Maybe Not This Time Quotes & Sayings

Let the preacher tell the truth. Let him make audible the silence of the news of the world with the sound turned off so that in the silence we can hear the tragic truth of the Gospel, which is that the world where God is absent is a dark and echoing emptiness; and the comic truth of the Gospel, which is that it is into the depths of his absence that God makes himself present in such unlikely ways and to such unlikely people that old Sarah and Abraham and maybe when the time comes even Pilate and Job and Lear and Henry Ward Beecher and you and I laugh till the tears run down our cheeks. And finally let him preach this overwhelming of tragedy by comedy, of darkness by light, of the ordinary by the extraordinary, as the tale that is too good not to be true because to dismiss it as untrue is to dismiss along with it that catch of the breath, that beat and lifting of the heart near to or even accompanied by tears, which I believe is the deepest intuition of truth that we have. — Frederick Buechner

Which people take the time to care for their souls, these days? I reckon not many. But ... hear this: I think that maybe in our lives
in our scrabbling for food, in the washing of our bodies and warming of them, in our small daily battles
we can forget our souls. We do not tend to them, as if they matter less. But I don't think they matter less. — Susan Fletcher

That might work," I said. "I'm good at faking it."
This led to a couple moments of uncomfortable silence from both of us.
"You didn't mean ... ?" Morelli asked.
"No. Of course not."
"Never?"
"Maybe once."
His eyes narrowed. "Once?"
"It's all that comes to mind. It was the time we were late for your Uncle Spud's birthday party."
"I remember that. That was great. You're telling me you faked it?"
"We were late! I couldn't concentrate. It seemed like the best way to go. — Janet Evanovich

When I saw you in the hall with Darian," he says at last, "I felt more angry than I've felt in a long time. I was angry and . . . and afraid, that you wanted to be there, that you wanted him touching you. In that one look, I felt more than I've ever felt with Caspida. Zahra, I think you're right - love isn't a choice. If I could choose to love Caspida, maybe this would all be going differently, but I don't think that's possible. Not anymore."
All the smoke inside me sinks as I stare at him. "What are you saying?"
He turns and meets my gaze squarely. As much I want to, I find it impossible to look away. The intensity of his copper gaze holds me entranced.
"I think you know," he says softly. "Or am I the only one who feels it? — Jessica Khoury

The energy necessary to create a wormhole or to wrap time into nuts is incredible. It's not for us. It's maybe for our descendants who have mastered the energy of this technology. So if one day, somebody knocks on your door and claims to be your great great great great granddaughter, don't slam the door. — Michio Kaku

I envy Johnny and at the same time I get sore as hell watching him destroy himself, misusing his gifts, and the stupid accumulation of nonsense the pressure of his life requires. I think that if Johnny could straighten out his life, not even sacrificing heroin, if he could pilot that plane better, maybe he'd end up worse, maybe go crazy altogether, or die, but not without having played it to the depth, what he's looking for in those sad a posteriori monlogues, in his retelling of great, fascinating experiences which, however, stop right there, in the middle of the road. And all this I back up with my own cowardice, and maybe basically I want Johnny to wind up all at once like a nova that explodes into a thousand pieces and turns astronomers into idiots for a whole week, and then one can go off to sleep and tomorrow is another day. — Julio Cortazar

There may be a time when a country will have to wake up from a vision of happiness, when they have to realize that theirs is not the perfect idea, that there are many aspects that do not correspond to the reality of what is there, the real need and aspirations of the people. A country might want the people to become heroes, but maybe they don't want to be heroes. The moment they release that notion of happiness, the country will again have another chance. But if people do not learn from the suffering of the past, they will repeat exactly the same mistake and adopt another notion of happiness. And we don't know how long they will keep this new notion of happiness. So a notion is always something dangerous. — Thich Nhat Hanh

One thing in our favor: some of this "becoming kinder" happens naturally, with age. It might be a simple matter of attrition: as we get older, we come to see how useless it is to be selfish - how illogical, really. We come to love other people and are thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality. We get our butts kicked by real life, and people come to our defense, and help us, and we learn that we're not separate, and don't want to be. We see people near and dear to us dropping away, and are gradually convinced that maybe we too will drop away (someday, a long time from now). Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was "mostly Love, now. — George Saunders

To be chosen as the Beloved of God is something radically different. Instead of excluding others, it includes others. Instead of rejecting others as less valuable, it accepts others in their own uniqueness. It is not a competitive, but a compassionate choice. Our minds have great difficulty in coming to grips with such a reality. Maybe our minds will never understand it. Perhaps it is only our hearts that can accomplish this. Every time we hear about 'chosen people', 'chosen talents', or 'chosen friends', we almost automatically start thinking about elites and find ourselves not far from feelings of jealousy, anger, or resentment. Not seldom has the perception of others as being chosen led to aggression, violence, and war. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

My mother's death ... seemed so much the focal point of all personal history in our lives, it was as though time began for us when it stopped for her. Maybe this is what happens to everyone - not necessarily sudden deaths , but certain events that create distinct before and after lines, walls really, requiring a great effort to climb, discouraging doing so. — Robin Black

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe. — Stephen King

For the longest time, I was auditioning, getting called back, and I had a long string of things not going my way. I thought, 'Maybe this is never going happen. Maybe I'll never book a commercial.' — Allyn Rachel

Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it's not that simple ... Real-life kings had real-life problems to deal with ... My people who are trying to rule don't have an easy time of it. Just having good intentions doesn't make you a wise king. — George R R Martin

How can she stand up there so tall as she's telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God's big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with "How dare you? I told you never to tell." But that's not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what's best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn't make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val's God. I want a God who doesn't make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love. — Amy Reed

There were a few things that went into it. When you're doing something you're trying to be your audience at the same time, so if somebody tells me that this is a movie about retired opera singers, you think 'maybe I'll wait for it to come to DVD'. You're not rushing off to see it. — Dustin Hoffman

There are times in every person's life when they feel lonely, isolated, like maybe they don't belong. For adoptees, this is often exacerbated by the circumstances. Because you were given up, you have a built-in scapegoat; you can blame everything that you feel on the fact that you were adopted. But, I want you to know that this is a fallacy. Finding your biological parents will not fill in the void that you feel. You will get answers to your questions, but no one can fill in the missing pieces except for you. Before you go on a search, take the time to get to know yourself very well. Heal the hurts you've experienced. Acknowledge the past and how it has affected you. Become a whole person who is seeking roots, not a damaged person who is seeking fulfillment. — Janet Louise Stephenson

A month ago, Gavin had given his employer four weeks' notice. "I'll get a job around here," he'd told her. "Something low-stress, part-time, maybe. We're not paying rent, and Dad's left us plenty. You should quit, too." A year earlier this news would have filled her with delicious, full fat, chocolate-coated joy. But now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty- weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grownups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn't keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn't trust it. — Stephen M. Irwin

I would think my reality is pretty bad, but definitely not bad enough to endure this every morning. But maybe that would explain what turns people into alcoholics. You drink to escape the emotional pain you're in, and then the next day you do it all over again to get rid of the physical pain. So you drink more and you drink more often and pretty soon you're drunk all the time and it becomes just as bad, if not worse, than the reality you were attempting to escape from in the first place. Only now, you need an escape from the escape, so you find something even stronger than the alcohol. And maybe that's what turns alcoholics — Colleen Hoover

Shut up," I snapped. "This is not the time. What part of this situation seems like a joke to you?"
Lohka pulled up his knees, giving a feeble, half-manic little laugh. "Oh, maybe just the idea that some soul-devouring being of chaos could be waiting anywhere to finish destroying my life," he said. "That's kind of hilarious, you know. Have you ever had a soul-devouring being of chaos hunting you down so it could finish eating you?"
"No," I said. "I'm sorry, Lohka."
"That's nice," he muttered.
"What about the part where this soul-devouring being of chaos seems to have a taste for me at the moment?" Zhabyr asked. "Can we worry about that, now? Because I kind of already am. — J. Leigh Bralick

We are very focused this time and our preparation has been better. We maybe made one or two mistakes last time, but not this time. — Alex Ferguson

He shook his head at her question. Did women really think men cared about that stuff? Did he care if she did this all the time? Definitely, definitely not. He could honestly say he did not give a flying fuck whether this girl dragged guys home every other day to have her way with them for seven hours. He was just glad as hell she'd decided to do it with him. Today. And hopefully maybe again. Sometime. — Ros Baxter

Have you ever said, 'I can't do that! I'm just not like that!'? If you've ever used this phrase, you've hit the boundary of how you've defined yourself in the past, and it's affecting the quality of your present-day life. Ask yourself, 'Where did these beliefs about who I am come from, and how old are they?' Maybe it's time to update your identity. — Tony Robbins

Saving entails sacrifice; maybe that's why it brings rewards. Those that save always have. If tomorrow you face a problem -you lose your job or your business, you know you can survive until the situation improves or you start another business, this time with firm foundations. However those that do not save ... — Mauricio Chaves Mesen

It's not fair!" Sunny wailed. "Why do you get to stay? Why can't I stay, if you can?"
I had to swallow hard. "That wouldn't be fair, would it? But I don't get to stay, Sunny. I have to go, too. And soon. Maybe we'll leave together." Perhaps she'd be happier if she thought I was going to the Dolphins with her. By the time she knew otherwise, Sunny would have a different host with different emotions and no tie to this human beside me. Maybe. Anyway, it would be too late. "I have to go, Sunny, just like you. I have to give my body back, too."
And then, flat and hard from right behind us, Ian's voice broke through the quiet like the crack of a whip.
"What? — Stephenie Meyer

Carol would not be a bad one to [settle down] with. She's pretty and bright, and maybe this is what love is. She's good company: her interests broaden almost every day. She reads three books to my one, and I read a lot. We talk far into the night. She still doesn't understand the first edition game: Hemingway, she says, reads just as well in a two-bit paperback as he does in a $500 first printing. I can still hear myself lecturing her the first time she said that. Only a fool would read a first edition. Simply having such a book makes life in general and Hemingway in particular go better when you do break out the reading copies. I listened to myself and thought, This woman must think I'm a government-inspected horse's ass. Then I showed her my Faulkners, one with a signature, and I saw her shiver with an almost sexual pleasure as she touched the paper where he signed. Faulkner was her most recent god[.] — John Dunning

You had room for four kids sitting or six standing up. It had been a pirate ship, Nemo's Nautilus, and a canoe for the Lenni Lennape among other things. Today the water was maybe three and a half feet deep. She seemed happy to be there, not scared at all. "We call this the Big Rock," I said. "We used to, I mean. When we were kids." "I like it," she said. "Can I see the crayfish? I'm Meg." "I'm David. Sure." She peered down into the can. Time went by and we said nothing. She studied them. Then she straightened up again. "Neat." "I just catch 'em and look at 'em awhile and then let them go." "Do they bite?" "The big ones do. They can't hurt you, though. And the little ones just try to run." "They look like lobsters." "You never saw a crayfish before? — Jack Ketchum

Maybe time would not feel as heavy if I didn't have this guilt - the guilt of knowing the truth and stuffing it down where no one can see it. — Veronica Roth

What do you mean you live someplace where there aren't any humans? (Danger)
In a realm far away from here. (Alexion)
Is that like in star Wars? A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away? Want to tell me where your Tatooine is located? Is it anywhere in this universe? Near Toledo maybe? The one in Ohio or Spain? I'm not picky. Can I MapQuest it? (Danger) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

And every time I saw her, she seemed more beautiful. She just seemed to glow. I'm not talking like a hundred-watt bulb; she just had this warmth to her. Maybe it came from climbing that tree. Maybe it came from singing to chickens. Maybe it came from whacking at two-by-fours and dreaming about perpetual motion. I don't know. All I know is that compared to her, everybody else seemed so ordinary.
I had flipped. — Wendelin Van Draanen

My muscles informed me they did not want to go through any more exercise today. So I suggest that maybe he should let me off this time. He laughed, and I'm pretty sure it was at me ... not with me.
"Why is that funny?"
"Oh," he said, his smile dropping. "You were serious."
"Of course I was! Look, I've technically been awake for two days. Why do we have to start this training now? Let me go to bed." I whined. "It's just one hour."
"How do you feel right now?"
"I hurt like hell."
"You'll feel worse tomorrow."
"So?"
"So, better get a jump on it while you still feel ... not as bad."
"What kind of logic is that?" I retorted. — Richelle Mead

As of right this second my main focus is my new album, it'll be out probably towards the summertime, predominately R&B this time. I had a little stint with the dance music and all of that, which I had a good time with- and I love the audience, I love them for accepting me doing it -but I had to go home on this one. Had to take it back to my roots, and not to say that there won't be one, maybe two songs on there that the dance crowd can get into, but the majority, the girth of the album, will be R&B. — Ne-Yo

There's nothing in this courtyard, after all, that wasn't here in 1977; maybe it's not this year but that one, and everything that follows is still to come ... For if the evidence points to anything, it's that there is no one unitary City. Or if there is, it's the sum of thousands of variations, all jockeying for the same spot. This may be wishful thinking; still, I can't help imagining that the points of contact between this place and my own lost city healed incompletely, left the scars I'm feeling for when I send my head up the fire escapes and toward the blue square of freedom beyond. And you out there: Aren't you somehow right here with me? I mean, who doesn't still dream of a world other than this one? Who among us--if it means letting go of the insanity, the mystery, the totally useless beauty of the million once-possible New Yorks--is ready even now to give up hope? — Garth Risk Hallberg

1) Choose a person, older than yourself, you see frequently - not too often by approx once a week or once a month. Maybe one of your grandparents if they are still alive.
2) Every time you meet the chosen person you press your 2 pointing-fingers firmly against your eyes for 10 to 20 seconds until various colors and patterns arise.
3) Try to note or memorize the patterns and colors in connection with the context and repeat the practice every time you meet the chosen person for a as long as possible, minimum 6 months.
4) After minimum 6 months of this practice you can recall the person, virtually by pressing your eyes for a while. In the midst of the colors and pattern a sense of presence of the chosen person arrives even after the chosen person has died. — Hans Ulrich Obrist

She had my back, supported me. This is the role of the mother, and in that visit I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known. In Stockholm, my mother shed her protective love down around me and without knowing why people sensed that I had value. I — Maya Angelou

They say that time is relative. I think the way it's treating me it's a distant one, maybe a bad uncle, and not welcome in my house this Christmas!! — Neil Leckman

Maybe there's something mistaken in this desire men have to instruct us; I was young at the time, and I didn't realize that in his wish to transform me was the proof that he didn't like me as I was, he wanted me to be different, or, rather, he didn't want just a woman, he wanted the woman he imagined he himself would be if he were a woman. For Franco, I said, I was an opportunity for him to expand into the feminine, to take possession of it: I constituted the proof of his omnipotence, the demonstration that he knew how to be not only a man in the right way but also a woman. And today when he no longer senses me as part of himself, he feels betrayed. I — Elena Ferrante

Bradford paused and his expression shadowed. He pulled her back and held her tight. Whispered, "Don't say it, okay? I know what's coming and I don't want to hear it. Not tonight. Tomorrow maybe, but not tonight."
He wasn't talking about Kate Breeden. They both knew that Munroe could only bear so much pain and loss before coming completely undone. She needed time away, time to heal, and she could only do that by returning to who she was: the lone operative, shut down and shut off.
Munroe set the glass on an end table, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him. She truly loved him; always would. She smiled and fought back the sadness, glad in a way that she was spared from having to say good-bye, from uttering the words she never wanted to speak - although, in truth, there would never really be a good-bye, because if this was where home was, then like a homing pigeon she'd return, and Bradford had to know it, just as he also knew her reasons for leaving. — Taylor Stevens

Um um um um um. This business of - this business about marketing yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. Unless we're allowed to think that that's - that that's it. That that's the point, that that's the goal, you know? And that's the reason we're here - because that's so empty. And you as a writer know that it's - if you as a writer think that your job is to get as many people to like your stuff and think well of you as possible ... And I could, we could both, name writers that it's pretty obvious that's their motivation? It kills the work. Each time. That that's maybe 50 percent of it, but it misses all the magic. And it misses, it doesn't let you be afraid. Or it doesn't, like, let you like make yourself be, be vulnerable. Or ... nah, see, I'm not ... Anyway, anyway. — David Foster Wallace

Maybe this was the job of a mother: to buy time for her child, no matter what. Even if it meant doing something she'd rather not; even if it left her flat on her back. — Jodi Picoult

Jackie, can you tell me if someone's dead or not?'
"Who it be? Maybe I heard something."
"Miranda Lopez." I pulled out the charm and balanced it on my fingertips, and then I realized the photo was probably a better likeness. I pocketed the milagro ad held up the Polaroid.
"I find out for you if you get me a dime."
I sighed and put the photo away. "You can't smoke crack. You're dead. And even if you weren't, I'm not gonna score for you. I'm a cop. "
"You so full of shit. You ain't no cop neither."
"Would I be wearing this fucking suit if I wasn't a cop?"
"I don't know. I always thought you sold cars or something."
I tucked my chin toward my chest and stomped toward my gate. Jackie couldn't help me. And how dare she call me a used car salesman? I wasn't always a dork in a blazer. Once upon a time I was actually cool. Until the Cook County Mental Health Centre, anyway. After that, I guess I kinda stopped caring. — Jordan Castillo Price

Honestly? I think all of this would be easier if I could point to one thing, one moment, one person, and say this is why. I could explain it, then. Understand the why of it. Blame it on something other than myself. If I were a victim, maybe it would keep everyone from being so frustrated with me. On a few occasions, I've even considered making up something, just to see the sympathy that flashed in my mom's eyes a second ago, just to have her be patient with me for more than a minute at a time. But I'm not a liar, so instead I get the frustrated, calculating way she's glaring at me now. I've seen it so many times before. It's a look that makes my stomach ache. — Mila Ferrera

The way - the only way - to "find" your story is to tell it. Nobody in the whole world has ever before told the story you are about to tell. You yourself have never told it to anyone, not even to yourself. You may have lots of intuitions about what the story is going to be, and you may even have a sort of summary overview of it. These are good and useful things to have; they are fine places to start. They are not enough. Until you actually tell the story, the whole story, it will be nothing but smoke. Moreover, you probably will not tell the story exactly right the first time you try. You'll make wrong turns, use the wrong key, or use the right key in the wrong door. After all, you have nobody to guide you. If you are like most people, you will have to tell this story more than once - maybe even several times - before you really get it down. — Stephen Koch

And there were moments in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of everything I was capable of, I was somehow kin to every mortal. Maybe I was not the exotic outcast that I imagined, but merely the dim magnification of every human soul. Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all. And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long-ago time when each kiss was the pefect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and agian. — Anne Rice

You keep talking about ego, my God, it would take Christ himself to decide what's ego and what isn't. This is God's universe, buddy, not yours, and he has the final say about what's ego and what isn't. What about your beloved Epictetus? Or your beloved Emily Dickinson? You want your Emily, every time she has an urge to write a poem, to just sit down and say a prayer till her nasty, egotistical urge goes away? No, of course you don't! But you'd like your friend Professor Tupper's ego taken away from him. That's different. And maybe it is. Maybe it is. But don't go screaming about egos in general. In my opinion, if you really want to know, half the nastiness in the world is stirred up by people who aren't using their true egos. Take your Professor Tupper. From what you say about him, anyway, I'd lay almost any odds that the thing he's using, the thing you think is his ego, isn't his ego at all but some other, much dirtier, much less basic faculty. — J.D. Salinger

What was that?" Belgarath asked, coming back around the corner.
"Brill," Silk replied blandly, pulling his Murgo robe back on.
"Again?" Belgarath demanded with exasperation. "What was he doing this time?"
"Trying to fly, last time I saw him." Silk smirked.
The old man looked puzzled.
"He wasn't doing it very well," Silk added.
Belgarath shrugged. "Maybe it'll come to him in time."
"He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge.
"From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?" Silk asked.
Belgarath made a wry face. "Not really."
"Then I'd say he didn't learn in time." Silk said blithely. — David Eddings

But I have to confess, I'm glad you two had at least a few months of happiness together."
I'm not glad," says Peeta. "I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially."
This takes even Caesar aback. "Surely even a brief time is better than no time?"
Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Peeta bitterly, "If it weren't for the baby. — Suzanne Collins

You know, hon, after Stephie died, we never really talked about her." she says, her hands tight around the cart handle. "There's a lot of pain there. Still. I guess we feel like we failed her. Like maybe if we were home instead of away at college, we could've done something to fix her. Something my patents and the doctors and her boyfriend missed. Sometimes I think I don't have the right to talk about her. Like at the end, I don't know her well enough to say anything. So much of her life became secret. She spent all of her time with her boyfriend, and when she was home, her nose was buried in her diary. I swear that diary was her best friend, even more than Megan."
"Did you ever read it?" I ask.
"No."
"Not even after she died?"
Aunt Rachel shakes her head, removing an eggplant from the middle row and pressing her fingers against its flesh. "To this day, I don't know if I would've, either. We never found it, Delilah. It's like she just ... took it with her. — Sarah Ockler

A month after the fall of the Berlin Wall the US invaded Panama, killing a couple of hundred or maybe a couple of thousand people, destroying poor neighborhoods, reinstating a regime of bankers and narcotraffickers - drug peddling and money laundering shot way up, as congressional research bureaus soon advised - and so on. That's normal, a footnote to history, but there were two differences: one difference is that the pretexts were different. This was the first intervention since the beginning of the Cold War that was not undertaken to defend ourselves from the Russians. This time, it was to defend ourselves from Hispanic narcotraffickers. Secondly, the US recognized right away that it was much freer to invade without any concern that somebody, the Russians, might react somewhere in the world, as former Undersecretary of State Abrams happily pointed out. — Noam Chomsky

But I look into her eyes and she looks into my eyes and we recognize it - the excitement of being here, the excitement of being now. And maybe I'm realizing what a part of it she is and maybe she's realizing what a part of it I am, because suddenly we're not crashing as much as we're combining. The chords swirling around us are becoming a tornado, and we are at the center of each other. My wrist touches hers right at the point of our pulses, and I swear I can feel it. That thrum. We are moving to the music and at the same time we are a stillness. I am not losing myself in the barrage. I am finding her. And she is - yes, she is finding me. The crowd is pressing in on us and the bassline is revealing everything and we are two people who are part of a lot more people, and at the same time we're our own part. There isn't loneliness, only this intense twoliness. — David Levithan

I don't like to talk. every time i go somewhere with a friend they always expect me to talk to them. i like to sit quietly. when i watch a movie or read a poem i don't like to discuss it with anyone. i like to watch movies and then maybe sleep. no talking. occasionally i watch the same movie over and over again until i fall asleep. i prefer watching movies alone. i prefer reading alone. i prefer eating alone. i prefer walking alone. i prefer listening to music alone. i prefer singing alone. i prefer swimming alone. i prefer to eat small children alone. i like it when sean reads me poetry but i just like to listen quietly and not comment afterwards. sometimes i feel this makes him uncomfortable. — Ellen Kennedy

This past year - if you'd have tried, you'd have seen even more clearly the futility of trying to change the world without the efforts of everybody else on Earth. You saw and smelled and drank the evidence of six billion disasters that can only be mended by six billion people. || A thousands years ago this wouldn't have been the case. If human beings had suddenly vanished a thousand years ago, the planet would have healed overnight with no damage. Maybe a few lumps where the pyramids sand. One hundred years ago - or even fifty years ago - the world would have healed itself just fine in the absence of people. But not now. We crossed the line. the only thing that can keep the planet turning smoothly now is human free will forged into effort. Nothing else. That's why the world has seemed so large in the past few years, and time so screwy. It's because Earth is now totally ours. — Douglas Coupland

Because you smiled at me." "What?" "You asked why I wanted to do this with you. It's not because you were up on the ledge too, even though, okay, that's part of it. It's not because I feel this weird responsibility to keep an eye on you, which is also part of it. It's because you smiled at me that day in class. A real smile, not the bullshit one I see you give everyone all the time where your eyes are doing one thing and your mouth is doing another." "It was just a smile." "Maybe to you. — Jennifer Niven

A girl would be lucky to have you, but not like this, Carmine. Not the way you treat people now. You're wasting your time, and it's not worth it. You need to find something that is. So, maybe your life isn't boring, but it has to be unfulfilling. — J.M. Darhower

I've had a dozen people tell me, maybe more, 'What would have happened if Michael Brown had shot and killed Darren Wilson? Do you think he would be free right now? Do you think he would not have been charged by now?' People just see this manifest double-standard in front of them that's coming at the long line of a whole bunch of grievances that have built up over time because of the dynamics of Ferguson and frankly, the dynamics of race in America more broadly. — Chris Hayes

I did cocaine for about a year around the time of Sgt Pepper. Coke and maybe some grass to balance it out. I was never completely crazy with cocaine. I'd been introduced to it and at first it seemed OK, like anything that's new and stimulating. When you start working your way through it, you start thinking: 'Mmm, this is not so cool an idea,' especially when you start getting those terrible comedowns. — Paul McCartney

What you don't even realize now - what you will only come to understand in time, but lucky for you, I'm here to tell you - is you're not going to give two shits about this band in a few years. In fact, I guarantee that this group that you admire so much and that you are putting all of your love and dedication and devotion into will be nothing more than an obsession you will be immensely embarrassed of having had. One day you'll be in college, maybe you'll be at a party, and someone will say, 'Hey, do you remember The Ruperts? How shitty was their music?' and you will have a moment of crisis: Do you admit your former love for them, or do you concede, because you know in your heart that this person is right? And guess what you'll say? You'll say, 'Yeah, their music was utter. Putrid.Garbage. — Goldy Moldavsky

It's maybe every third person now (who calls out 'Norm!' when they see me). It used to be every other person. It's faded a bit, but not too much. They're always going to remember me that way. I decided a long time ago that if I'm going to let this make me crazy, I'm going to be certifiable, so I just roll with it. — George Wendt

I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered. — Nina LaCour

So this is Canada," I said, looking outside my car door.
"For the last time, it's not Canada," Sydney replied, rolling her eyes. "It's northern Michigan."
I glanced around, seeing nothing but enormous trees in every direction. Despite it being a late August afternoon, the temperature could've easily passed for something in autumn. Craning my head, I just barely caught a glimpse of gray waters beyond the trees to my right: Lake Superior, according to the map I'd seen.
"Maybe it's not Canada," I conceded. "But it's exactly how I always imagined Canada would look. Except I thought there'd be more hockey. — Richelle Mead

He places the skull in the palm of my hand. There are four canines; the top two are so long and curved I can feel them pricking my skin. There's a green tinge round the eye socket and in a fine line across the cranium. I'm not sure what animal it's from.
'Stoat,' Harris says, as if I've spoken out loud. 'They hunt grouse and partridge. I found it behind my house. I buried the body in the furze until it was just bone.'
His hand is still beneath mine, supporting it. I think of him seeing the small dead creature and digging a tiny grave for it. Planning ahead for all those months just so he'd see the skeleton. Or maybe he severed the animal's head and that was the only part he buried.
'It's been waiting for you all this time. Like I have. — Sanjida Kay

My, my, it's a surprise to see Mr. Braddock here," Mr. Kent said, a hint of acrimony lacing his voice. "Yes, it is." He leaned in confidentially. "Perhaps he's come to apologize. Or maybe that also needs to be done in his bedroom."

I strained to keep a whisper. "You know very well why I was in his bedroom! He was injured, and I needed to check on him."

"No one is going to make an exception for that where your reputation is concerned."

"I had other concerns at the time."

He put his hand on his chest. "I'm feeling quite injured myself. Perhaps we might - "

"Mr. Kent! This is not an appropriate place for that kind of talk!"

"Very well," he said. "If you wish to speak about it somewhere much more inappropriate, just say the word. — Tarun Shanker

He'd set down his drink and leaned in. "Fine. You want me to elaborate, I will. Here's the deal: I'm a guy. Generally speaking, we're pretty simple folk. I know women always want to think we have these deep, romantic, and emotionally angsty thoughts going on in our heads, but in reality? Not so much. You women have layers and you're complicated and mysterious and you say one thing, but you really mean another, and it's this whole tricky package that intrigues us and scares us and challenges us all at the same time. But men aren't like that. You talk about me not letting you in, but maybe what you don't realize is this: there is no in." He pointed to himself. "It's all right here on the surface, Jessica. What you see is what you get. — Julie James

He doesn't mind this, I thought. He doesn't mind it at all. Maybe he even likes it. We are not each other's, any more. Instead, I am his.
Unworthy, unjust, untrue. But that is what happened.
So Luke: what I want to ask you now, what I need to know is, Was I right? Because we never talked about it. By the time I could have done that, I was afraid to. I couldn't afford to lose you. — Margaret Atwood

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or where will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for war seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed
for anyone, and certainly not for a baffled little creep like George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it off. — Hunter S. Thompson

I won't share you, Dylan. I mean that. If you think for one second now that we're married, you can try and pull some kind of shit over on me, you'd better think again. I can take whatever you can dish out when it comes to pain, embarrassment and humiliation, and whatever else you have going on in that wicked mind of yours, but I'll be damned if I'll share you with another woman. Or man."
What the fuck? I almost laugh at her, but she's so serious she would probably slap the shit out of me. "Calm the hell down. I'm not trying to pull anything over on you, okay? And seriously, a man?"
"Well, I don't know. Maybe one of your secrets is that you like getting pegged in the ass or something."
This time I laugh out loud at her and she narrows her eyes at me.
"Don't ask me to peg you either, because it's never going to happen."
I laugh even louder. Good God this woman is funny. "I promise you that I don't want to be pegged, Isa. — Ella Dominguez

I do what most women do. I meet someone and some of it's right, maybe he looks right, or has the right job, or the right background, and, instead of sitting back and waiting for him to reveal his other bits, I make them up. I decide how he thinks, how he's going to treat me, and, sure enough, every time I conclude that this time he's definitely my perfect man, and all of a sudden, well, not so suddenly perhaps, usually around six months after we've split up, I see that he wasn't the person I thought he was at all. — Jane Green

Derek's change came faster now and maybe a bit easier
no vomiting this time. Finally it was over, and he fell onto his side, panting, shaking, and shivering. Then he reached for my hand, holding it tight, and I entwined my fingers with his, shifting closer and using my free hand to brush sweaty hair from his face.
"Whoa," a voice said, making both of us jump. Simon stood in the entrance to our corner, a pile of fabric in his hands. "You really need to get dressed before you start that."
"I'm not starting anything," Derek said.
"Still ... " He held out the stack in his hands. "Dr. Fellows dug up some hospital greens for you. Get dressed and then ... whatever — Kelley Armstrong

The ocean stands for God, the sole substance, and individual beings are like waves - which are modes of the sea. Each wave has its own shape that it holds for a certain time, but the wave is not separate from the sea and cannot be conceived to exist independently of it. Of course, this is only a metaphor; unlike an infinite God, an ocean has boundaries, and moreover the image of the sea represents God only in the attributes of extension. But maybe we can also imagine the mind of God - that is to say, the infinite totality of thinking - as like the sea, and the thoughts of finite beings as like waves that arise and then pass away. — Clare Carlisle

Found one of my old journals. from right around the time we were heading out on tour with NFG in the UK early 2008. i started reading it and couldn't help but cry a little bit. cause that person was really confused. and very lost. and as it went on, the person behind the pen seemed to get a little bit stronger.. that part felt good. it was the reminder that i needed that right now i'm as strong as ever. there really isn't a point to telling you all of this. except maybe i want to thank you. cause you are a constant reminder. that i'm not as lost as i once was. — Hayley Williams

He sometimes felt that life was something that had already risen, and all of this, the Jackson Pollack of spring, summer, and fall, the vague refrigeration and tinfoiled sky of wintertime, was just a falling, really, originward, in a kind of correction, as if by spritual gravity, towards the wiser consciousness
or consciousnessless, maybe; could gravity trick itself like that?
of death. It was a kind of movement both very slow and very fast; there was both too much and not enough time to think. — Tao Lin

You're JOKING!" said Fred Weasley loudly.
The tension that had filled the Hall ever since Moody's arrival suddenly broke. Nearly everyone laughed, and Dumbledore chuckled appreciatively.
"I am not joking, Mr. Weasley," he said, "though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar ... "
Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly.
"Er - but maybe this is not the time ... no ... " said Dumbledore. — J.K. Rowling

I would prefer," Pat said, his voice a little stiff, as if he expected resistance, "that I be the cosigner on the loan, if you go through with this. I know I'm not a famous billionaire, but I think my credit's just as good."
No, you're wrong about that," Tess said, shaking her head.
What?"
As far as I'm concerned, it's better. I'd much rather do business with you."
They shook on it. It was a deal, after all, not a time for hugging.
Favors, Arnie Vasso had once said. Your father knows all about favors. He had meant it as an insult, a sly reference to the corners the Monaghans and Weinsteins cut here and there. Now Tess saw it for the simple truth it was: Her father understood favors. How to do them, how to accept them, how to walk away when the price was too steep. It was a lesson she wouldn't mind learning someday.
Maybe this was the place to start. — Laura Lippman

Of course the Curies died. They identified ionizing radiation while bathing in it. There were risks involved in being your own guinea pig. But there was a long tradition of scientists doing just that: of paying for the expansion of human knowledge with their lives. I didn't deserve to be categorized with them, because honestly, I wasn't interested in the greater good. I just wanted to make myself better legs. I didn't mind other people benefiting in some long-term indirect way but it wasn't what motivated me. I felt guilty about this for a while. Every time a lab assistant looked at me with starstruck eyes, I felt I should confess: Look, I'm not being heroic. I'm just interested in seeing what I can do. Then it occured to me that maybe they all felt this way. All these great scientists who risked their themselves to bring light to darkness, maybe they weren't especially altruistic either. Maybe they were like me, seeing what they could do. — Max Barry

Watching the way he treats you made me realize that maybe I had set my sights too low. After chasing someone who didn't give me the time of day ... I just see how Vincent anticipates your every desire and tries to make it come true for you. How, when he sees you walk into a room, it's like he's transformed into this person who is bigger and better than the one he was just minutes before. I want to be that for someone. I think I deserve it. And I'm not going to pine away for a guy who feels that for someone else. So until my own chivalrous knight shows up, I've decided to live a full life and be happy with my lot. — Amy Plum

So what advice does your website offer?"
"According to this, newly engaged couples touch all the time. They can't bear to be next to each other and not feel each other. Does that mean I have permission to stroke your breasts in public? Maybe this won't be so bad after all. — Sarah Morgan

And from the time I was a kid, I've had this internal monologue roaring through my head, which doesn't stop - unless I'm asleep. I'm sure every person has this; it's just that my monologue is particularly loud. And particularly troublesome. I'm constantly asking myself questions. And the problem with that is that your brain is like a computer: If you ask a question, it's programmed to respond, whether there's an answer or not. I'm constantly weighing everything in my mind and trying to predict how my actions will influence events. Or maybe manipulate events are the more appropriate words. It's like playing a game of chess with your own life. And I hate fucking chess! — Jordan Belfort

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon. — Alice Hoffman

Odd: I wish I could believe in reincarnation.
Chief Porter: Not me. Once down the track is enough of a test. Pass me or fail me, Dear Lord, but don't make me go through high school again.
Odd: If there's something we want so bad in this life but we can't have it, maybe we could get it the next time around.
Chief Porter: Or maybe not getting it, accepting less without bitterness and being grateful for what we have is a part of what we're here to learn. — Dean Koontz

You have no idea how hard this is for me, but ... maybe, this isn't the right time. Not now, in a vampire tower ... with them all around." He opened his eyes, giving me a pleading look. "Do you understand ... what I'm trying to say?"
I smiled. "You're turning red, did you know that?"
"Allie!" Zeke blew out his breath in a huff. I laughed, released him and stepped back. — Julie Kagawa

Rather than sleep, Tibbets crawled through the thirty-foot tunnel to chat
with the waist crew, wondering if they knew what they were carrying. "A
chemist's nightmare," the tail gunner, Robert Caron, guessed, then "a
physicist's nightmare." "Not exactly," Tibbets hedged. Tibbets was leaving
by the time Caron put two and two together:
'Tibbets stayed a little longer, and then started to crawl forward up the tunnel. I remembered something else, and just as the last of the Old Man was disappearing, I sort of tugged at his foot, which was still showing. He came sliding back in a hurry, thinking maybe
something was wrong. "What's the matter?"
I looked at him and said, "Colonel, are we splitting atoms today?"
This time he gave me a really funny look, and said, "That's about it. — Richard Rhodes

There have been times I've wondered if I could ever allow myself to trust a guy. For the most part, I hate men because the only example I have is my father. But spending all this time with Atlas is changing me. Not in a huge way, I don't think. I still distrust most people. But Atlas is changing me enough to believe that maybe he's an exception to the norm — Colleen Hoover

At the time, I could not, for the life of me, understand why he told me this, why he trusted me with the truth about his life more than anyone else. I thought it meant that I was special, that maybe he had always felt about me the way I felt about him.

Now, looking back on it, I know it was just the opposite. I was a girl in the background of his life - that's what made me safe. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

It worked! Holy shit, it worked! I just suited up and checked the lander. The high-gain antenna is angled directly at Earth! Pathfinder has no way of knowing where it is, so it has no way of knowing where Earth is. The only way for it to find out is getting a signal. They know I'm alive! I don't even know what to say. This was an insane plan and somehow it worked! I'm going to be talking to someone again. I spent three months as the loneliest man in history and it's finally over. Sure, I might not get rescued. But I won't be alone. The whole time I was recovering Pathfinder, I imagined what this moment would be like. I figured I'd jump up and down a bit, cheer, maybe flip off the ground (because this whole damn planet is my enemy), but that's not what happened. When I got back to the Hab and took off the EVA suit, I sat down in the dirt and cried. Bawled like a little kid for several minutes. I finally settled down to mild sniffling and then felt a deep calm. It was a good calm. — Andy Weir

As much as I want to stay here and allow this to begin between us, there's something I want from you even more than that. I want you to be with me in the end, and I know that can't happen if I keep trying to rush our beginning. I know exactly why you were hesitant to let me in last night: you aren't ready yet. Maybe I'm not, either. You've always said you wanted time to yourself, and the last thing I want is to start a relationship with you — Colleen Hoover

There's always so much music around me now, it seems like everything has to be something with music, so in my spare time I try not to listen to anything. It's so hard for me to listen to something without trying to see a benefit in it: 'Maybe I'll make my own version of that track or maybe I'll do this or that.' — Avicii

Never, never is it possible to reach someone if you become angry or bitter only love and gentleness can do it. Maybe not this time but maybe the next or the hundredth time. — Cesar Chavez

Let me explain. Say you have an eating disorder like anorexia - you've probably been hiding the condition for a long time. After months or years, you face your demons, with or without therapy, you admit you're ill and eventually decide you want to recover. But this is only half the battle. Once start to eat again, once you begin to gain weight, it's unbelievably stressful. Having gone from absolute control over every calorie which goes into your mouth, you're now being forced to double, maybe even triple that amount. You're being forced to consume unsafe substances like butter, oil, nuts. Every mouthful takes a colossal effort. In your rigid anorexic mindset, not being underweight equates to being overweight. Not being hungry equates to greed. Giving up an eating disorder is frightening. It is almost impossible to imagine that the process will ever be ok. — Emma Woolf

Jesus is no stranger to pain or loss or heartache, and there are some times when the only thing that eases the pain is his comfort. I wasn't ready, and still am not, to mine through this experience for opportunities to grow, things to learn, ways to transcend and transform. Maybe I'll be ready over time, and maybe not. But it is an opportunity to be comforted. I'd rather not need the comfort. But I'm thankful that it's there when I need it, — Shauna Niequist

She wasn't absolutely sure who kissed whom this time. Maybe it was gravity tilting, stars exploding. It felt like it ...
She gasped into his open mouth, and he moaned. Moaned. She had no idea a sensation could go through her like that, traveling through her skin and nerves like lightning ...
Okay, this was kissing. Serious kissing. Not just a kiss before moving out, not a goodbye, this was Hello, sexy, and wow, she'd never even suspected it could feel this way. — Rachel Caine

There will come a time', I said, 'when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this.'
I gestured encompassingly
'will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organis,s experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that's what everyone else does.' -Hazel Grace Lancaster — John Green

This was the first time God had crossed my mind in over a year, and again only in my moment of absolute hopelessness. I'd done the same on the raft and in the prison camps when I'd promised God my life should he let me survive. Had I kept my promise? No. And this time, instead of promises, I had only anger and complaints and blame. But I didn't blame myself; I blamed God. Maybe he was listening, maybe not, but even if, as I sometimes suspected, God watched over me, I couldn't blame him for cutting me loose this time. — Louis Zamperini

The short story is so much about inevitability and this feeling that things always had to be this one way, and I wanted the apocalypses to blow that idea apart. I hope it feels that way. I hope the book invites people to read the stories in order and then, if they feel like it, maybe not read them in order the next time. — Lucy Corin

Or maybe, just maybe, a small voice whispered in my head, it's not a joke, silly. Maybe he's really that worried about you. This wouldn't be the first time he's gone a little overboard trying to protect you. I sighed. — Stephenie Meyer

This time last year I would have said Federer would beat Sampras's record. Now I'm not so sure. His aura has gone. He's not as dominant as he was, and since I beat him in Australia he's looked frustrated. Players are beginning to challenge him now, especially myself and Rafa. He's got 12 Grand Slams to his name and maybe he will beat Sampras, but now I'm here it will be tough for him. — Novak Djokovic

And this might sound strange but part of why I love her so much is that I don't take it for granted. I don't like to admit it but whenever I put my hand out a part of me worries that maybe she's not going to be there this time, that she's finally sick of all my selfishness and drama...' Sarah squeezes my hand tightly and presses her temple on my shoulder. '...and that's why I freaked out, but then she's always there for me and I'm so goddamn grateful I wonder what I could have possibly done to deserve her. If you want to know what a soul mate is, Marissa, that's it. Sarah's my soul mate. I would stand in front of a train for her, and I love her because she'd do it for me too. — Eric Lindstrom

An angel lay dying in the mist. Once upon a time.
And the devil should have finished him off without a second thought.
But she hadn't. And if she had? Karou had wondered it a hundred different ways. She'd even wished for it, in her blackest grief at the Kasbah, when all she could see was the death that had come of her mercy.
If she'd killed Akiva that day, or even just let him die, the war would have ground on unbroken. Another thousand years? Maybe. But she hadn't, and it hadn't. "The age of wars is over," Akiva had just said, and even as Karou saw what she saw and no possibility of mistake, and even as her whole being gathered itself into a scream, her heart defied it. The age of wars was over, and Akiva would not die like this.
The blade entered his heart. — Laini Taylor

It's all a lie. I said to myself. Romance. This notion that some guy is going to swoop and fall madly in love with me and change my life and make everything perfect. It's one big, horrible lie and I bought it. Hook, line, and a ten thousand-pound sinker. Or I guess I should say it's a lie for a girl like me. For Skye, that's another story. The first time Dakota kissed me, down at the hot tub, I remember thinking, this is too good to be true. But if something feels too good to be true, maybe it's not true. Maybe the truth is that Skye deserves him. She'll always be the winner. And I, pathetically, will always be me. — Carolyn Mackler

This area is off limits to our kind," Grom says. "Humans have seen us here, and their stories will spread to more humans. Some will believe them, some will not. Those that do might come to investigate. We will not give them anything to find here."
His command is met with solemn nods. "You must also realize," he continues, "that it is only a matter of time now before this happens again. Maybe not in our generation, maybe not in the next. But the time is coming when humans will find us. We all must think about what this means for us individually, but most importantly, for our kind. Go home now to your families. Tell them what has happened. Talk with them about what might. — Anna Banks

It's strange, isn't it, how you never know you're living the best time of your life at the moment you're living it? If you could appreciate, at that instant, that this is it, maybe you'd make certain your mind imprinted every detail of the sights, smells, sounds and sensations.
Then again, maybe knowing that life will only get duller, sadder, less hopeful afterward would inject melancholy into that moment. You'd miss life's peak experience by mourning it before it passes.
So perhaps it's best not to know. — Anita Bartholomew

Making you believe what he wanted you to believe was his very reason for being. Maybe his only reason. I was intrigued by the way he turned events, or hints I had given him about people, into reality
that is, his kind of reality. This obsessive reinvention of the real never stopped, what-could-be having always to top what is.
...
I began to wonder which was real, the woman in the book or the one I was pretending to be upstairs. Neither of them was particularly "me." I was acting just as much upstairs; I was not myself just as much Maria in the book was not myself. Perhaps she was. I began not to know which was true and which was not, like a writer who comes to believe that he's imagined what he hasn't.
...
The book began living in me all the time, more than my everyday life. — Philip Roth