Knew There Was A Reason Quotes & Sayings

People did usually look at her, because she suggested the engaging young person at a party to whom you would like to be introduced, and others because they knew she was Grady McNeil, the daughter of an important man. There were a few whose eyes she held for a different reason: and it was because, in her aura of willful and privileged enchantment, they sensed she was a girl to whom something was going to happen. — Truman Capote

Jean had always found her sister hard work. Even before she was born-again. To be honest, it was slightly better after she was born-again. Because then there was a reason for Eileen being hard work. You knew you'd never get on because she was going to heaven and you weren't, so you could give up trying.
But, God, the woman could make you feel greedy and self-centered just by the way she wore a shapeless faun cardigan. — Mark Haddon

-the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there is no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (Rarely, thank god) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien turblence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seamed nearly psychotic. — Stephen King

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only truly sad time in Paris because it was unnatural. You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed. — Ernest Hemingway,

I could've enjoyed a cigarette if I smoked back before everyone knew it was bad - say, like, 1923. Everybody smoked back then. There was no medical information against it; they had no idea - it was a paradise. It was a smoker's paradise: 'They're taking my lung out next week. I don't know why. Doctor thinks maybe I'm brushing my teeth too often, but I can't help it because, for some reason, my breath smells like I licked a monkey's ass. — Arj Barker

when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another. — Stephen King

Dr. Adler had instructed me to always say whatever I was thinking, but this was difficult for me, for the act of thinking and the act of articulating those thoughts were not synchronous to me, or even necessarily consecutive. I knew that I thought and spoke in the same language and that theoretically there should be no reason why I could not express my thoughts as they occurred or soon thereafter, but the language in which I thought and the language in which I spoke, though both English, often seemed divided by a gap that could not be simultaneously, or even retrospectively, bridged. — Peter Cameron

If there were two things Silas McFuller knew about the world, it was that life is not always fair, but everything happens for a reason. — Megan Duke

Sitting there, I remembered two things about going to mass with my father: he never took Communion because of his and my mother's divorce, and he always tapped his heart three times, with solemn insistence, after the recitation of the Apostles' Creed. I asked him about his ritual once. His eyes filled with such alarm that I instantly knew his heart tapping had something to do with a loss or devastation: his parents' early death, his divorce, his wounding in Vietnam. There was no reason for me to invade that space. Maybe that was the best simple explanation for religion: it filled our spaces. — Tom Bissell

There was the obvious answer--it was random, senseless, genetic, environmental--but she didn't like that one. She also knew she couldn't sign on to any system that said it has all happened for a reason. So she took a third path, the pragmatic one. It hadn't happened for a reason, but they would find something to glean from it anyway. — Matthew Thomas

If there was a hell beyond what he knew, he would welcome it. He had no reason not to.
After all, a life without living was simply a death without dying. What more was there to fear or hate but life, endless life, with no respite? — Ais

I took the thin magazine from the pouch in front of me and began to thumb through it. I felt self-conscious, as if I shouldn't be there. My mind began to wander, as I knew it would, back to the boonies. I was on patrol again. Monaco was on point. Peewee and Walowick followed him. Lobel and Brunner were next, then Johnson, the sixty cradled in his arm as if it were a child. We were walking the boonies, past rice paddies, toward yet another hill. I was in the rear, and for some reason I turned back. Behind me, trailing the platoon, were the others. Brew, Jenkins, Sergeant Dongan, Turner, and Lewis, the new guys, and Lieutenant Carroll.
I knew I was mixing my prayers, but it didn't matter. I just wanted God to care for them, to keep them whole. I knew they were thinking about me and Peewee. — Walter Dean Myers

But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason. — Ernest Hemingway,

There's a reason why one master teacher said, "Love your enemies." He wasn't preaching some touchy-feely mumbo jumbo. He was talking about a cosmic law. He knew there was only One of us here. That means that anything you withhold from another you're withholding from yourself. But it also means that anything you give to another, you're giving to yourself. — Derek Rydall

When I learnt, however, that in 1911 there had been twenty-one regular feminist periodicals in Britain, that there was a feminist book shop, a woman's press, and a woman's bank run by and for women, I could no longer accept that the reason I knew almost nothing about women of the past was because there were so few of them, and they had done so little. — Dale Spender

If everyone you knew jumped off a bridge, would you too? Dr. Roger asked.
David had heard this before and knew you were supposed to say no. But was that really true? If everyone jumped off a bridge, maybe there was a good reason. Maybe the bridge was on fire.If anything, the guy who didn't jump was the crazy one. — John M. Cusick

younger. In addition to his imposing presence and his brilliant reputation, there were his sermons. Delivered with passion, humor, roaring indignation or stirring whispers, the sermon, for Albert Lewis, was like the fastball for a star pitcher, like the aria for Pavarotti. It was the reason people came; we knew it - and deep down, I think he knew it. I'm sure there are congregations where they slip out before the sermon begins. Not ours. Wristwatches were glanced at and footsteps hurried when people thought they might be late for the Reb's message. Why? I guess because he didn't approach the sermon in a traditional way. I would later learn that, while he was trained in a formal, academic style - start at point A, move to point B, provide — Mitch Albom

He was a curious mixture of things to me on that first occasion: he had the general physique of a bull, the tenacity of a vulture, the agility of a leopard, the tenderness of a lamb, and the coyness of a dove. He had a curious overgrown head which fasdnated me and which, for some reason, I took to be singularly Athenian. His hands were rather small for his body, and overly delicate. He was a vital, powerful man, capable of brutal gestures and rough words, yet somehow conveying a sense of warmth which was soft and feminine. There was also a great element of the tragic in him which his adroit mimicry only enhanced. He was extremely sympathetic and at the same time ruthless as a boor. He seemed to be talking about himself all the time, but never egotistically. He talked about himself because he himself was the most interesting person he knew. I liked that quality very much - I have a little of it myself. — Henry Miller

There was a reason my first substantial role after rehab was to play a maniac whose personal story ended badly. I knew what it was like to go those dark places. I played a guy who died as a result of his abuse. — Charlie Sheen

I knew there was no point in debating a man such as this. The world bent and contorted itself to fit his understanding, not the other way around. I could not make him see reason, could not make him regret his actions. It would be a mistake to try. — David Liss

I don't know when I can come back," he said. "The second you get tired of living in a smelly old surplus tent, I want you to come across town to my house." Mollie nodded and stepped closer. How safe she felt standing within the circle of his arms and laying her head against his chest, where she could hear the strong beating of his heart. "I heard it the first time you offered," she said with a smile in her voice. "And the fifth, and the tenth." He pinched her cheek. "Such a clever lass. I knew there was a reason I liked you." Why didn't she just leave with him? When she glanced over at the church, she saw Sophie reading the daily newssheet to Frank while Dr. Buchanan played a game of dice with the lumber merchant. "I'm not sure I can explain it," Mollie said, "but I feel bonded to these people. I can't leave to go live in the lap of luxury while they are all stranded here." "You can sleep in my root cellar if it would make you feel better. — Elizabeth Camden

I WAKE TO a headache. I try to go back to sleep - at least when I'm asleep, I'm calm - but the image of Caleb standing in the doorway runs through my mind over and over again, accompanied by the sound of squawking crows.
Why did I never wonder how Eric and Jeanine knew that I had aptitude for three factions?
Why did it never occur to me that only three people in the world knew that particular fact: Tori, Caleb, and Tobias?
My head pounds. I can't make sense of it. I don't know why Caleb would betray me. I wonder when it happened - after the attack simulation? After the escape from Amity? Or was it earlier than that - was it back when my father was still alive? Caleb told us he left Erudite when he found out what they were planning - was he lying?
He must have been. I press the heel of my hand to my forehead. My brother chose faction over blood. There has to be a reason. She must have threatened him. Or coerced him in some way. — Veronica Roth

Seriously, what is the purpose? Maybe I'd feel better about walking around speaking fluent jive if I knew there was a reason for it. — Elle Lothlorien

You expected to be sad in the fall. Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintery light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason. — Ernest Hemingway,

I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I'm not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn't go to that theme park or to a movie theater or to a hamburger stand. They couldn't shield you completely. What they did though was they never let it be an excuse for not achieving, and they always said racism is somebody else's problem, not yours. They tried in that way not to make us bitter about Birmingham. — Condoleezza Rice

Her life was a slow realization that the world was not for her and that for whatever reason she would never be happy and honest at the same time. She felt as if she were brimming always producing and hoarding more love inside her. But there was no release. table ivory elephant charm rainbow onion hairdo violence melodrama honey ... None of it moved her. She addressed the world honestly searching for something deserving of the volumes of love she knew she had within her but to each she would have to say I don't love you. — Jonathan Safran Foer

I thought that nothing enormously bad or good had happened to me during my life. All the normal things had occurred. I had lived a completely unremarkable life. I wanted only my home, and the love and safety of those around me, nothing else. I knew there was no particular reason why I was put on this earth, but here I was and I was glad to be here, awed by the beauty of it. It was a perfect moment. (p.99) — Michael Zadoorian

Jacques Doillon wanted me to be in his film, 'La Fille Prodigue,' and there I was, expecting, for some reason, this great bearded man, when a splendid looking red-Indian style man appeared at my door. I said no to his film because I knew that if I said yes, I would run off with him. — Jane Birkin

And I wished I could believe him. I wished with all that I had. And when you're eleven, you're on the cusp between still believing wishing worked if you wanted something hard enough and understanding the world is teeth and sharp edges. I wished. I did. I promise you with all that I have that I did.
But I knew the teeth. The sharp edges. And they were bigger than wishing. I was only eleven, but I was the product of my upbringing too.
Maybe that's why I was able to be the one to leave. Maybe I'd been looking for a reason and latched on to the first one that came, no matter how hard it was. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that it's easier to leave someone before they leave you. Because eventually, everyone leaves.
It's inevitable. — T.J. Klune

But she realised that this was what anxiety was like - it knew no rhyme or reason; just as a fear of the dark cannot be assuaged by the pointing out that there was nothing there, anxiety could be without foundation. — Alexander McCall Smith

Someone said that thirty was a significant birthday, and everyone around the table agreed. Someone else said it was the first time you heard the bell.
What bell? someone asked.
But they all knew what bell. It was like you'd already completed a few laps, observed another, but this was the first time you'd properly heard the bell. There had been one at seven, but you hadn't heard it because you were so young; and then one at fourteen but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy looking over your shoulder; then another at twenty-one but you hadn't heard it because you were too busy talking; and then one at twenty-eight which for some reason took two years before you heard it. But they all agreed you did hear that one, eventually.
Your lousy career, said one guest. Babies, said one of the women. Lovers, friends, travel, said another. Parents aging. Bong. All the things you hadn't done. Might not do. Bong. — Graham Joyce

Her own awareness had risen like the dawn on her back.Like a leaden sunrise veiled in a swirl of storm clouds. It was no longer enough to have answers for Shiva's sake. Indeed, it had ceased to be about mere vengeance the moment Khalid's lips touched hers in the alley by the souk. She had wanted there to be a reason for this madness, needed there to be a reason, so that she could be with him. So that she could be by his side, make him smile as she laughed, weave tales by lamplight, and share secrets in the dark.So that she could fall asleep in his arms and awaken to a brilliant tomorrow.
But it was too late. He was the Mehrdad of her nightmares. She had opened the door. She had seen the bodies hanging from the walls, without explanation. Without justification.
And without one, Shahrzad knew what must be done. Khalid had to answer for such vile deeds. Such rampant death.
Even if he was her air.
Even if she loved him beyond words. — Renee Ahdieh

Tagaran was the eldest of the children, but that was not the only reason she was so clearly their leader. In every situation in his life, Rooke had seen that there were people with a power of personality that gave them effortless authority. It was not due to rank or position: the governor lacked it. Rooke did not possess it either, he knew that about himself, but Silk had it and so did Gardiner. — Kate Greenway

What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being realised? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival? Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self-rebukes never really inflicted pain? Well, there was all this to reflect upon, while I endured a special kind of remorse: a hurt inflicted at long last on one who always thought he knew how to avoid being hurt - and inflicted for precisely that reason. — Julian Barnes

There is nothing more nerve-racking than waiting as someone reads your writing. The reader becomes the videographer, zooming far, far into your heart and soul, unveiling every inch and corner. The writer remains a wary observer at the mercy of the reader, clueless as to how he might react. The writer is exposed, laid bare; her innermost thoughts and feelings are revealed in a potentially scathing moment of vulnerability. I trusted Peter so fully ... in a way that I could not explain. For that very reason, it mattered so immensely. To actually tell him what I knew he had already often seen in my eyes was to allow him to enter a new dimension in that world. And it mattered. It really, truly mattered. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

In some ways," admitted the Overlord gravely. "In others perhaps a better analogy can be found in the history of your colonial powers. The Roman and British Empires, for that reason, have always been of considerable interest to us. The case of India is particularly instructive. The main difference between us and the British in India was that they had no real motives for going there - no conscious objectives, that is, except such trivial and temporary ones as trade or hostility to other European powers. They found themselves possessors of an empire before they knew what to do with it, and were never really happy until they had got rid of it again. — Arthur C. Clarke

When I first planned the series, I expected Harry to visit all four house common rooms during his time at Hogwarts. There came a point when I realised that there was never going to be a valid reason to enter the Hufflepuff room. Nevertheless, it is quite as real to me as the other three, and I always knew exactly where those Hufflepuffs were going when they headed off towards the kitchens after lessons. — J.K. Rowling

All I knew was what I wasn't, and it took me some years to discover what I was.
Which was a writer.
By which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hourse are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind? — Joan Didion

There was love, a reliable and real love grown in a handful of days, and Tristan did not know why it was: friendship had happened to both of them, on the sudden, completely aside from Tristan's both endangering and saving Crissand's life.
It was no reason related to that, it was no reason that either of them quite knew. Crissand had simply risen on his horizon like the sun of his banner ... and that was that ... They were together, and there was a great deal right with the day simply in that. — C.J. Cherryh

THERE HAVE BEEN MOMENTS when my whole life made sense. I knew exactly who I was. The people in my life were all there for a reason. Clearly, and without a shred of doubt, I knew that the reason was love, so for that moment I could laugh at the preposterous notion that I had enemies or that I was a stranger in this world. Perfection has a mysterious way of slipping in and out of time. Few people, I imagine, haven't felt the kind of moment I just described, but I've never met a single person who could hold on to it. But people desperately want to, and often this hunger motivates their spiritual life. — Deepak Chopra

I knew there was a reason I didnt turn you into a banana slug."
Leonid'd eyes widened. "No banana slug! Please!"
"It was a compliement, silly. Forbidden is good! Sadie likes forbidden! — Rick Riordan

Perhaps the only reason they survived, Stencil reasoned, was that they were not alone. God knew how many more there were with a hothouse sense of time, no knowledge of life, and at the mercy of Fortune. — Thomas Pynchon

I love my country, and the mental and physical demands of the Navy SEALs was what I had been training for my whole life growing up in Montana. There's a reason Montana produces more SEALs than any other state. As a collegiate athlete, I enjoyed the mental and physical challenges Division I football presented. When a recruiter first told me about the Navy SEALs, I knew it was the right fit. — Ryan Zinke

People knew there were two ways of coming at truth. One was science, or what the Greeks called Logos, reason, logic. And that was essential that the discourse of science or logic related directed to the external world. The other was mythos, what the Greeks called myth, which didn't mean a fantasy story, but it was a narrative associated with ritual and ethical practice but it helped us to address problems for which there were no easy answers, like mortality, cruelty, the sorrow that overtakes us all that's part of the human condition. And these two were not in opposition, we needed both. — Karen Armstrong

I already knew then as an undoubted fact that beyond the thin film of false reality there existed another reality from which, for some reason, something separated us. The "miraculous" was a penetration into this unknown reality. — P.D. Ouspensky

There comes a point when you begin to connect to the dots, when the chosen paths begin to mean something, when the picture starts to reveal itself. It is probably not at all what you had envisioned, but somewhere deep inside, perhaps you always knew. The journey was there for a reason. Its was there for you and for the others that have traveled along with you. The strength and comfort that comes from that awareness is amazing and beyond words. Once experienced, it becomes the biggest part of you. So let it unfold. Let your life reveal its lessons. Follow your heart, as it will not lead you astray. Find your passion and let its energy run through you in ways you have never experienced. With that, your real life will begin. — Angela Bushman

But not now. Now it was gentle, and the sun was kissing him, like Joe ... like Joe ... . Joe swallowed. His chest swelled in that faintly familiar breath-stopping, overwhelming way, and he made a faint sound, a gasp really, as he remembered the last time he'd felt that, and knew with total assurance what it was. It was when Jeannie had held his hand in church, when he was six and love was so simple, and so uncomplicated, and God was the reason you loved until you cried. For the first time in twenty-seven years, Joe felt the existence of God. He was in Casey's smile, his eyes, the way he looked at his lover, the way he greeted the dogs. God was there, in the sunshine brushing Casey's hair, and warming his skin, and Joe ... . Joe wanted to touch him. — Amy Lane

Dark the sea was: but I saw him,
One great head with goggle eyes,
Like a diabolic cherub
Flying in those fallen skies.

I have heard the hoarse deniers,
I have known the wordy wars;
I have seen a man, by shouting,
Seek to orphan all the stars.

I have seen a fool half-fashioned
Borrow from the heavens a tongue,
So to curse them more at leisure--
--And I trod him not as dung.

For I saw that finny goblin
Hidden in the abyss untrod;
And I knew there can be laughter
On the secret face of God.

Blow the trumpets, crown the sages,
Bring the age by reason fed!
(He that sitteth in the heavens,
'He shall laugh'--the prophet said. — G.K. Chesterton

He laughs like, what can you do? Laughs and spreads his palms as if revealing himself, Cortez the thief, as he is and always was, the person I always knew was there but never wanted to see. I am surprised, but why am I surprised? I decided at some point that he had made my road his road, given over to me the last two months of preimpact existence, because I was on my cockamamie hero's quest and required an able and agile sidekick - I reached that conclusion without thinking about it much and put the question aside. But everybody does everything for a reason. That's lesson number one of police work; it's lesson number one of life. — Ben H. Winters

There is a sense of danger in leaving what you know, even if what you know isn't much. These mill towns with their narrow lanes and often narrow minds were all I really knew and I feared that if I left it behind, I would lose it and not find anything to replace it. The other reason I didn't want to go was because I wanted to be the kind of person who stays, who builds a stable and predictable life. But I wasn't one of the people, nor would I ever be.
I had a vision for my life. It wasn't clear, but it was beautiful and involved leaving my history and my poverty behind me. I wasn't happy about who I was or where I was, but I didn't worry about it. It didn't define me. We're always in the making. God always has us on his anvil, melting, bending and shaping us for another purpose.
It was time to change, to find a new purpose. — John William Tuohy

I stepped toward the car, trying to plan what to do, which was impossible because I did not know what they wanted, or even who they were. It was no longer believable that it was merely a random crazy - not if he knew where I lived. But who was it? Who had any reason to act like this? Among the living, I mean, because there were plenty of former victims who might have loved to come after me, but they were all far beyond any sort of action at all, other than decomposition. I — Jeff Lindsay

Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control - "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. — Noam Chomsky

Mine was a trained Presbyterian conscience and knew but the one duty - to hunt and harry its slave upon all pretexts and on all occasions, particularly when there was no sense nor reason in it. — Mark Twain

And yet. When I read the Dawn on line and then looked around me to the pristine surroundings of campus life, I knew that every other city in the world only showed me its surface, but when I looked at Karachi I saw the blood running through and out of its veins; I knew that I understood the unspoken as much as the articulated among its inhabitants; I knew that there were so many reasons to fail to love it, to cease to love it, to be unable to love it, that it made love a fierce and unfathomable thing; I knew I couldn't think of Karachi and find any easy answers, and I didn't know how to decide if that was reason to go back or reason to stay away. — Kamila Shamsie

And the third reason was that it suggested permanence. Blue had acquaintances at school, people she liked. But they weren't forever. While she was friendly with a lot of them, there was no one that she wanted to commit to for a lifetime. And she knew this was her fault. She'd never been any good at having casual friends. For Blue, there was family - which had never been about blood relation at 300 Fox Way - and then there was everyone else. When the boys came to her house, they stopped being everyone else. — Maggie Stiefvater

She was good at multitasking, and there was really only one way to keep Ian on task or he would go off on one of his arctic, curse-filled rants that tended to make everyone around him dive for cover. "Jesse Murdoch shot me." Ian grunted a little, his hips bucking slightly. "I knew there was a reason I liked the kid." She rolled her eyes. "Nice. — Lexi Blake

ANTIGONE Yea, for these laws were not ordained of Zeus, And she who sits enthroned with gods below, Justice, enacted not these human laws. Nor did I deem that thou, a mortal man, Could'st by a breath annul and override The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang. I was not like, who feared no mortal's frown, To disobey these laws and so provoke The wrath of Heaven. I knew that I must die, E'en hadst thou not proclaimed it; and if death Is thereby hastened, I shall count it gain. For death is gain to him whose life, like mine, Is full of misery. Thus my lot appears Not sad, but blissful; for had I endured To leave my mother's son unburied there, I should have grieved with reason, but not now. And if in this thou judgest me a fool, Methinks the judge of folly's not acquit. — Sophocles

Randolph," he said, "do you know something? I'm very happy." To which his friend made no reply. The reason for this happiness seemed to be simply that he did not feel unhappy; rather, he knew all through him a kind of balance. There was little for him to cope with. — Truman Capote

Though I had not seen him for months, it was only then that I felt Mr. Pirzada's absence. It was only then, raising my water glass in his name, that I knew what it meant to miss someone who was so many miles and hours away, just as he had missed his wife and daughters for so many months. He had no reason to return to us, and my parents predicted, correctly, that we would never see him again. Since January, each night before bed, I had continued to eat, for the sake of Mr. Pirzada's family, a piece of candy I had saved from Halloween. That night there was no need to. Eventually, I threw them away. — Anonymous

Simon Glass was easy to hate. I never knew exactly why, there was just too much to pick from. I guess, really, we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn't realize it until the day we killed him. — Gail Giles

In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all. — John Boyne

Desolate city. Snow on the streets. Fire in the sky.
It could have been one of a hundred wars.
But there-
The place on the street where the snow had melted. The dark crater in the sea of white.Daniel sank to his knees and reached for the ring of black ash stained on the ground.He closed his eyes.And he remembered the precise way she had died in his arms.
Moscow.1941.
So this was what she was doing-tunneling into her past lives. Hoping to understand.
The thing was,there was no rhyme or reason to her deaths.More than anyone, Daniel knew that.
But there were certain lifetimes when he'd tried to shed some light for her,hoping it would change things. Sometimes he'd hoped to keep her alive longer,though that never really worked. Sometimes-like this time during the siege of Moscow-he'd chosen to send her on her way more quickly.To spare her.So that his kiss could be the last thing she felt in that lifetime. — Lauren Kate

[T]he more we do this, the more I learn about what I think Chains was really training us for. And this is it. He wasn't training us for a calm and orderly world where we could pick and choose when we need to be clever. He was training us for a situation that was fucked up on all sides. Well, we're in it, and I say we're equal to it. I don't need to be reminded that we're up to our heads in dark water. I just want you boys to remember that we're the gods-damned sharks."
"Right on," cried Bug. "I knew there was a reason I let you lead this gang! — Scott Lynch

A sensation rose in him, a high tingling of his blood. There came a wave, a wind that recognized him, that did not love him or hate him. He felt what he knew as the rising of his self, the shifting innerness that yearned and feared, that was more familiar to him than anything could ever be. He knew that an answering substance gathered around him, emanating from the trees and the stars.
He stood staring at the constellations. Walt had sent him here, to find this, and he understood. He thought he understood. This was his heaven. It was not Broadway or the horse on wheels. It was grass and silence; it was a field of stars. It was what the book told him, night after night. When he died he would leave his defective body and turn into grass. He would be here like this, forever. There was no reason to fear it, because it was part of him. What he'd thought of as his emptiness, his absence of soul, was only a yearning for this. — Michael Cunningham

In the silence, the boy understood that the desert, the wind, and the sun were also trying to understand the signs written by the hand, and were seeking to follow their paths, and to understand what had been written on a single emerald. He saw that omens were scattered throughout the earth and in space, and that there was no reason or significance attached to their appearance; he could see that not the deserts, nor the winds, nor the sun, nor people knew why they had been created. But that the hand had a reason for all of this, and that only the hand could perform miracles, or transform the sea into a desert . . . or a man into the wind. — Paulo Coelho

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Anthony turned to look at her. It was difficult for him to discern her expression with the mask she was wearing, but he could see her eyes, and there was something so honest, yet desperate, hidden there that he found it impossible to look away. She was mesmerizing, and whatever reason she had for being there, he knew that it was vitally important to her, that attending the ball was not without risk. — Sophie Barnes

Never have doubted it, even when the plane crash happened. I wasn't mad at God. I just knew that there was a reason that I didn't know about why it happened. — Reba McEntire