be able to hear her father's voice any longer. He concluded, "Please know that my love for you, and your mother's love, endures long past our deaths. We are forever with you, Leia. In your brightest triumphs and your darkest troubles, always know that we are by your side." She — Claudia Gray

To remember sometimes is a great sorrow, but when the remembering has been done, there comes afterwards a very curious peacefulness. Because you have planted your flag on the summit of the sorrow. You have climbed it.
And I notice again in the writing of this confession that there is nothing called long-ago after all. When things are summoned up, it is all present time, pure and simple. So that, much to my surprise, people I have loved are allowed to live again. What it is that allows them I don't know. I have been happy now and then in the last two weeks, the special happiness that is offered from the hand of sorrow. — Sebastian Barry

I have extremely little courage myself, much less than you; but I have found that whenever, after a long struggle, I have screwed my courage up to do something I always felt much freer & happy after it. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

He didn't say anything, which daunted her for a moment, but then she saw that his eyes were warm. So she said, tentatively:
"You came for me."
"Yes."
"And took care of me when I was ill."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love you."
Without moving a muscle, she let his words sink in. Reverberate. Settle in her bones. Was this much happiness even possible? Joy so great one couldn't even smile?
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you, Livia. I've loved you for weeks - for months - quite possibly from the moment I met you. But it's taken me far too long to understand that. Understand myself."
"Can you say it one more time?"
"Yes. I'll be saying it every day for the rest of my life, if you'll let me. I love you. — Lisa Berne

Still, there's something in this photo of the nineteen-year-old that the middle-aged woman I know has lost forever. You might call it an outpouring of energy. Nothing showy, it's colourless, transparent, like fresh water secretly seeping out between rocks - a kind of natural, unspoiled appeal that shoots straight to your heart. That brilliant energy seeps out of her entire being as she sits there at the piano. Just by looking at that happy smile, you can trace the beautiful path that a contented heart must follow. Like a firefly's glow that persists long after it's disappeared into the darkness. — Haruki Murakami

It burned all the way down her throat. She was pretty sure it was even now disintegrating her stomach lining and yet it didn't stop her from ordering another one. After two, she felt a lightness she hadn't felt in a long time. After three, she was smiling for no particular reason, and after four, she was downright happy. — L.A. Fiore

Who knew it was in my power to make anyone so happy? Or that I could ever be so happy myself? My moods were a slingshot; after being locked-down and anesthetized for years my heart was zinging and slamming itself around like a bee under a glass, everything bright, sharp, confusing, wrong - but it was a clean pain as opposed to the dull misery that had plagued me for years under the drugs like a rotten tooth, the sick dirty ache of something spoiled. The clarity was exhilarating; it was as if I'd removed a pair of smudged-up glasses that fuzzed everything I saw. All summer long I had been practically delirious: tingling, daffy, energized, running on gin and shrimp cocktail and the invigorating whock of tennis balls. And all I could think was Kitsey, Kitsey, Kitsey! — Donna Tartt

But it was a happy and beautiful bride who came down the old, homespun-
carpeted stairs that September noon - the first bride of Green Gables, slender and shining-eyed, in the mist of her maiden veil, with her arms full of roses. Gilbert, waiting for her in the hall below, looked up at her with adoring eyes. She was his at last, this evasive, long-sought Anne, won after years of patient waiting. It was to him she was coming in the sweet surrender of the bride. Was he worthy of her? Could he make her as happy as he hoped? If he failed her - if he could not measure up to her standard of manhood - then, as she held out her hand, their eyes met and all doubt was swept away in a glad certainty. They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that. Their happiness was in each other's keeping and both were unafraid. — L.M. Montgomery

I'm so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self. Welcome to the world, Caitlyn. Can't wait for you to get to know her/me. — Caitlyn Jenner

Who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis. And how grateful we should be to those of our predecessors who repudiated this utter negation of human freedom. There were many people long before Darwin or Einstein or even Galileo who saw through the claims of the rabbis and priests and imams. In earlier times, such repudiation often involved extraordinary courage. The ensuing pages will, I hope, introduce you to some of those who manifested this quality. — Christopher Hitchens

And, I think, this greening does thaw at the edges, at least, of my own cold season. Joy sneaks in: listening to music, riding my bicycle, I catch myself feeling, in a way that's as old as I am but suddenly seems unfamiliar, light. I have felt so heavy for so long. At first I felt odd- as if I shouldn't be feeling this lightness, that familiar little catch of pleasure in the heart which is inexplicable, though a lovely passage of notes or the splendidly turned petal of a tulip has triggered it. It's my buoyancy, part of what keeps me alive: happy, suddenly with the concomitant experience of a sonata and the motion of the shadows of leaves. I have the desire to be filled with sunlight, to soak my skin in as much of it as I can drink up, after the long interior darkness of this past season, the indoor vigil, in this harshest and darkest of winters, outside and in. — Mark Doty

Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days. — Lewis Carroll

Does it matter whether we achieve our outer purpose, whether we succeed or fail in the world? It will matter to you as long as you haven't realized your inner purpose. After that, the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play simply because you enjoy it. It is also possible to fail completely in your outer purpose and at the same time totally succeed in your inner purpose. Or the other way around, which is actually more common: outer riches and inner poverty, or to "gain the world and lose your soul," as Jesus puts it. Ultimately, of course, every outer purpose is doomed to "fail" sooner or later, simply because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things. The sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment, the better. When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose. — Eckhart Tolle