Holding Things Back Quotes & Sayings

I believe we're at the verge of the greatest time to be alive in this world.But Washington is holding us back. How we tax, how we regulate. We're not embracing the energy revolution in our midst, a broken immigration system that has been politicized rather than turning it into an economic driver.We're not protecting and preserving our entitlement system or reforming for the next generation. All these things languish while we have politicians in Washington using these as wedge issues. — Jeb Bush

There are a lot of things that aren't fair, Aladdin."
She drew back from him, still holding his hands, and looked into his eyes.
"That's just the way life is- which is why it's so important for us Street Rats to take care of each other. That's a good instinct you have. You should always look out for your friends and your family. Because no one is looking out for us.
But that doesn't mean you should become a thief."
Aladdin looked at the ground, chagrined.
She put her hand under his chin to make him look up at her.
"Don't let life's unfairness, don't let how poor you are decide who you are. You choose who you will be, Aladdin. Will you be a hero who looks after the weak and powerless? Will you be a thief? Will you be a beggar- or worse? It's up to you, not the things-or people- around you. You can choose to be something more. — Liz Braswell

As he turns around and her eyes meet his, she lets go off the breath that she had been holding back. All the words she had practised to say when the moment arrived, dissolve at the tip of her tongue. All the things she wanted him to know escape her in the thick blanket of nostalgia that wraps itself around her. — Faraaz Kazi

It's like you might have some great scene that you love but for some reason - and you can't necessarily put your finger on it - the movie's not working or it seems slow or ponderous in some way, and even though it has your favorite scene in there, actually the favorite scene is the culprit. That's the painful thing about editing, is trying to locate those things that are holding the movie back and then having the guts to cut them. And it is painful to do it. — Neil Burger

Hana?" Lena says softly. "Are you okay?"
That single stupid question breaks me. All the metal fingers relax me at once, and the tears they've been holding back come surging up at once. Suddenly I am sobbing and telling her everything: about the raid, and the dogs, and the sounds of skulls cracking underneath regulator's nightsticks. Thinking about it again makes me feel like I might puke. At a certain point, Lena puts her arms around me and starts murmuring things into my hair. I don't even know what she's saying, and I don't care. JUst having her here - solid, real, on my side - makes me feel better than I have in weeks. Slowly I manage to stop crying, swallowing back the hiccups and sobs that are still running through me. I try to tell her that I've missed her, and that I've been stupid and wrong, but my voice is muffled and thick — Lauren Oliver

Are the things around you helping you toward success, or are they holding you back? — W. Clement Stone

How did I know how to do that to a body? Is that what you want to know?"
The boy, holding the tea tray, did not reply.
"I told you. It's exactly the same as cooking. I happen to know how to read."
"The library has stuff on things like that?"
The girl picked up the poker and pushed a maple log back into the fire. "The library has everything. — Laird Koenig

They sat back down again, across from each other at the table, and took turns opening up about what was in their hearts. Things they had not put into words for ages, things they'd been holding back deep in their souls. Removing the lids on their hearts, pulling open the doors of memory, revealing honest feelings, as the other, all the while, listened quietly. — Haruki Murakami

He had strong, steady hands, and I could tell from looking at them there was little he couldn't do. Mossy always said you could tell everything you needed to know about a man from his hands. Some hands, she told me, were leaving hands. They were the wandering sort that slipped into places they shouldn't, and they would wander right off again because those hands just couldn't stay still. Some hands were worthless hands, fit only to hold a drink or flick ash from a cigar, and some were punishing hands that hit hard and didn't leave a mark and those were the ones you never stayed to see twice.
But the best hands were knowing hands, Mossy told me with a slow smile. Knowing hands were capable; they could soothe a horse or woman. They could take things apart
including your heart
and put them back together better than before. Knowing hands were rare, but if you found them, they were worth holding, at least for a little while. — Deanna Raybourn

Even if they all have the same desire to succeed, create beautiful marketing materials and do similar things, it's the ones with the proper mindsets who will succeed. The ones who kick ass are the ones who can see themselves kicking ass, who truly believe in themselves and what they're selling, who remind themselves how much they want to better people's lives with their coaching, who are excited to get compensated for selling it and have no limiting, subconscious beliefs holding them back. The ones who feel weird or who worry that they're being pushy and annoying or who subconsciously believe that they don't deserve to or can't succeed - they're not gonna do so good. — Jen Sincero

Sometimes it's hard to see the things that are holding us back. Sometimes it takes a push to make us truly open our eyes. — Lara Adrian

Only slowly, after long watching, did he begin to distinguish the small signs that made them trackable: the ball of gristle in the corner of a man's cheek, which you could actually hear the soft click of if you listened for it; the swelling of the wormlike vein in a man's temple just below the hairline, the tightening of the crow's feet round his eyes, the almost imperceptible flicker of pinkish, naked lids; a deepening of the hollow above a man's collarbone as his throat muscles tenses, and some word he was holding back, because it was unspeakable, went up and down there, a lump of something he could neither swallow nor cough up.He saw these things now, and what astonished him was how much they gave away. — David Malouf

Each
day brought just another minute of the things they could not leave behind. Jane Barrington sitting on the
train coming back to Leningrad from Moscow, holding on to her son, knowing she had failed him, crying
for Alexander, wanting another drink, and Harold, in his prison cell, crying for Alexander, and Yuri
Stepanov on his stomach in the mud in Finland, crying for Alexander, and Dasha in the truck, on the
Ladoga ice, crying for Alexander, and Tatiana on her knees in the Finland marsh, screaming for
Alexander, and Anthony, alone with his nightmares, crying for his father. — Paullina Simons

I nodded to her. Then I eyed Maeve. "What about you? Holding anything back?"
"I want to take you to my bower, wizard," Maeve said, and licked her lips. "I want to do things to you that give you such pleasure your brain bleeds."
"Uh," I said.
Her foxlike smile sharpened. "Also," she said, "my people are about to attempt to kill you. — Jim Butcher

Holding on will not make something come back. In my experience, it actually pushes it farther away. You cannot go back and undo what's done, my friends. You can only move forward. And if your deepest compulsions and instincts tell you that you're meant to be with that person or doing that thing, you should let go and move forth and see how life takes you there. Clearly, things aren't going according to your desired plan already, so why not throw caution to the wind and see where you end up. — Brianna Wiest

How we like to hold on! Sometimes we're unwilling to let things go just because we know them, and they feel "safe" to us, even if we're talking about something like behaviors that harm us, like defensiveness or addictions. We hesitate to let go because doing so will expose us to the unknown in our own lives, and we'll have to deal with life without this part of ourselves that we've grown so accustomed to. But if we're ever to move on to the next thing in life, if we're to grow and develop as people, we may have to let go of things that are holding us back - behaviors and beliefs and sometimes even people. There is no formula that can tell us what we should let go of and what we should hold on to. But if we listen to our hearts, we can know what still serves us well, and what is keeping us from moving on and becoming better people. — Tom Walsh

Ove was, well, Ove was Ove. Something the people around her also kept telling Sonja.
He'd been a grumpy old man since he started elementary school, they insisted. And she could have someone so much better.
Maybe he
didn't write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But he believed so strongly in things: justice and fair play and hard
work and a world where right just had to be right. Not so one could get a medal or a diploma or a slap on the back for it, but just because that was
how it was supposed to be. Not many men of his kind were made anymore, Sonja had understood. So she was holding on to this one. — Fredrik Backman

Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity. — James Clavell

Between the Mile

I have always counted the miles.
Sometimes they came quick,
Other times slow.
The distance between things,
The way I could know.
Close could feel far,
And far could feel near.
The miles that passed too quickly,
The ones I ran out of fear.
They weren't all the same,
So I had been told,
The unmarked trails,
And the days I was bold.

Some miles went down,
Spiraling so low,
When I was afraid to look forward,
There was nowhere to go.
The sunset came fast,
And the day turned to night,
But the trails could be endless,
If I looked at them right.

Everything I knew,
All I was told,
The conversations left behind,
The people who grew old.

When the miles stretched out before me,
I wanted to sew them at the seam,
Looking forward and then back,
Holding everything in between. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Holding on to weight (i.e. anger, bitterness, the past, hatred) will not only hold you back, but also block your blessings. You've got to let some things go to move forward. — Yvonne Pierre

You know," I said, holding my ground. "I gotta tell you. The goatee thing? Yeah, way over. And you know a little jewelry really does go a long way. Just something you might want to consider. I'm actually glad you stopped by, because I have a couple things I've been meaning to say to you. Number one,
about your wife? Yeah, she's a skank. And number two, you know that whole thing where you killed Jesse and then buried his remains out back there? Yeah, way un-cool. — Meg Cabot

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else's snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It's world-creating.

It's raw, exposed dreaming. It's humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next.

It's what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. — Laurie Perez

Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul,
Not hastening to, nor turning from the goal;
Nor mourning things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To youth and age, and travels on with cheer.
So let the way wind up the hill or down,
Through rough or smooth, the journey will be joy,
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
I shall grow old, but never lose life's zest,
Because the road's last turn will be the best. — Henry Van Dyke

She would rather see for herself; she doesn't trust Tobias to interpret; she suspects him of holding things back. — Margaret Atwood

We walked back to iDEATH, holding hands. Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love. — Richard Brautigan

The importance of humor is primarily to puncture fixed ideas - to make us step back and realize that our situation, whatever it may be, is, in the grand scheme of things, always contingent and arbitrary and ephemeral. And that helps us to deal with our emotions and to keep going. Holding on to one perspective, on the other hand, whether it takes the form of grief or anger or a particular political standpoint, is often destructive to us and to those around us — Paul Murray

You would think that would have helped. That a gift and clasped hands would make things right between us. But the silence was back now, stronger than before. Thick enough that you could spread it on your bread and eat it. There are some silences that even words cannot drive away. And while Denna was touching my hand, she wasn't holding it. There is a world of difference. — Patrick Rothfuss

I'm holding you back from achieving things in your life by forcing you to sit here and watch this. — Dan Howell

Every generation confronts the task of choosing its past. Inheritances are chosen as much as they are passed on. The past depends less on 'what happened then' than on the desires and discontents of the present. Strivings and failures shape the stories we tell. What we recall has as much to do with the terrible things we hope to avoid as with the good life for which we yearn. But when does one decide to stop looking to the past and instead conceive of a new order? When is it time to dream of another country or to embrace other strangers as allies or to make an opening, an overture, where there is none? When is it clear that the old life is over, a new one has begun, and there is no looking back? From the holding cell was it possible to see beyond the end of the world and to imagine living and breathing again? — Saidiya V. Hartman

Closing his eyes again, Beck repositions his head on the back of his seat, and in one sure movement, reaches over and grabs my hand. Even with his eyes closed, he knew where to find me. I want to cry for a thousand reasons, laugh for a thousand others; this is my anomalous balance, the place where Beck and I can let the ridiculousness of our collective sentences marinate, and other things, too. It's a singular moment of clarity between two people, and rare or not, I'm not about to let go.
I'm done roaming hillsides.
I've scoured the corners of the earth.
And I've found my people.
God, I'm almost jealous of myself.
Holding Beck's hand in my lap, I find a courage I never knew I had and drop my head on his shoulder. — David Arnold

Back in grade school, my shrinks tried to channel my viciousness into a constructive outlet, so I cut things with scissors. Heavy, cheap fabrics Diane bought by the bolt. I sliced through them with old metal shears going up and down: hateyouhateyouhateyou. The soft growl of the fabrics as I sliced it apart, and that perfect last moment, when your thumb is getting sore and your shoulders hurt from hunching and cut, cut, cut ... free, the fabric now swaying in two pieces in your hands, a curtain parted. And then what? That's how I felt now, like I'd been sawing away at something and come to the end and here I was by myself again, in my small house with no job, no family, and I was holding two ends of fabric and didn't know what to do next. — Gillian Flynn

She is holding on tight to this talk of flowers, as I did before, when I was afraid and alone. If you sing and speak of blooms and petals that come back after a long time of being winter-still, you don't have to think about things that don't. — Ally Condie

The world is full of uncertainty and the road you are traveling may be a bit scary at times, but don't ever lose faith. Let go of the scary things that are holding you back and start noticing the great realities unfolding around you. Most of all, believe in yourself and never give up on what's important to you! Life is always going to present you with unexpected changes. But if you keep an open mind, look for the goodness in every situation and are able to adapt in any of life's misfortunes, you will always prevail. — Anonymous

What did I expect to happen tomorrow? Did I want things to go further with Callahan? Or was I holding back because I still harbored feelings for Fin? — Brenda Pandos

I Miss You Outside the sun is shining, and the roses are in bloom. The sky this morning is so lovely, but here I sit in gloom. Outside the birds are singing, but in here, no beauty resides. For my heart is empty, shattered and broken, and will be 'til you're back by my side. Honey, I miss you every morning, and at night when I go to bed. I remember the times you were with me, and all the things that we said. And I miss your touch; the touch that makes me feel so much a man. I miss the smell of your hair, and the softness of your hands. I miss holding you in my arms and feeling your lips on mine. I miss hearing your sweet voice, which sounds so loving and kind. But most of all, I miss your warm tender body next to me as I sleep. I feel so empty when you're not here; I lie awake all night and weep. Because without your love, my life is over and I'll spend the rest of it being blue. So please say you love me and come back; for sweetheart, I miss you. — Kenneth Edward Barnes

Have you ever happened, reader, to feel that subtle sorrow of parting with an unloved abode? The heart does not break, as it does in parting with dear objects. The humid gaze does not wander around holding back a tear, as if it wished to carry away in it a trembling reflection of the abandoned spot; but in the best corner of our hearts we feel pity for the things which we did not bring to life with our breath, which we hardly noticed and are now leaving forever. This already dead iventory will not be resurrected in one's memory.. — Vladimir Nabokov

I'm more open to give things a go, but what I'm not good at yet is holding back. If something is daft or rubbish, I just go, I can't be doing it. — Karl Pilkington

How I thrive is very simple. My son brought my perspective back to focusing on and appreciating the simple things in life. It's about just being with my family - whether that's waking up in bed next to my husband under the comforter and just hugging or walking down the street and holding my son's hand. — Tia Mowry

She wasn't crying at all. This was what scared him the most. Where had she locked up the things he'd seen her feeling that day when she heard? She wasn't that big a girl to hold all of it - to hold her brother's life and his death inside of her. To hold all his long-limbed raging tidal motion and all the loss of that. — Francesca Lia Block

And he'd looked straight back at her, holding her professional eye contact, and said yes, thankyou doctor, I do understand, yes. And he'd coughed, hard, repeatedly, spraying blooded phlegm into his handkerchief as to prove how much he understood.
Yes, thankyou doctor, I understand.
Things are not exactly one hundred percent the way we would like them to be. — Jon McGregor

When you say things they don't want to hear, it's like holding a mirror up to them and asking them to look at themselves. It's much easier for them to turn the mirror back on you and claim that your thinking is flawed. — Merry Freer

So I was forced to go to school wearing a menstrual pad belt that had been in our first aid drawer since approximately 1961. If you've never seen one of these things, because you haven't been to the antiquities museum, it is a literal belt that goes around your waist, with two straps that dangle down in your front and back cracks, ice cold metal clips holding a small throw pillow in place over your shame canyon. — Lindy West

Life is short. You can't afford to put off what God has put in your heart. You don't have time to live with things holding you back. — Joel Osteen

I don't say sweet things and make love and all that bullshit. I like sex hard and rough, no holding back. — Joanna Wylde

I found out that when someone loves you, like really loves you, no matter what you do, no matter how many stupid mistakes you make or shitty things you say, it sets you free. I feel like I can fly now. Like nothing is holding me back anymore, — Elle Casey

Music enables me to cleanse and shed the things that I feel are holding me back from growing, or growing up. — Damien Rice

We hold back our true feelings and beliefs, whether it's from a sense of being polite or fear of hurting someone's feelings. But what I have seen on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' is that no one benefits from holding back and keeping things bottled up inside. So I pride myself on speaking my mind and not being afraid to give honest feedback. — Nate Berkus

People who achieve great things are people who make choices. Far too many people today let life dictate their future instead of the other way around. Choices are hard - that's why so few actually make them. But as the saying goes - not to make a choice is to make a choice. When it comes to choices, The question is - what choices will you make today? The world doesn't care about your problems, or what's holding you back. They don't care about your past failures, or any other obstacles you face. Stop making excuses and start making choices. — Phil Cooke

Jenna reached over and held one of my hands, Kara held the other, and I felt like the universe was holding us all.
For that night, maybe just for that magic moment, it all seemed to make so much sense, like the thousand puzzle pieces of my life were all in place and I knew the How and Why of all things. It was one of those moments that I was sure would stay impressed on me forever because it was real and true. It was as tangible as the blanket beneath me. I felt lik I had touched something, something as big as the universe, and it had touched me back.
I didn't know that even a big moment like that could be snuffed out in a matter of days by packing to go home, by the wrong teacher on the wrong school schedule, or by my uncle getting his brains blown out at a traffic stop.
But all that just made Kara and Jenna brighter stars in my sky. I had no way of knowing that, in a matter of weeks, even those stars would be snuffed out. — Mary E. Pearson

Telling you how I know ... what I know ... it could make things worse than they already are ... for all of us — Dennis Sharpe

One of the first things I do with people is help them figure out what their limiting beliefs are and then encourage them to question, "Well, do I really want to keep that one? Is it limiting me? Does it not fit me? Is it holding me back?" — Deborah King

Days and months of holding back. Being diplomatic. Trying to figure out which way was up, and how to right a series of mistakes that weren't meant to hurt anyone. At work and in my personal life. It was all a mess, and every time I tried to make things right, I made them worse. So maybe the answer was to stop trying so hard. — Allyson Lindt

He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands. By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned. They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back. She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first. In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him. — Paullina Simons

Dear Fisher, I guess this is it, huh? After almost fourteen years together, starting a life of our own on this island, five tours of duty and countless letters I've written you through it all, I finally go out to the mailbox and see something I've always dreamed of: an envelope with your handwriting on it. For one moment, I actually thought you'd changed your mind. That all the awful things you said to me were just your way of coping after everything you'd been through. I was still here, Fisher. I was still here, holding my breath, waiting for you to come back even though you told me you never would. You always said you'd find your way back to me. Out of all the lies you've told me, this one hurts the most. Enclosed you will find the signed divorce papers, as requested. I hope you find what you're looking for. I'm sorry it wasn't me. Lucy — Tara Sivec

The other half, Lost Tokyo-1, has not been located yet, although presumably it exists out there somewhere in the universe, a mega-demi-city of eighty-five million people, a city fractured, cracker in half, torn, ripped not cleanly, but shredded, ragged, ripped along living rome, plans, meetings, dates, conjugal beds in prisons, family dinner tables, secrets being whispered into ears, couples holding hands, separated in an instant without warning or explanation, leaving two halves, bewildered, speaking Japanese to instant neighbours from the other side of the world, unable to understand what has happened, or if things will ever go back to the way they were, hoping its other half might someday find its way back. — Charles Yu

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back? - Clement Stone — Joseph Grenny

In bed, I steal moments of tenderness when sex has finally exhausted me to the point where I'm too bone weary to fret anymore about the enormous capacity for evil that's taken up squatter's rights inside me. I touch him, put all those things I don't say into my hands as I trace the red and black tattoos on his skin, the sharp planes and hollows of his face, bury my hands in his dark hair. He watches me in silence when I do, eyes dark, unfathomable.
I sometimes wake up to find he's pulled me close to him and is holding me, spooned into my back with his face in my hair, and those hands that don't speak like mine don't speak move over my skin and tell me I'm cherished, honored, seen. — Karen Marie Moning

I waned him back. I wanted him back so much I couldn't think about anything else. Everywhere I looked was suddenly somewhere Danny wasn't. My hands were empty because Danny wasn't holding them. My room echoed with quiet because Danny wasn't there whispering ridiculous things to make me laugh, or make me shiver.
It seemed so right. Danny was mine, I was his, and that wasn't going to work if he was dead. So I would make him not dead, anymore. — Amy Garvey

For your own professionalism, reputation & appearance, it really is ok to NOT post every #video, picture, event or show on social media.
On the contrary, holding back, waiting or not posting certain things all together can help much more than hurt. — Loren Weisman

I used to think I couldn't go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn't an occasion or an event. It doesn't just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, begin to lose you all over again. — Lang Leav

Do battle with the enemy. Do battle with your fears. Build your courage to fight what's holding you back, what's keeping you from your goals and dreams. Be courageous in your life and in your pursuit of the things you want and the person you want to become. — Jim Rohn

Surely, comrades, you do not want Jones back?"
Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it, it must be right." And from then on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon is always right," in addition to his private motto of "I will work harder. — George Orwell

Jace set what he was holding down on the windowsill and reached out to her. She came to lean against him, and his hand slid up under her t-shirt and rested caressingly, possessively, on the small of her back. He bent to kiss her, gently at first, but the gentleness went quickly and soon she was pressed up against the glass of the window, his hands at the hem of her shirt - his shirt
"Jace." She moved a little bit away. "I'm pretty sure people down there in the street can see us."
"We could ... " He gestured toward the bed. "Move ... over there."
She grinned. "You said that like it took you a while to come up with the idea."
When he spoke, his voice was muffled against her neck. "What can I say, you make my thought processes slow down. Now I know what it's like to be a normal person."
"How ... is it?" The things he was doing with his hands under the t-shirt were distracting.
"Terrible. I'm already way behind on my quota of witty comments for the day. — Cassandra Clare

It is the feeling of never knowing what we want that truly drives us all mad.... Holding things because we think in a moment we love them only to uncurl our fingers later and softly give them back to the earth. — Christopher Poindexter

I split the omelet between the plates and stopped when Curran's arms closed about me. He pulled me against him, pressing my back against his chest. I heard him inhale my scent. His lips grazed my temple. Here we were, alone, in my kitchen, holding each other while breakfast cooled on the table. This was some sort of alternate universe, with a different Kate, who wasn't hunted like a wild animal and who could have these sorts of things.
"What's up?" I asked softly.
"Just making sure you know you're caught. — Ilona Andrews

I'd like to go back to five years old again. Just sometimes. To be turning over rocks and looking for pill bugs and holding earthworms, playing dolls, erecting forts, digging through dirt for marbles, burrowing in leaf piles, failing at igloo building, when my biggest concern was going to sleep with the lights off. I wish I was five again, before things got hard, before I was forced to grow up way too early and been stuck in this "adult" thing way too long. I wish I could sit in my Grandpa's lap and let him sing me crazy Irish songs and go over the names of the planets. "Gwampa, tell me about Outer Space." ... "Gwampa, sing the Swimming Song."
I wish I could go back there, just for a little while, and pick raspberries by myself in the sun and find secret hideaways and not hurt, not worry, not carry the heavy things. If I could be five years old ... just for a few minutes. Remember what it felt like to be free. That would be something. — Jennifer DeLucy

I think she did really try her hardest to get over him. You would, wouldn't you, if someone had hurt you like that? You'd make all kinds of promises to yourself not to let them do something like that again. But wouldn't a small part of you always be wondering "what if" Wouldn't some part of you - a part that you might not want to exist - still be holding out for that happy ending? It's how we're built isn't it? No matter how many times you get slapped in the face you have to believe that the next time would be different. And then in comes the guy who hurt you all those years ago, and he wants to make things better and to prove he's not all talk- this time it will be different. How could she not fall for that? How could she not think that if she chose him it would finally lift the shadow that he'd cast over her life? All that hurt, all that suffering wouldn't have been for nothing then, would it? If he'd come back to you like that, would you have taken him back? — Mike Gayle