Just One Day Left Quotes & Sayings

You count the days and watch the years go by. You tell yourself, and you believe it, that you'd rather just die. You'd rather stare death boldly in the face and say you're ready because whatever is waiting on the other side has to be better than growing old in a six-by-ten cage with no one to talk to. You consider yourself half-dead at best. Please take the other half.
You've watched dozens leave and not return, and you accept the fact that one day they'll come for you. You're nothing but a rat in their lab, a disposable body to be used as proof that their experiment is working. An eye for an eye, each killing must be avenged. You kill enough and you're convinced that killing is good.
You count the days, and then there are none left. You ask yourself on your last morning if you are really ready. You search for courage, but the bravery is fading. When it's over, no one really wants to die. — John Grisham

She would love to think he was reluctant to leave her, but she realized he was waiting to make sure she got safely into the house before he drove away. Zane might be the most frustrating man on earth, a paradox she couldn't figure out, but he was the type of guy to make sure a woman was safe before he left her in the dark. Just as he was the type of man who'd chosen the best knife for her to carry to Nigeria. He was also the type to kiss a woman breathless and leave her alone and confused. With a sigh, she turned and made her way to the front door, digging for her key as she went. One sleepless night pondering Zane and this odd day definitely wouldn't be enough to figure out the mystery of the man. But, it would be a start ... — Cat Johnson

We shook hands, just as we had the first day we'd met, which seemed absurd, given everything that had gone down between us, but I wasn't sure I could handle anything else anyway, or what was actually appropriate to do when getting reacquainted with someone you'd had sex with while on vacation.
Should've Googled it before I left the house. — Cary Attwell

We also notice that Paul was focused. He had a clear goal, and he would not veer to the right or to the left from it. We can't help but wonder how many emails Paul would have skipped over, or how current he would have been with the news of the day, or even how vigorously he would be rooting for his favorite sports teams or athletes. Our ability to have information quickly is both a blessing and a curse. Our ability to function in a fast-paced society sometimes encourages us to focus on nothing of lasting value, just running from one temporal thing to the next. Just — James MacDonald

Oooo, what is that?" Red yelled when she saw the palace. "That's Buckingham Palace," Alex said. "It's where the monarchy resides." Red was mesmerized. "What a stylish and tasteful place! Look at that beautiful statue out front of it in the middle of the street! That looks exactly like the statue I wanted to build in celebration of Charlie's and my wedding!" Red left the others and flew down to the gate. She peered through the bars at the palace in delight. She had to hang on to the bars tightly because the fairy dust was making her drift back to the sky. One of the palace guards on duty saw Red and stared at her in disbelief. It wasn't every day he saw a floating woman at the gate. "Yoo-hoo!" Red called to him. "I just love your hat! Please tell the current monarch that Queen Red of the Center Kingdom says hello - " Conner flew to the gate and pulled Red's hands off the bars. "Red, come on. You're gonna get left behind! — Chris Colfer

I'll tell you what I see, and at no charge. You know much of war, you carry its spirit stabbed deep inside you, just as he up there has the steel within him. Just as deeply buried, just as hard and unyielding to all the softer things you are and want and own to. And just as bitter in its wounding. You think you'll be free of it one day; you carry it as if the wound will someday heal. But for you, just as for him, there will be no healing."
"Wow." Ringil reached up left-handed and tapped the pommel of the Ravensfriend with his fingers. "Nice guesses. I'm sorry, Granny. It's still no sale. — Richard K. Morgan

Tink, you are the best thing that's ever happened to that kid. I don't care if he only has one day left with you or twenty, you just keep doing whatever you're doing until you have to go, and I will forever worship the ground you walk on. Because a little slice of heaven is better than none at all. — Linda Kage

It's a messy business, dying,' he said. 'As time goes on there's just less and less of you. It happens quickly for some; for others it can drag on. Starting from birth you keep losing one thing after another: first a finger, than an arm, first a tooth, then a whole set of teeth, first one memory, then all your memory, and so on and so forth, until one day there's nothing left. Then they chuck what's left of you in a hole and shovel it in and that's your lot. — Robert Seethaler

I feel that God made my body perfect the way I was born. Then man robbed me, took away my power, and left me a cripple. My womanhood was stolen. If God had wanted those body parts missing, why did he create them?
I just pray that one day no woman will have to experience this pain. It will become a thing of the past. People will say "Did you hear, female genital mutilation has been outlawed in Somalia?" Then the next country, and the next, and so on, until the world is safe for all women. What a happy day that will be, and that's what I'm working toward. In'shallah, if God is willing, it will happen. — Waris Dirie

I miss you terribly sometimes, but in general I go on living with all the energy I can muster. Just as you take care of the birds and the fields every morning, every morning I wind my own spring. I give it some 36 good twists by the time I've got up, brushed my teeth, shaved, eaten breakfast, changed my clothes, left the dorm, and arrived at the university. I tell myself, "OK, let's make this day another good one." I hadn't noticed before, but they tell me I talk to myself a lot these days. Probably mumbling to myself while I wind my spring. — Haruki Murakami

Inevitably Tate phoned her at her office when she'd returned. "Leta said you and Colby left suddenly," he said softly. "What did you find out?"
"This isn't a secure line," she told him without expression in her voice. It hurt to hear him talking to her in that almost intimate tone after what Audrey had told her. "Stop talking like a secret agent," he teased.
"You start thinking like one again," she told him. "I'll meet you for coffee in the usual place."
"What usual place?"
"Where you and Audrey go, of course."
That hadn't been a teasing tone in her voice. "I only took her there once, Cecily, the day you ran into us ... "
"Ten minutes." She hung up, got her jacket and went out, telling her secretary that she had a meeting and would be back in an hour. She dreaded seeing him again. But if she could just keep her head, perhaps she could bluff her way through. She felt betrayed. — Diana Palmer

The next day, a dead turtle was left on my doorstep as a warning. I couldn't figure out as a warning for what, and I guess whoever was watching me picked up on that, because the next morning there was another dead turtle, but this one had several sheets of paper glued to it's back leg. The pieces of paper contained a long footnoted explanation of all the symbolism involved. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. The turtle was the "turtle of inquisitiveness" and the cheese smeared on it's shell meant something, and the little cowboy boots on its feet meant something. Everything about this animal meant something apparently to whoever sent it. I still didn't get what it was all about. The next morning there was no turtle. Somebody just shot at me from the bushes. — John Swartzwelder

She said being human is being a young child on Christmas Day who receives an absolutely magnificent castle. And there is a perfect photograph of this castle on the box and you want more than anything to play with the castle and the knights and the princesses because it looks like such a perfectly human world, but the only problem is that the castle isn't built. It's in tiny intricate pieces, and although there's a book of instructions you don't understand it. And nor can your parents or Aunt Sylvie. So you are just left, crying at the ideal castle on the box which no one would ever be able to build — Matt Haig

1 day left, today 16 years old tomorrow 17 years old... Just one DAY! — Deyth Banger

One day he [Wagner] was batting against a young pitcher who had just come into the league. The catcher was a kid, too . The pitcher threw Honus a curve ball, and he swung at it and missed and fell down. Looked helpless as a robin. I was kind of surprised, but the guy sitting next to me poked me in the ribs and said, 'Watch this next one.' Those kids figured they had the old man's weakness, you see, and served him up the same dish - as he knew they would. Well, Honus hit a line drive so hard the fence in left field went back and forth for five minutes. — Burleigh Grimes

It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be. — Carrie Ryan

People will meet you people will left you,people will hate you people will love you,people will break you,people will destroy you people will Cheat you People will betray you they will make your life hell even breathing will impossible for you..
But what you should do ?
just love and strew Love,One day world will on knee In front of you. — Mohammed Zaki Ansari

I love you." My heart almost stopped beating in my chest.
She hadn't spoken those words since the last time I held her in my arms.
"And you did leave me. But ... but you came back. No one's ever come back. They leave me and that's it. They want to leave me. You didn't. And you came back." I wanted to stand up and reach across the table and jerk her into my arms but I wasn't sure I could stand up just yet. I needed to hear everything she had to say.
"Yes, I came back. My heart never left you."
"I miss you."
This time I stood up and walked around the table.
"I miss you. Every second of every day," I whispered. Her eyes followed me until I was inches from her.
"I trust you."
I needed more than that.
"You trust me," I repeated.
She nodded and her hand came up and caressed the side of my arm.
"I want to try again."
Those were the words I needed to hear. — Abbi Glines

I glared at him. "You didn't leave me alone for five minutes, you left me alone for a week. I could have hacked myself to pieces if there's been more than one mango in the house. You could have come home to a very gory scene. The press would have had a field day ... Gay Houseboy In Mango Tragedy. Bears arrested for leaving cub unattended for seven, almost eight whole days with an armed and dangerous killer mango roaming loose about the house."
"I'd mercifully forgotten just how much of a loquacious tripe peddler you can be," Shane took me by the shoulders and kissed me on the lips ... — Gillibran Brown

Dear Madeline,
I miss you. I never got to meet you. I never heard your voice and I never saw your smile. Though I imagine it's a lot like mine. And yet I miss you so much.
Every time I see another set of twins just like us, I miss you even more. Seeing other twins, seeing the life I could have had with you, just rips another hole through my heart. I never met you, but I still feel the hole where you're supposed to be. Its' unfair. It's too hard. And it's so many things it shouldn't be.
I should be sharing a room with you. I should be telling you all the things I can't tell anyone .But it's not like that. One day we'll be together again, but until then you have left a hole in me that cannot be filled by anyone else. And I'm left missiing you.
All the love in the world
from your other half,
K — Emily Trunko

Just as you take care of the birds and the fields every morning, every morning I wind my own spring. I give it some thirty-six good twists by the time I've gotten up, brushed my teeth, shaved, eaten breakfast, changed my clothes, left the dorm, and arrived at the university. I tell myself, Ok, let's make this day another good one. — Haruki Murakami

Lady and gentleman, when my parents left Korea with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the considerable wealth they had amassed in the shipping business, they had a dream. They had a dream that one day amid the snowy hilltops of western North Carolina, their son would lose his virginity to a cheerleader in the woman's bathroom of a Waffle House just off the interstate. My parents have sacrificed so much for this dream! And that is why we must journey on, despite all trials and tribulations! Not for me and least of all for the poor cheerleader in question, but for my parents and indeed for all immigrants who came to his great nation in what they themselves could never have: CHEERLEADER SEX. — John Green

The Nothing is spreading," groaned the first. "It's growing and growing, there's more of it every day, if it's possible to speak of more nothing. All the others fled from Howling Forest in time, but we didn't want to leave our home. The Nothing caught us in our sleep and this is what it did to us."
"Is it very painful?" Atreyu asked.
"No," said the second bark troll, the one with the hole in his chest. "You don't feel a thing. There's just something missing. And once it gets hold of you, something more is missing every day. Soon there won't be anything left of us. — Michael Ende

But my attention's elsewhere, drawn to that warm wonderful pull, the familiar loving essence that only belongs to one person - only belongs to him
Watching as Damen cuts through the water, board tucked under his arm, body so sculpted, so bronzed, Rembrandt would weep. Water sluicing behind him like a hot knife through butter, cleanly, fluidly, as though parting the sea.
My lips part, desperate to speak, to call out his name and bring him back to me. But just as I'm about to, my eyes meet his and I see what he sees: me - hair tangled and wet - clothes twisted and clinging - frolicking in the ocean on a hot sunny day with Jude's tanned strong arms still wrapped around me.
I release myself from Jude's grip, but it's too late. Damen's already seen me.
Already moved on.
Leaving me hollow, breathless, as I watch him retreat.
No tulips, no telepathic message, just a sad, empty void left behind in his place. — Alyson Noel

Hope rarely shouts and often whispers. It seldom barges in and frequently knocks softly. Like embers left untended, hope lies quietly, ready to be fanned into sparks that will ignite a roaring fire. Like a dim flashlight that keeps you moving forward as you stumble in the dark, hope can provide just enough light to show you where to place your next foot even when the future looks shadowy and unclear. Hope fervently promises that things will get better, that the journey will get easier, and that one day the pain will soften. — Suzy LaBonte

If you want to understand what a year of life means, ask a student who just flunked his end-of-the-year exams. Or a month of life: speak to a mother who has just given birth to a premature baby and is waiting for him to be taken out of the incubator before she can hold him safe and sound in her arms. Or a week: interview a man who works in a factory or a mine to feed his family. Or a day: ask two people madly in love who are waiting for their next rendezvous. Or an hour: talk to a claustrophobia sufferer stuck in a broken-down elevator. Or a second: look at the expression on the face of a man who has just escaped from a car wreck. Or one-thousandth of a second: ask the athlete who just won the silver medal at the Olympic Games, and not the gold he trained for all his life. Life is magic, Arthur, and I know what I'm saying because since my accident I appreciate the value of every instant. So I beg you, let's make the most of all the seconds that we have left. — Marc Levy

How do I know you'll stay? How do I know, if I let myself love you, that one day there wouldn't be someone else, something else, and you'd just walk away? I can handle being alone now, I know how. But I can't
I won't be left again. — Nora Roberts

I was walking home alone late one night, when out of nowhere, this rabid homosexual jumped me and bit me right on the ass. I tried to fight him off, but you know those homos have superhuman strength. Anyway, he bit me on my left cheek, then took off. The whole thing shook me up, but I thought I was gonna be okay. It took me a few weeks to notice the changes. At first the signs were subtle: the sudden urge to redecorate my room, the uncontrollable desire to do Megan's hair. Then, as the phases of the moon progressed, I noticed other things: the need to wear lace panties, the insane hope of one day owning my own flower shop. Before I knew it, I was jacking off six times a day to pictures of Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe. Of course, I won't be a full fledged gay boy until I bite someone else and pass on the 'dark gift. Hey, Rooster, you wanna be my first convert? If I turn just four people, I win like a toaster oven or something.. — Sara Bell

One day at a time. Maybe it wasn't such bad advice. Despite what she'd learned in childhood, change could be good, right? If she could just let loose and let it happen. The thought sent a tremor of fear through her. She'd learned early to hold on tightly, to control her surroundings, her feelings. But control didn't buy safety. She couldn't even control her feelings, much less anything else. Control was a false foundation that crumbled and left her vulnerable. She didn't need to control. She needed to let go and trust God, and that was hard. But he was her new foundation. She pictured it beneath her, solid and unwavering. It would be okay. — Denise Hunter

Fire and hope are connected, just so you know.
The way the Greek told it, Zeus put Prometheus and Epimetheus in charge of creating life on earth. Epimetheus made the animals, giving out bonuses like swiftness and strenght and fur and wings.
By the time Prometheus made man, all the best qualities had been given out. He settled for making them walk upright, and he gave them fire.
Zeus, pissed off, took it away. But prometheus saw his pride and joy shivering and unable to cook. He lit a torch from the sun and brought it to man again.
To punish Prometheus, Zeus had him chained to a rock, where an eagle fed on his liver. To punish man, Zeus created the first woman-Pandora-and gave her a gift, a box she was forbidden to open.
Pandora's curiosity got the best of her, and one day she opened that box. Out came plagues and misery and mischief. She managed to shut the lid tight before hope escaped.
It's the only weapon we have left to fight the others. — Jodi Picoult

One day a man's son was run over by a car and he was killed and all mangled up. The father couldn't go on living, he felt ill, he cried all day, he went to a wizard and gave him all his money to bring his son back to life. The wizard said: "Go home and wait. Your son will return tonight." The father waited, but the son did not come home, so in the end he went to bed. He was just falling asleep when he heard footsteps in the kitchen. He got up feeling very happy and saw his son, he was all mangle up and had one arm missing and his head was split open, with the brains running out and he said he hated him because he'd left him in the middle of the road to go with women and it was his fault he was dead.' 'So?' 'So the father got some petrol and set fire to him.' 'I don't blame him.' I threw and finally hit the target. 'Point!' 'Four-two. — Niccolo Ammaniti

I realized today that a daughter is born twice. For nine months, a mother carries and nourishes her daughter in her stomach, then gives birth to her. It's a happy occasion, but the mother is left feeling sadly empty inside ... But I realized today that, after raising her within my love and embrace and sending her off in marriage, this day is just as sad and leaves me just as empty as the one when I first gave birth to her.
Picture Man: Only after a parent has let go of their child will the parent truly be an adult. Living creatures leave their nest when ready. But the ones sending them off still anxiously and unnecessarily spread out their hands to catch them. — Kim Dong Hwa

They're just picking people off, left and right. Why are they using darts instead of bullets?" "Makes no sense," Mark replied. "Can't we do something?" Trina said, her body trembling with what looked like frustration more than fear. "Why are we letting these people do this?" Mark stepped up to Lana and peeked out with her. Bodies littered the clearing now, impaled darts sticking up toward the sky like a miniature forest. Still the Berg hovered overhead, its thrusters raging with blue heat. "Where are our security guys?" Mark whispered to no one in particular. "They take the day off or something? — James Dashner

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her parents' house, where she washed the same pink-and-yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her and flew to her window one evening just after her twelfth birthday. — Catherynne M Valente

one day Manuel returned to the place, and
she was gone -
no argument, no note, just
gone, all her clothes
all her stuff, and
Manuel sat by the window and looked out
and didn't make his job
the next day or the
next day or
the day after, he
didn't phone in, he
lost his job, got a
ticket for parking, smoked
four hundred and sixty cigarettes, got
picked up for common drunk, bailed
out, went
to court and pleaded
guilty.

when the rent was up he
moved from Beacon street, he
left the cat and went to live with
his brother and
they'd get drunk
every night
and talk about how
terrible
life was.

Manuel never again smoked
long slim cigars
because Shirley always said
how
handsome he looked
when he did. — Charles Bukowski

I separated the joints, the arm joints, the leg joints, and had to do two boilings. I think I used four boxes of Soilex for each one, put in the upper portion of the body and boiled that for about two hours and then the lower portion for another two hours. The Soilex removes all the flesh, turns it into a jelly like-like substance and it just rinses off. Then I laid the clean bones in a light bleach solution, left them there for a day and spread them out on either newspaper or cloth and let them dry for about a week in the bedroom. — Jeffrey Dahmer

I breathe in...
the fragrance
of love, and moist sand
the one
his roses left
on both my hands

I just keep on breathing
every moment
as much as I can
preserving it, in my body
for the day
it can't. — Sanober Khan

I'm left with one consolation, small though it may be: my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be some day. — Anne Frank

Son: Father, you are my father. You sired me. I have sired no one because I left the primordial. I left you, I studied, I suffered, and my visions were pure. Before me, my father, new horizons were opened.

Father: Yes, I am your father. I sired you and nowhere did I go. Where I was in the beginning, there I remained. I dwell in the old home, my estate is as it was. I spawned, I lived with your mother. Then I lived with peasant women and girls, spawning. I surrounded myself with chickens, roosters, turkeys. My poultry lay dozens of eggs a day. But I studied nothing, never did I suffer. My horizons remain the same, oh just the same. These spaces, ancient, veritably Russian, assembled around us are all - all just the same.

("Adam") — Andrei Bely

Maybe one day we all had wings and one day we'll all have wings again."
"D'you think the baby had wings?"
"Oh, I'm sure that one had wings. Just got to take one look at her. Sometimes I think she's never quite left Heaven and never quite made it all the way here to Earth."
She smiled, but there were tears in her eyes.
"Maybe that's why she has such trouble staying here," she said. — David Almond

Often beauty is disguised
by appearance just as music can be
by sound, the dreaming wish by the waking
wish until there's this terrible stress
because a thing must finally reveal itself,
break itself. Leaning shadow, cinder
heart, shouts. In Gorky's The Unattainable,
the line begins to free itself from any
utility of contour and becomes a trajectory.
One day, Gorky hung himself from a beam
but left us in charge of those ravishments.
Hello, interior of the sun. Usually alone
on Sundays, she won't get off until late,
the man steams rice because it's cheap
and easy and feels in its austerity poetic
like candles during a power outage
or trying on overcoats all afternoon,
buying none. — Dean Young

I can't fathom the day when I'll be able to figure out how to independently maneuver my way into my bra, like I used to, every day since I was thirteen. The left arm through the left loop, the left boob into the left cup. Never mind the clasp in the back. My poor injured brain gets all twisted up like some circus contortionist even trying to imagine how this procedure would work. I'm supposed to at least try every step of getting dressed on my own, but when it comes to the bra, I no longer bother. My mother just does it for me, and we don't tell the therapists.She holds up one of my white Victoria's Secret Miracle Bras. I close my eyes, shutting out the humiliating image of my mother manhandling my boobs. But even with my eyes closed, I can feel her cold fingers against my bare skin, and as I can't help but picture what she's doing, humiliation saunters right in, takes a seat, and puts its feet up. Like it does every day now. — Lisa Genova

I have no great opinion of the human race. It is just as well, now and again, that we have wars, so that men know what it is to suffer pain. One day they will exterminate themselves, as they have exterminated the rabbits. So much the better. The world will be peaceful again, with nothing left but the forest over there, and the soil. — Daphne Du Maurier

Amy hated
hated
the way the grown-ups her parents had surrounded themselves with were so quick to offer prayers and so low to actually do anything. Old women who barely left the house for anything but bingo and congratulated themselves on never drinking alcohol or saying dirty words, thinking God created humans to stay home and watch televangelists and just run out the clock until the day they die. Well, Amy figured you don't need more than five minutes on this planet to figure out that one thing we know about God
maybe the only thing
is that he favors those who act. David also believed that, through he didn't realize it. — David Wong

But I'm old now and Ward has made himself rich and powerful. He has the resources to ensure that one day he'll perfect his standardising system and if that happens, instead of a thousand Wards there will be a hundred thousand, a million, a billion. He'll grow exponentially until there's nothing and no one else left. Just Ward, Ward, Ward in every house, in every town and every city, in every country in the world. Forever. — Steven Hall

Frank Sinatra stopped his car. The light was red. Pedestrians passed quickly across his windshield but, as usual, one did not. It was a girl in her twenties. She remained at the curb staring at him. Through the corner of his left eye he could see her, and he knew, because it happens almost every day, that she was thinking, It looks like him, but is it?
Just before the light turned green, Sinatra turned toward her, looked directly into her eyes waiting for the reaction he knew would come. It came and he smiled. She smiled and he was gone. — Gay Talese

A demon seduced an angel in the middle of the night
and they gave the stars a glimpse.
There was nothing casual about it,
it was tender skin and battle scars
breathless passion under storm clouds
a rapid river stream mirroring the moon light.
Until one day, he left her with nothing,
just a bruised heart and carved memories
iridescent wings chipped on the edges
heat under her skin, like an ember burning low.
I asked her, "What do you do after a love like that?"
She laughed.
And madness danced behind her eyes.
But she flew so high the world was jealous. — M.J. Abraham

We went hand in hand across four lines of avenues. At the corner she was to go right, and I left.
"I'd like so much to come to your place today and let the blinds down. Today-right this minute" said O, and shyly looked up at me with her round crystal-blue eyes.
she's a funny one. But what could I say? She was with me only yesterday, and she knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow. It's just more of her thought getting ahead of itself, like a spark that flies too early in the ignition, which can do some harm at times.
Saying goodbye, I kissed her twice-no, I'll tell the truth-three times on those wonderful blue eyes of hers that not the least little cloud ever troubled. — Yevgeny Zamyatin

Austin. Interesting you were able to make it. I was just talking to Justin about you the other day. He said he hadn't seen you in months." Not since I'd fucked his brains out and he left my apartment almost wearing a goddamn disguise. Fuckin' thirty-one-year-old closet case. — A.E. Via

We fall into the great continuing circle of dancers. Some leave the floor, tired but giddy; others have only just arrived. They are eager to wear their new status as ladies, to be paraded about and lauded until they see themselves with new eyes. The fathers beam at their daughters, thinking them perfect flowers in need of their protection, while the mothers watch from the margins, certain this moment is their doing. We create illusions we need to go on. And one day, when they no longer dazzle or comfort, we tear them down, brick by glittering brick, until we are left with nothing but the bright light of honesty. The light is liberating. Necessary. Terrifying. We stand naked and emptied before it. Adn when it is too much for our eyes to take, we build a new illusion to shield us from its relentless truth.
But the girls! Their eyes glow with the fever dream of all they might become. They tell themselves this is the beginning of everything. And who am I to say it isn't? — Libba Bray

When she was three, I sent her to day care for a couple
of hours every morning. After a few weeks, the teacher
called me and said that she was worried about Lucy. When it
was time for the children to have their milk, Lucy would always
hang back until all the other kids had taken a carton before
she'd take one for herself. The teacher didn't understand. Go
get your milk, she'd say to Lucy, but Lucy would always wait
around until there was just one carton left. It took a while for me
to figure it out. Lucy didn't know which carton was supposed to
be her milk. She thought all the other kids knew which ones
were theirs, and if she waited until there was only one carton in
the box, that one had to be hers. Do you see what I'm talking
about, Uncle Nat? She's a little weird - but intelligent weird, if
you know what I mean. Not like anyone else. If I hadn't used
the wordjust, you would have known where I was all along ... — Paul Auster

Beer: All real men drink a specific brand of cheap beer. While I was growing up, my stepfather, who was the manliness man on the planet, drank Schlitz tall boys. There
was no room in the fridge, so he just left them on the counter and drank them warm. One day I asked him why he drank Schlitz, and he said, "It's only 3.1 cents per
ounce. Beer is an acquired taste, so you might as well acquire a taste for cheap beer." That's some manly shit. — Forrest Griffin

I was beginning to taste it. Something bitter, but warm.
A flavor that woke me up and let me see things clearly. A flavor that made me feel safe, so I could let those things go. A flavor that held my hand and walked me across to the other side of loss, and assured me that one day, I would be just fine. A flavor for a change of heart- part grief, part hope.
Suddenly, I knew what that flavor would be. I padded down to the kitchen and cut a slice of sour cream coffee cake with a spicy underground river coursing through its center, left over from an order that had not been picked up today.
One bite and I was sure. A familiar flavor that now seemed utterly fresh and custom-made for me.
Cinnamon.
The comfort of sweet cinnamon. It always worked. I felt better. Lighter. Not quite "everything is going to be all right," but getting there. One step at a time. — Judith Fertig

For one day there will be nothing left, yet we will have something. -me-
I tried to wait for my life to begin. Something has to happen. Like an amazing boy. I know he's out there. I just have to find him. — Susane Colasanti

And don't just email them once. Keep them up to date, wanting more. Give new tidbits every 1-2 weeks leading up to the launch, then email them the day before launch, 3 days into the campaign, one week into the campaign, 2 weeks and with one week and 48 hours left. Always provide updated information and a call to action. Short and sweet and frequent. — Patrice Williams Marks

My interest, perhaps, came out of the trauma of being a young immigrant in this country and constantly feeling my "resident alien" status. I remember trying to learn English on kindergarten playgrounds. I tried hard to be a convincing American but it was a losing battle. I was labeled weird and that tag never left me - all through high school, I was always the oddball. It was not always an easy path - I just had to tell myself that one day, being on the periphery would become an asset (and I think it finally has, as a creative adult). — Porochista Khakpour

Prison left me with some strange little tics.' She has taken all the door off their hinges in all the apartments she has lived in since. It's not that she has anxiety attacks about small spaces, she says, it's just that she starts to sweat and go cold. 'This apartment is perfect for me,' she says, looking around the open space.
'How about elevators?' I ask, recalling the schlepp up the stairs.
'Exactly,' she replies, 'I don't like them much either.'
One day, years later, her husband Charlie was fooling around at home, playing the guitar. Miriam said something provocative and he stood up suddenly, lifting his arm to take off the guitar strap. He was probably just going to say 'That's outrageous', or tickle her or tackle her. But she was gone. She was already down in the courtyard of the building. She does not remember getting down the stairs-it was an automatic flight reaction. — Anna Funder

But the Dashnak Hairenik Weekly was merciless. Quoting the accounts of a few escapees, it depicted Soviet Armenian as a locus not just of economic misery, but moral degradation: Godlessness, Atheism, Immorality, Robbery and perpetual spying on one another! There is not a trace of our family sanctities left there. Having repudiated the idea of the existence of a God, the Bolshevik ignores every conception of family standards, every moral principle, every social order. Aram's wife or watch equally can belong to Hagop, Ali, or Stalin. There is no conception of nationality. A Kurd, a Caucasian, a Georgian, or a Turk have the right to become your son-in-law when they wish it. They have the right to divorce the very next day.26 — Thomas De Waal

They ask me what kind of perfume I wear or how I choose a signature scent or what to wear to what occasion. The truth is, I just go into the perfumery and pick out the most beautiful smell. I sniff the scent and then see with my mind's eye the vision that it brings to my heart. If I want to wear that vision with me every day until the bottle is all used-up, then that's the perfume I'll purchase. And I do use it up until there's nothing left and only then do I go out to buy another one. Another vision for another year or two. Fragrance, to me, is about wearing a perspective on your skin. The scent itself is the vehicle by which you can be reminded of those pictures that those notes have opened in your soul. — C. JoyBell C.

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more. — Alice Hoffman

Each time a man leaves a woman, he takes a piece of her heart with him when he goes. The next man comes along, and takes another piece, this time a big one. And then, she meets another. And he takes a piece. One day we look up and we've got this shriveled little sliver of a heart left, and that's all we've got to offer. After that, the men we meet call us bitches and cunts, and man haters. They think we're hardened, but we're not. It's just that we're heartless. And we're heartless because of you. — Scott Hildreth

Uh, hello? Hello, hello! Uh, this is just to inform all employees, that due to current restrictions, the previously mentioned safe rooms, are being sealed at most locations. Including this one. Work crews will be here most of the day today, constructing a false wall over the old door bay. Nothing is being taken out before hand, so if you left anything inside, then it's your own fault. Management also requests, that this room not be mentioned to family, friends or insurance representatives. Thanks again, and remember to smile. You are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. — Andrew Mills

Black-and-white thinking is the addict's mentality, which can be a bar to recovery when one is still active. But an addict who finds the willingness can then rely on the same trait to stay clean: "Just don't drink," they say in AA.
How's that going to work for an addicted eater? Food addicts have to take the tiger out of the cage three times a day. I've read that some drinkers have tried "controlled drinking," and it hasn't been very successful. Eaters don't just have to try it; they must practice it to survive.
Having a food plan is an attempt to address that, and having clear boundaries is a key to its working. But the comfort of all or nothing is just out of reach.
...
I'm saying that food addicts, unlike alcoholics and may others, have both to try for perfection and to accept that perfection is unattainable, and that the only tool left is a wholesome discipline.
The problem is, if we had any clue about wholesome discipline, we wouldn't be addicts. — Michael Prager

At Wal-Mart, a co-worker once advised me that, although I had a lot to learn, it was also important not to "know too much," or at least never to reveal one's full abilities to management, because "the more they think you can do, the more they'll use you and abuse you." My mentors in these matters were not lazy; they just understood that there are few or no rewards for heroic performance. The trick lies in figuring out how to budget your energy so there'll be some left over for the next day. — Barbara Ehrenreich

UNQUESTIONED REVELATION "In that day you will ask Me nothing." John 16:23 When is "that day"? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. "In that day" you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, "In that day you will ask Me nothing." Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone - you don't seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren't you? — Oswald Chambers

I dont wanna see you again.
B'coz U'r the one left me here ...
but, what to do ...
You are always just crossing ...
I cant love you, as u left me..
same time I cant hate you ... b'coz.. one day you have to take me out from here..!! — Arafath Shanas

For years I'd been awaiting that overriding urge I'd always heard about, the narcotic pining that draws childless women ineluctably to strangers' strollers in parks. I wanted to be drowned by the hormonal imperative, to wake one day and throw my arms around your neck, reach down for you, and pray that while that black flower bloomed behind my eyes you had just left me with child. (With child: There's a lovely warm sound to that expression, an archaic but tender acknowledgement that for nine months you have company wherever you go. Pregnant, by contrast, is heavy and bulging and always sounds to my ear like bad news: "I'm pregnant." I instinctively picture a sixteen-year-old at the dinner table- pale, unwell, with a scoundrel of a boyfriend- forcing herself to blurt out her mother's deepest fear.) (27) — Lionel Shriver

I haven't become an American! Having a house in LA is just where the house is. It's just a convenience thing living there. I carry Wales around inside me. I'd consider moving back there one day. I never really left. — Tom Jones

So meditation is not really mind-effort. Real meditation is not effort at all. Real meditation is just allowing the mind to have its own way, and not interfering in any way whatsoever - just remaining watchful, witnessing. It silences, by and by, it becomes still. One day it is gone. You are left alone. — Rajneesh

Here's what you need to know: some cliches are true, and war is definitely hell. It's being afraid all the time, and when you're not afraid it's because you're pumped full of adrenaline you could literally burst. It's watching people who you love- really profoundly love- get blown to pieces right next to you. It's seeing a leg lying in the ditch and picking it up to put it in a bag because no man- or part of a man, your friend- can be left behind. It's the dark night of the soul. There's no front line over there. The war is all around them, every day, everywhere they go. Some handle it better than others. We don't know why, but we do know this: the human mind can't safely or healthily process that kind of carnage and uncertainty and horror. It just can't. No one comes back from war the same. — Kristin Hannah

He had a thwarting day. The heath and moor were crisscrossed with little tracks, dusty and twisting between the heather and bracken and the little juniper trees with their clinging roots. There was not one way but many, all athwart each other like the cracks on a crazy jug, and he followed first one and then the other, choosing the straightest and stoniest and finding himself always under the hot-sun at another crossing just like the one he had just left. After a time he decided to got with the sun behind him always
at least this led to consistency of proceeding
though it must be told that when he decided this he had only the haziest idea, dear readers, of where the sun had been at the beginning of the venture. So it often is in this life. We become consistent and orderly too late, on insufficient grounds, and perhaps in the wrong direction.
Possession — A.S. Byatt

Usually, Marilyn Norton loved the hot weather, but she was having a tough time with it, nine months pregnant, with her due date in two days. She was expecting her second child, another boy, and he was going to be a big one. She could hardly move in the heat, and her ankles and feet were so swollen that all she had been able to get her feet into were rubber flip-flops. She was wearing huge white shorts that were too tight on her now, and a white T-shirt of her husband's that outlined her belly. She had nothing left to wear that still fit, but the baby would arrive soon. She was just glad that she had made it to the first day of school with Billy. He had been nervous about his new school, and she wanted to be there with him. — Danielle Steel

You can't think about how much you have left to do because that's just one thought, one sad thought, that'll make you bummed out all day long. Instead you've got to think about how much you've already done. — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

The old woman crossed over to her. "When I speak of the people," she said barely above a whisper, her voice all weariness and grief, "I ain't just talking about the flesh, the blood. It's their voices. Their yes's and no's. That's what holds muscle to bone. The biggest thing the white man takes from us ain't our bodies. He takes our voices, too. He swallows up our yes's and no's like biscuits. But one day our yes's and no's will be so loud and strong they will lodge in his throat. He will have to spit them out to keep from choking. He will starve. There won't be nothing left of him except the shadows he casts on the deadest night. — Jonathan Odell

What was your first kiss like?"he had asked.
She answered, "I do not know as I have yet to experience such. Mayhap I should find a willing young man to help teach me how to kiss before I marry. With you being such a worldly and experienced man, mayhap you would want a wife who is just as experienced and worldly?"
His response left her laughing almost uncontrollably.
"It would bring me much relief to know you have not one grain of experience with kissing. I would hate to think you were comparing my kisses with anyone else's. Equally important is the fact that I might be drawn and quartered before our wedding day, for gutting any man who dare even think about kissing you. You would, in truth, be saving countless lives by remaining ignorant on the matter. — Suzan Tisdale

I haven't accomplished everything that I want to yet in my career, that's why I'm still playing. I just know that I still have something left inside of me to accomplish, and I don't know exactly what that is. Hopefully, I'll know one day soon. — Mary Pierce

You've always had a soft heart, son. You just hide it better than most." Danny shrugged. "Starting to hide it from myself, then, I guess." "Always the danger, that. Then one day, sure, you can't remember where you left all those pieces you tried so hard to hold on. Or why you work so hard at the holding. — Dennis Lehane

I wish I could protect you from the world. It's a cold, dark place. It has very little light, where it used to abound in it, but alas, I am one lone candle. I cannot speak for the world. Just for what I've seen and felt. Being in the world means you could very well realize how lost you are. You find out, you cannot find yourself all alone. However, as long as a light shines, all hope is not lost. One day we'll all know for certain which paths are best traveled, and which were left narrow. — Jennifer Megan Varnadore