Never Left My Side Quotes & Sayings

If you said left, then I'd be on the left. If you said right, I'd be on the right. The important thing is not which side, but it's the trust. Your heart and mine will never change. That kind of trust! — Kwon Sang-woo

There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left. — Johnny Cash

I remember walking into the Bible study. I had a knot in my stomach. In my mind, only weirdoes and zealots went to Bible studies. I don't remember what was said that day. All I know is that when I left, everything had changed. I'll never forget standing outside that apartment on the Upper East Side and saying to myself, "It's true. It's completely true." The world looked entirely different, like a veil had been lifted off it. I had not an iota of doubt. I was filled with indescribable joy. — Kirsten Powers

Well, don't you look lovely," his voice dripped behind me, his breath tickling my ear as his words trickled in my brain.
Turning slowly, I saw him in his usual attire, a white t-shirt and jeans, but he looked incredible. His dark hair appeared darker in the dimmed lighting, his eyes shone with eagerness.
"You're here," I said dumbly. Like he didn't know he was here. I was such an idiot sometimes.
"I am," he said, a sexy smirk showing on one side of his mouth. "Wanna dance?" he asked, his leg shaking nervously, his eyes desperately searching mine for an answer.
I nodded, unable to speak. We'd kised, but only a couple of times. He grabbed me, pulling me to a spot close to where we stood. Warm fingers of one hand circled around my waist, while the others held my had. He pulled me close, every inch of our bodies touching. His eyes never left mine as we swayed and spun. I was lost in all that was Cade Kelling. — Felicia Tatum

At this point I feel I would be remiss to not mention the prevalence of a specific kind of person who enters the field of book publishing. This is the English lit major who never should have left academia, a genius who has read all of V.S. Naipaul but can't photocopy title pages right side up. This person is very thin, possibly vegan, probably Ivy League. He or she feels as if answering the phone in a chipper voice is a form of legalized prostitution. He or she has a single quirky fashion piece, usually red or black, and waxes poetic about typewriters and the British, having never truly known either. Regardless of sex, they all want to be David Foster Wallace when they grow up. — Sloane Crosley

The thing Lady didn't get, or the thing she'd forgotten, was that being a child was painful too. She was so wrapped up in losing Seth, the treacheries of him growing up, that she couldn't remember what it felt like to be on the other side. The burden of that. Sure, Seth had left her womb and never returned, but he was the one who had to do the leaving. — Edan Lepucki

Dresden's not gone," I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. "He's here." I touched Will's bare chest, on the left side. "Here. Without him, without what he's done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off."
"No," he agreed. "Probably not. Definitely not."
"There are a lot of people he's taught. Trained. Defended. And he's been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can. — Jim Butcher

When you find out that there was never anything in the dark side to be afraid of ... Nothing is left but to love. — Alan W. Watts

We were about a mile from school, on a path in the park, when Chirag reached down and took off his shoes, tossing them into the trees beside us.

"What are you doing?" I shouted in between breaths. Step, breath. Step, breath. He was a few yards ahead of me. I took advantage of his pause to pass him; I wasn't about to let him beat me.

"There's a tribe of Indians in Mexico who are the best runners in the world," he shouted. "They run barefoot for miles and miles and never break a sweat."

"You're not that kind of Indian," I shouted back, and Chirag laughed, his golden skin shimmering beneath his sweat.

"You should try it, too!"

"No way!" I replied without turning around to face him. "The ground is filthy. There could be glass or splinters or something."

"Aw, come on, Maisie," he cooed, coming up on my left side and getting a few steps ahead of me once more. "I dare you. — Alyssa B. Sheinmel

She stared at him. His eyes were glazed, glassy, blazing with triumph behind his glasses, and as his lip curled in a sneer, she felt it happen.
Her love for him - whatever shred of it was left - was gone. It had slunk away into the night. It would die out there, and she would not be sorry to leave it, at the side of the road, in a no-name town surrounded by nothing but blackness.
Quietly, she said, "Knew what, exactly?"
He licked his lips.
"I knew you'd never turn into such a whore without a little help."
"Good-bye."
The word was out, and she was gone. — Kat Rosenfield

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

Beneath the hard, painful surface of her recollection were layers of healing truth. God had never left her side, not even for a moment. — Max Lucado

Atheism is so senseless & odious to mankind that it never had many professors. Can it be by accident that all birds beasts & men have their right side & left side alike shaped (except in their bowels) & just two eyes & no more on either side the face & just two ears on either side the head & a nose with two holes & no more between the eyes & one mouth under the nose & either two fore legs or two wings or two arms on the shoulders & two legs on the hips one on either side & no more? — Isaac Newton

Stepping toward her, he raised his left hand, mirroring her right, close but not quite touching. His palm was bigger, his fingers thicker and longer than hers. He asked wryly, "Am I exonerated?" She swallowed. "In this, yes." He cocked his head to one side, mouth twisted in an ironic grin. "Will you never forgive me the rest? — Julie Klassen

In early autumn the farm recruiters arrived to sign up new workers, and the War Relocation Authority allowed many of the young men and women to go out and help harvest the crops. Some came back wearing the same shoes they'd left in and swore they would never go out there again. They said they'd been shot at. Spat on. Refused entrance to the local diner. The movie theater. The dry goods store. They said the signs in the windows were the same wherever they went: 'No Japs Allowed.' Life was easier, they said, on this side of the fence. — Julie Otsuka

The Great Thing
About long-time, all-time friends
is, no matter how many hours
(days, weeks, months, and, I assume,
years) you spend in differnt places, when you're finally in the same
room again, it's like you've never left
each other's side. And you realize
that your hearts have never
disconnected — Ellen Hopkins

Madeleine in her turn stared at him steadily, straight into his eyes, in a profound, strange way, as if seeking to read something there, as if seeking to discover there that hidden part of a human being which can never be fathomed but may perhaps be glimpsed for a fleeting instant, in those moments of unguardedness or surrender or inattention, that are like doors left ajar onto the mysterious depths of the spirit ... they stood for a few seconds, each gazing into the other's eyes, each striving to reach the impenetrable secret of the other's heart, to probe each other's thoughts to the quick. They tried, in a mute and passionate questioning, to see the other's conscience in its essential truth: the intimate struggles of two beings who, living side by side, never really know one another, who suspect and sniff around and spy on one another, but cannot plumb the miry depths of one another's soul. — Guy De Maupassant

Bruce Miller, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, studies elderly patients with a relatively common form of brain disease called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. He's found that in some cases where the FTD is localized on the left side of the brain, people who had never picked up a paintbrush or an instrument can develop extraordinary artistic and musical abilities at the very end of their lives. As their other cognitive skills fade away, they become narrow savants. — Joshua Foer

I wasn't posing," Joe said. "Totally posing," Elizabeth said. "Ox - " "Totally posing," I managed to say. "Fine," he said. "I can tell when I'm not wanted." No, I almost said. You're always wanted. I always want you. I never want to leave you. I never want to say good-bye. I'm sorry, Joe. I'm so sorry. I said, "For just a little while." "Yeah?" Joe said. "And then you'll want me? I feel so used." I nodded. "Hey," he said, and he was right by my side, pressed up against me, nose pressed against my neck. "I was just joking. You know I don't mean it like that." "Yeah," I said. He kissed my jaw. "I'll leave you to it, then. And later, I'll let you show me how much you want me." He smacked my ass and cackled as he left the room. WE — T.J. Klune

Law is never so necessary as when it has no ethical significance whatever, and is pure law for the sake of law. The law that compels me to keep to the left when driving along Oxford Street is ethically senseless, as is shewn by the fact that keeping to the right answers equally well in Paris; and it certainly destroys my freedom to choose my side; but by enabling me to count on everyone else keeping to the left also, thus making traffic possible and safe, it enlarges my life and sets my mind free for nobler issues. Most laws, in short, are not the expression of the ethical verdicts of the community, but pure etiquette and nothing else. What they express is the fact that over most of the field of social life there are wide limits within which it does not matter what people do, though it matters enormously whether under given circumstances you can depend on their all doing the same thing. — George Bernard Shaw

She was neither widow nor mother: she only yearned for the dignity of a woman who had once belonged, somewhere, to somebody. She had belonged to no one, for she had never wanted chick nor child. Her idea of home had been any side-alley entrance and a pint of tinted gin. All she had ever striven for was small change left lying by strangers on North Clark Street bars; and any man's bottle at all. — Nelson Algren

Marial and Uncle were no longer by his side, and they never would be again, but Salva knew that both of them would have wanted him to survive, to finish the trip and reach the Itang refugee camp safely. It was almost as if they had left their strength with him, to help him on his journey. — Linda Sue Park

Mon Mothma walks among the wreckage, attendants on each side of her: Hostis Ij to her left, and Auxi Kray Korbin on her right. Each serving the role of angel and demon on her shoulder (though the role is never fixed and one becomes the other depending on the situation). Behind them, four New Republic soldiers walking with blaster rifles at the ready. This — Chuck Wendig

..the women's movement never left the father Dick's side....We got a share of genocide profits and we love it...If we're Dick's sister and want what he has gotten, then in the end we support that system that he got it all from. — Mary Barfoot

Your mortal suitor has already forgotten this journey. But you and I, we share memories of a childhood that I will never forget. You are the lady of my heart. My match in every way. I would've stayed at your side once we banished Queen Red, never left you to rule alone. We could've danced every night in the stars above your kingdom. For you, I would've given up my solitary life ... been your loyal footman and cherished you eternally. — A.G. Howard

Jacob remained by Mollie's side throughout the night, clinging to her hand as well as to her vow. She wasn't going to leave him. She'd given her word, and Mollie never broke a promise. He prayed. He tended the cuts she'd suffered from the blackberry brambles when she'd fallen. The vines had grown entangled within a cedar's branches, and as best he could tell, she'd climbed the tree in order to reach the ripe berries that other pickers had left behind. Unfortunately, the limb she'd shimmied out on had been weak and had broken beneath her weight. "You know, this tree climbing and dropping through busted church floors is going to have to stop after we're married. My heart won't be able to take the stress." He smiled and ran the back of his finger down the smooth line of her cheek. "Not that I expect any dictate I give you to have much effect. My only hope is that you'll grow to care enough about me that you'll take pity on me and cease taking unnecessary risks with your life. — Karen Witemeyer

I have waited for this, Beth, this moment," he whispered as he took her hands in his and brought her fingertips to his mouth, kissing each fingertip before placing her palms on either side of his face. "When Sussex, Black and I returned from the East, I watched you as you did this - touched Sussex, then Black. And I waited, holding my breath, barely able to control my feelings, waiting to feel your touch on my face. But you did not. You made a polite enquiry after my health and left me standing alone by the hearth. And, then, the other afternoon with Sheldon, you touched him, and I was alone, and apart again. Remembering what it was like to await your touch, and then never to feel it. Beth," he whispered as he moved closer to her, "won't you touch me? See me? — Charlotte Featherstone

I turned my face into Japhrimel's shoulder. "You're going to disappear," I said into his coat, not even caring that I knew what it was made of. "Just stay for a moment, just please just for a minute, a second - "
"Dante." His fingers came up, tangled in my already-tangled hair. "I heard you calling me. I tried to answer."
"Just for a few seconds." I buried my face in his coat, his other arm closed around me. I inhaled the smell of cinnamon, of amber musk, the deadly smoky nonphysical fragrance of demons. Filled my lungs with the breath of life. "Before I have to burn this whole fucking place down."
"Be still," he answered. "I am here, I have never left your side. I told you, you will not leave me to
wander the earth alone. — Lilith Saintcrow

Let only that little be left of me whereby I may name thee my all.
Let only that little be left of my will whereby I may feel thee on every side, and come to thee in everything, and offer to thee my love every moment. Let only that little be left of me whereby I may never hide thee.
Let only that little of my fetters be left whereby I am bound with thy will, and thy purpose is carried out in my life
and that is the fetter of thy love. — Rabindranath Tagore

I noticed you the first week. Not just because of how pretty you are, though of course, that played into it. It was the way you lean onto your elbows when you 're listening in class, when something catches your interest. And when you laugh, it's never to get attention, it's just-laughter. The way you obssevively tuck your hair behind your ear on the left side, but let the right side fall down like a screen. And when you 're bored, you tap your foot soundlessly and move your fingers on the desktop like you 're playing an instrument. I wanted to sketch you. — Tammara Webber

You spend so much time being upset about being in the hospital in the first place that it is almost jarring to realize how many people don't ever leave. I could have been just like his sister. I could have never woken up. But I did. I'm one of the ones who did. I consider for a moment what would have happened if I'd been standing just a little bit farther in the road or a little bit off to the side. What if I'd been thrown to the left instead of to the right? Or if the car had been going five miles per hour faster? I might not have ever woken up. Today could have been my funeral. How weird is that? How absolutely insane is that? The difference between life and death could be as simple and as uncomfortably slight as a step you take in either direction. Which means that I am here today, alive today, because I made the right choices, however brief and insignificant they felt at the time. I made the right choices. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful
his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it. — Teresa Of Avila

Why not include a provision that everybody shall, in good weather, hunt on his own land and catch fish in rivers that are public property and that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter's night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right. — Noah Webster

In literature, the reader standing at the threshold of the end of a book harbors no illusion that the end has not come - he or she can see where it finishes, the abyss the other side of the last chunk of text. Which means that the writer is never in danger of ending too soon - or if he does the reader has been so forewarned. This is the advantage a book has over a film - it is the brain that marshals forward the text and controls the precise moment of conclusion of the book, as the density of the pages thins. A film can end without you if you've fallen asleep or, because you can't wait any longer to use the bathroom, slipped out of the darkness of the theatre salon, and missed it. There will never be a form more perfect than the book, which always moves at your pace, that sits waiting for you exactly where you've left it and never goes on without you. — John M. Keller

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exist as an independent cause of natural events.
To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with the natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am persuaded that such behavior on the part of the representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal.
For a doctrine which is able to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress.
- Science and Religion (1941) — Albert Einstein

Was I the rebel kid? The lost college student who just wanted to be accepted? The legalistic man who battled self-righteousness? Was I a husband or a father or a hip-hop artist? Like a tree trunk, all those people were a part of me. They are a part of me. But more than anything, Lecrae is a child who is unconditionally loved by God. I'm a sinner who has been rescued by God from my brokenness and called to glorify the One who has never left my side. That's who Lecrae is, and that's who I'll always be. — Lecrae Moore

Dear Sixpence,
I saved them all, you know. Every letter you ever sent, even those to which I never replied. I'm sorry for so many things, my love: that I left
you; that I never came home; that it took me so long to realize that you were my home and that, with you by my side, none of the rest
mattered.
But in the darkest hours, on the coldest nights, when I felt I'd lost everything, I still had your letters. And through them, in some small way,
I still had you.
I loved you then, my darling Penelope, more than I could imagine - just as I love you now, more than you can know.
Michael
Hell House, February 1831 — Sarah MacLean

The tear stayed in her eye, never falling down her cheek, and then the left side of her mouth crept up into a half-smile. This was my mom. She would come home to us again.
-If I Know It's Coming — Nick Hupton

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

When you're young, you think you have all the answers. You're right wing or you're left wing and the other side is a bunch of idiots. You know. When you get a little older, though, you start to more and more see the grays. Now I understand that true idiots are the ones who are certain they have the answers. It is never that simple. Do you know what I mean? — Harlan Coben

He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. "You left your mirror on my table." He extended it toward her.
"You can keep it," she said quietly. "We have lots of mirrors here."
"I'll keep it, then."
"Good. I'm glad."
He'd never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. "I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side."
"And what did you see?"
" Aman who loves you more than life itself."
Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.
"I wouldn't blame you if you hated me. I haven't held your feelings as precious as I should have."
"I don't hate you," she whispered hoarsely. "I tried to, but I can't."
-Houston and Amelia — Lorraine Heath

I sketch the faces upside down because it's like drawing from the left side of the brain or the right side of the brain. I never took an art lesson in my life. — Stevie Nicks

Her death has had a huge effect on me. It felt like a big hole appeared on my left side - apparently your left side is your mother - which I thought could never be filled. Now I think what you have to do is fill it with yourself because your mother is part of you. I'm easing into that space, using it and being comforted by it. — Imelda Staunton

The absence of life is not the same as material privation: we will never again see the same soul occupying the same space. The world refers to them as pets, but that is what we do, not really what they are. Affection pays for itself in proportion to the love we offer, and if the love we lavished on him was any indication, we are inconsolable. The suffering is more on our side now, for he led an enormously happy and productive life, and we are left to remember and agonize. It is all wretchedness now. Grief is the currency for death, leaving us in emotional debt perhaps forever, but love is the tax we happily pay toward the investment of another's company, and we would all rather pay it and be happy and poor than be rich in a friendless life. He is gone, and we are now beholden to him, but we are so much happier for his having been here than we deserve to be.
On the death of Ted, beloved cat — Michelle Franklin

Austin stood. "All right, I will." He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. "That woman you love ... Do I know her?"
Houston forced himself to meet his brother's gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn't count the whores in Dusty Flats. "Yeah, you do."
"She never left your side, not for one minute."
"She should have."
"Well, I'm not learned in these matters, but I'd like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I'd crawl through hell to be by her side. — Lorraine Heath

White people found that freedom was indeed indivisible. We had kept saying in the dark days of apartheid's oppression that white South Africans would never be truly free until we blacks were free as well. Many thought it was just another Tutu slogan, irresponsible as all his others had been. Today they were experiencing it as a reality. I used to refer to an intriguing old film The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier was one of the stars. Two convicts escape from a chain gang. They are manacled together, the one white, the other black. They fall into a ditch with slippery sides. The one convict claws his way nearly to the top and out of the ditch but cannot make it because he is bound to his mate, who has been left at the bottom in the ditch. The only way they can make it is together as they strive up and up and up together and eventually make their way over the side wall and out. — Desmond Tutu

Nothing irrevocable had yet been spoken, but there was only the barest margin of safety left them, each of them moving delicately along the outskirts of an open question, and, once spoken, such a question-as "Do you love me?" -could never be answered or forgotten. They walked slowly, meditating, wondering, and the path sloped down from their feet and they followed, walking side by side in the most extreme intimacy of expectation; their feinting and hesitation done with, they could only await passively for resolution. Each knew, almost within a breath, what the other was thinking and wanting to say; each of them almost wept for the other. They perceived at the same moment the change in the path and each knew then the other's knowledge of it; Theodora took Eleanor's arm and, afraid to stop, they moved on slowly, close together, and ahead of them the path widened and blackened and curved. — Shirley Jackson

On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone

It must have been
the eighth day.

A day the scribes and Pharisees conveniently
left out.

Adam was either inspecting goats
or naming the birds

when something pinched
my side.

I had to stop pruning the tree of knowledge
to catch my breath.

God had taken a long weekend.

At first I thought the solitude of gardening
was going to my head.

Was it loneliness?
An omen? A vision?

For a moment I thought I would
ascend.

Then I realized it was just a rib
missing.

How you found your way in
along the banks of the third river

I will never know
but I still shiver to recall

how perfectly your fingers
fell into place

along the ridges
of my ribcage.

Go ahead, Love,
take every last bone.

Make of me
what you will. — Nancy Boutilier

He was afraid of touching his own wrist. He never attempted to sleep on his left side, even in those dismal hours of the night when the insomniac longs for a third side after trying the two he has. — Vladimir Nabokov

But I never finished because then Zach's lips found mine. His hands burned as they left my arms and moved through my hair, bracing the back of my neck. My head still hurt, but there was no music playing. "I remember this." I felt my hand run along his chest, his breath warm on the side of my face. I breathed him in - Zach. "I remember this." And then he kissed me again, and the kiss was all that mattered. He pulled back, traced his lips across the tender place on my head. — Ally Carter

Goodbye is never easy, no matter what side we are on.
Whether you are the one leaving or being left, we mourn the love that is now gone. — Natalie Ducey

Coaching staff: I know there's days you look at that film and you want to kill me. I'm not playing defense, taking bad shots, getting too many techs. But you always believe that I can be the guy. Through the tough times, you guys never left my side ... That's something that I really appreciate and I never want to take you guys for granted. I thank you so much for being part of my life. And not just on the basketball court, but giving me talks about growing as a man first, and a basketball player next. — Kevin Durant

Maylon Stark was medium-built and husky. That was the only word to fit him, husky. He had a husky face, and the nose on it was badly bent and flattened huskily. His voice was husky. His head sat huskily on his neck, the way a fighter carries his chin pulled in from habit. It was the huskiness of a man who hunches up his shoulders and hangs on hard with both hands. And with it Maylon Stark had a peculiar perpetual expression, like that of a man who is hanging hard onto the earth to keep it from moving away, out from under him. The line from the right side of his flattened nose to the corner of his mouth was three times as deep as the same line on the left side; his mouth did not curl, but the deepness of this line made him look like he was about to smile sardonically, or cry wearily, or sneer belligerently. You never knew which. And you never found out which. Because Maylon Stark never did any of them. — James Jones

You need to respect people either good one or bad. Every person in this world have something good and something bad. You need to see the positive side of the person rather than the negative ones. By doing this you can never hate anyone in this world.
Some time ago I use to think to shoot few peoples, but seeing the things they gave me when they love me, I use to forget their bad things. They taught me what's life, how to survive, how to struggle, how to be success, but they also left me on the middle of the desert ... ... but with due respect and the lessons they gave to me I easily come out from that desert ... . And now I am trying to teach all these life experiences to them who need it ... ... . — Nutan Bajracharya

The exciting thing about mathematics and science and music and literature is what they can tell us about the workings of the human mind. For these disciplines are literally models (extensions) of at least certain parts of the mind. Just as the knife cuts but does not chew, while the lens does only a portion of what the eye can do, extensions are reductionist in their capability. No matter how hard it tries, the human race can never fully replace what was left out of extensions in the first place. Also, it is just as important to know what is left out of a given extension system as it is to know what the system will do. Yet the extension-omissions side is frequently overlooked. — Edward T. Hall

For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualised; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organisations ...
Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle. — Alain De Botton

EMMA'S BLESSING
WRITTEN IN NAUVOO, ILLINOIS 1844
A blessing Emma wrote for herself, having asked Joseph for a blessing right before he left for Carthage. Not having time, he told her to write the best blessing she could, and he would sign it upon his return. He never returned.

"I desire with all my heart to honor and respect my husband...ever to live in his confidence and by acting in unison with him, retain the place which God has given me by his side. — Angela Eschler

You don't have to be worried, okay? You don't have to be scared." His voice is twinkling again. "I'm not flirting with you."
Embarrassment sweeps through me. Flirting. A dirty word. He thinks I think he's flirting. "I'm not - I don't think you were - I would never think that you - " The words collide in my mouth, and now I know there's no amount of darkness that can cover the rush of red to my face.
He cocks his head to the side. "Are you flirting with me, then?"
"What? No," I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a panic, and I realize I don't even know what flirting is. I just know about it from textbooks; I just know that it's bad. Is it possible to flirt without knowing you're flirting? Is he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter. — Lauren Oliver

God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else
something it never entered your head to conceive
comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be Go without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. — C.S. Lewis

But the waves kept moving, with the white wake of the ship traced in them for an instant, and then smoothed over by the water. And it was as if my own footsteps were being erased behind me, the footsteps I'd made as a child on the beaches and pathways of the land I'd left, and the footsteps I'd made on this side of the ocean, since coming here; all the traces of me, smoothed over and rubbed away as if they had never been, like polishing the black tarnish from the silver, or drawing your hand across dry sand.
On the edge of sleep I thought: It's as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks. And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent.
And then I slept. — Margaret Atwood

My parents never got along super well, but it had grown worse in the last year before he left. Eventually he moved to an apartment on the other side of town, where he stayed for almost five months while the divorce wound its way through the intestinal tract of the county courts. I — Dan Wells

In short, he was a dope. Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out. In short, he was a dope. He often looked to Yossarian like one of those people hanging around modern museums with both eyes together on one side of a face. It was an illusion, of course, generated by Clevinger's predilection for staring fixedly at one side of a question and never seeing the other side at all. Politically, he was a humanitarian who did know right from left and was trapped uncomfortably between the two. He was constantly defending his Communist friends to his right-wing enemies and his right-wing friends to his Communist enemies, and he was thoroughly detested by both groups, who never defended him to anyone because they thought he was a dope. He was a very serious, very earnest and very conscientious dope. — Joseph Heller

I know little of my past, but almost from the beginning of my imprisonment I have known of you. I waited. I called you to my side. I hated you for allowing my suffering to continue.
She caught his face in her hands, suddenly anxious that he believe her. "I didn't know. I swear to you, I didn't know. I never would have left you there." Grief clogged her throat that she had not somehow ended his suffering sooner. What was it about him that drew her like a magnet, that captivated her and made her want to ease his pain? The urge was so strong in her, so intense, she could hardly bear to see him lying so vulnerable and shattered.
I know you speak the truth; you cannot lie to me. It was a courageous thing you did, rescuing me. But as your lifemate I can do no other than forbid you to ever take such a risk again. — Christine Feehan

What kind of things did you have in mind, kid?' Clyde said this with a smile that exposed a slight lewdness: the young man who laughed at seals and bought balloons had reversed his profile, and the new side, which showed a harsher angle, was the one Grady was never able to defend herself against: its brashness so attracted, so crippled her, she was left desiring only to appease. — Truman Capote

Don Quixote took windmills for giants and sheep for armies; d'Artagnan took every smile for an insult and every glance for a provocation. As a result of which he kept his fist clenched from Tarbes to Meung, and all in all brought his hand to the pommel of his sword ten times a day; however the fist never landed on any jaw, and the sword never left its scabbard. Not that the sight of the wretched yellow nag did not spread many smiles across the faces of passersby; but since above the nag clanked a sword of respectable size, and above this sword shone an eye more fierce than proud, the passersby restrained their hilarity, or, if hilarity won out over prudence, they tried at least to laugh on one side only, like antique masques. D'Artagnan thus remained majestic and intact in his susceptibility until that unfortunate town of Meung. — Alexandre Dumas

She was the only one left, and she was real.
To be the only one, and to know that you are real - that's sanity, isn't it?
But just to be on the safe side, maybe it was best to keep pretending that one was a stuffed figure. Not to move. Never to move. Just to sit here in the tiny room, forever and ever.
If she sat there without moving, they wouldn't punish her.
If she sat there without moving, they'd know that she was sane, sane, sane.
She sat there for quite a long time, and then a fly came buzzing through the bars.
It lighted on her hand.
If she wanted to, she could reach out and swat the fly.
But she didn't swat it.
She didn't swat it, and she hoped they were watching, because that proved what sort of a person she really was.
Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly ... — Robert Bloch

Beth had been a middle school science teacher and Joni was a librarian and they both had collections of weird stuff they had found. Bizarre, misspelled letters written by lovelorn eighth graders. Obscene Polaroids left in between the pages of library books. They used to call each other on the phone to share their latest discovery, and Critter had always remained a little off to the side, never feeling quite as sharp or ironic as they were. Critter was an electrician, primarily home repair, and so he didn't usually come across anything except bad wiring and faulty lighting fixtures. — Dan Chaon

Death is a kind of guilt in itself. We're all alive in this world together, and we're also all mortal, but when one person pulls his thread through to the other side, it can start a chain reaction you never in your wildest dreams saw coming. Maybe you'll be left with nothing more than an unholy knot to unpick. Maybe a new design. Sometimes a whole new perspective on yourself. — Tiffany Baker