Not Leaving Home Quotes & Sayings

Being born in a place is only one way to belong, nor do you have to die there....

I knew at once that Magdala was home because I felt sighted there again, second sighted. It was not only the spring. In time everything spoke.

When birds rose into the air, I could read the pattern of their wings, and the path the wind made on the water carried messages. The very ground said make a path here, plant herbs there. These vine are not dead. Tend them and they'll bear fruit again.

Ancient trees offered shelter and wisdom as well as olives. And there were certain rocks that could absorb fatigue or agitation, leaving me refreshed and calm. — Elizabeth Cunningham

How the hell was she going to fight them?
With style. She could almost hear Niko's voice. She grinned, despite herself. Do try not to die, won't you? That was Tyler. It would have been followed by a delicate yawn. And Oz: Keep your head down and don't be stupid. Lise: Bitch, do not even think about leaving me alone with all this testosterone. Giselle: You can't win if you die, so suck it up. Tutresiel: Princess, you aren't even trying if you're dying.
And Alexander: Come home. — Diana Pharaoh Francis

I do not relish leaving home, leaving my children, leaving the familiarity of my bed, my coffee maker, my slippers, but I do love hotels. — Nickolas Butler

In 2001, a teenager was arrested in Pennsylvania for daytime burglary. The teenager had broken into a local home, by climbing in through a bedroom window. The teenager stole two expensive diamond rings, but instead of quickly leaving the crime scene, he decided that he needed to check his Facebook first. After he checked his Facebook, he finally left. However, not only had he signed into his actual Facebook account, he did not sign out of his account, or even close out the browser. When the police checked the scene of the crime, his Facebook profile was still open, with all of his personal information readily available. — Jeffrey Fisher

Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies ... the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.
Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Traveling is sacred; mankind has traveled ever since the dawn of time, in search of hunting and grazing ground, or milder climates. Very few men manage to understand the world without leaving their home towns. When you travel - and I am not speaking of tourism, but of the solitary experience of a journey - four important things occur in your life: — Paulo Coelho

I'm not like the rest of you; I never made any plans about what I'd do when I grew up; I never thought of being married, as you did. I couldn't seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is leaving you all. I'm not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven. — Louisa May Alcott

The fatal combination of indulgence without feeling disgusts me. Strange to be both greedy and dead. For myself, I prefer to hold my desires just out of reach of appetite, to keep myself honed and sharp. I want the keen edge of longing. it is so easy to be a brute and yet it has become rather fashionable. Is that the consequence of leaving your body to science? Of assuming that another pill, another drug, another car, another pocket-sized home-movie station, a DNA transfer, or the complete freedom of choice that five hundred TV channels must bring, will make everything all right? Will soothe the nagging pain in the heart that the latest laser scan refuses to diagnose? The doctor's surgery is full of men and women who do not know why they are unhappy. "Take this", says the Doctor, "you'll soon feel better." They do not feel better, because, little by little, they cease to feel at all. — Jeanette Winterson

May the Virgin Mary free us from those marks and put an end forever to our sense of guilt. We feel guilty when we go out to work because we're leaving our children in order to earn money to feed them. We feel guilty when we stay at home because it seems we're not making the most of our freedom. We feel guilty about everything, because we have always been kept far from decision making and from power. — Paulo Coelho

Even if you hadn't entirely deposed (and possibly killed) not one but two governments and destabilized all sorts of political regions you couldn't even pronounce, let alone draft up constitutional monarchies for, even if you'd been far more careful about leaving your toys strewn about everywhere when you tire yourself out with anarchy and run on home, I'd say you really are the lowest sort. — Catherynne M Valente

The angels came to tell me what I could expect and how to get where I needed to go. I was reassured that I would not have to cross the Bridge alone. There were so many things I did not yet know. I could feel my mental clarity leaving. I fixed my gaze upon her. I watched her as I left. It was like shutting the door of a beloved home for the last time. Like closing up camp for the season. One last look at the ocean before you must leave it behind with hopes of return but with no guarantee. You eventually have to turn away and look the other direction so that you can see where it is you are going. — Kate McGahan

We have this judgmental way of looking at the idea of leaving a home or a family, and our society has reinforced this idea that if we "run away," we are "running away from our problems." In some cases, though, to face certain problems (in this case, two family members who are not mentally stable and who are not going to face up to their issues) the family members who are capable of facing reality must realize that leaving is a viable option. Some environments are harmful. As fellow humans it is our job to judge less and encourage more when others choose to remove themselves from harmful environments. — A.S. King

In contrast to England, half of whose literature seems to revolve around houses and estates, houses and estates being ready extensions of character, America has always found more value in the act of leaving one house for something larger and ostensibly nicer. Fewer and fewer houses remain in a family for more than a generation. They are not passed down ["The Basement," The Awl, Feb 5, 2015]. — Ariana Kelly

She had not thought it would be so easy to slip into the old roles. Cambridge had changed her fundamentally and she thought she was immune. No one in her family, however, noticed the transformation in her, and she was not able to resist the power of their habitual expectations. — Ian McEwan

But sleep didn't come. She could hear Jace's soft piano playing through the walls, but that wasn't what was keeping her awake. She was thinking of Simon, leaving for a house that no longer felt like home to him, of the despair in Jace's voice as he said 'I want to hate you', and of Magnus, not telling Jace the truth: that Alec did not want Jace to know about his relationship because he was still in love with him. She thought of the satisfaction it would have brought Magnus to say the words out loud, to acknowledge what the truth was, and the fact that he hadn't said them - had let Alec go on lying and pretending - because that was what Alec wanted, and Magnus cared about Alec enough to give him that. Maybe it was true what the Seelie Queen had said, after all: Love made you a liar. — Cassandra Clare

When you leave home to follow your dreams, your road will probably be riddled with potholes, not always paved in happy Technicolor bricks. You'll probably be kicked to the ground 150 million times and told you're nuts by friends and strangers alike. As you progress you may feel lonely or terrified for your physical and emotional safety. You may overestimate your own capabilities or fail to live up to them, and you'll surely fall flat on your face once in a while. — Kelly Cutrone

I've decided it's not about me at all. It's a protective mechanism for them, a way of buffering themselves against my future death, like when teenagers distance themselves from their parents in preparation for leaving home. — Sara Gruen

On things she had to pack before leaving her home in advance of a forest fire, 1996. Childhood pictures and pictures of my life. Do you know how many pictures that is? Not just this life; I have pictures from 13,000 lives. — Shirley Maclaine

When Charlie arrived home from his mother's funeral, he was met at the door by two very large very enthusiastic canines, who , undistracted by keeping watch over Sophie's love hostage, were now able to visit the full measure of their affection and joy upon their returning master. It is generally agreed, and in fact stated in the bylaws of the American Kennel Club, that you have not been truly dog-humped until you have been double-dog-humped by a pair of four-hundred-pouund hounds from hell (Section 5, paragraph 7: Standards of Humping and Ass-dragging). And despite having used an extra-strength antiperspirant that very morning before leaving Sedona, Charlie found that getting poked repeatedly in the armpits by two damp devil-dog dicks was leaving him feeling less than fresh.
Sophie, call them off. Call them off."
The puppies are dancing with Daddy," Sophie giggled. "Dance, Daddy! — Christopher Moore

This woman enabled her husband to cheat, and she wasn't doing either one of them any favors. Instead of leaving him, she would take him home, scold him, and then carry on with business as usual. Inside though, she would be hurting.
No woman could love a cheater and not pay the price for it. — Rose Wynters

I complain about my life. I used to complain about boys or not being able to drive or failing a test. Now I complain about boys, not being able to drive, and leaving home so much. — Gabourey Sidibe

Not only was he sorrowful at the prospect of leaving home, he was convinced, he whispered, that he would never return alive. Herndon implored him to abandon such thoughts. — Harold Holzer

I think once an author is attacking people for leaving Amazon reviews, common sense has shut up shop and gone home, and the best thing to do is not engage at all. — K.J. Charles

French toast? Frittata?
Definitely frittata.
Leaving the table again, she transferred a small packet from freezer to fridge. It was salmon, home-smoked on the island and more delicious than any she had ever found elsewhere. Smoked salmon wasn't Cecily's doing, but the dried basil and thyme she took from the herb rack were. Taking a vacuum-sealed package of sun-dried tomatoes from the cupboard, she set it on the counter beside the herbs. Frittata, hot biscuits, and fruit salad. With mimosas. And coffee. That sounded right. Eaten out on the deck maybe?
No, not on the deck, unless the prevailing winds turned suddenly warm.
They would eat here in the kitchen, with whatever flowers the morning produced. Surely more lavender. A woman could never have enough lavender- or daylilies or astilbe, neither of which should bloom this early, but both of which had looked further along than the lavender, yesterday morning, so you never knew. — Barbara Delinsky

Love is not a charm that pops into the world from a better place to bless two individuals before flitting back home, leaving the couple broken back in two parts and forlorn but fundamentally unchanged. Love is a fire that burns in the soul, sometimes for good, sometimes just for now, sometimes hot enough to scorch and sometimes with a low and sustainable glow. Either way, it leaves the original constituents permanently altered. After the fact everything is different - not just the relationship, but the people involved. — Michael Marshall

It's just that every time I've come home for the past five years - before that, even. From college - something's changed a little more . . ." " - and you're not sure you like it, eh?" Henry was grinning in the moonlight and she could see him. She sat up. "I don't know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York's not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I'm coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it's like leaving the world. It's silly. I can't explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I'd go stark raving living in Maycomb." Henry said, "You wouldn't, you know. I don't mean to press you for an answer - don't move - but you've got to make up your mind to one thing, Jean Louise. You're gonna see change, you're gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime. Your trouble, now, you want to have your cake and eat it: you want to stop the clock, but you can't. Sooner or later you'll — Harper Lee

I had left small-town, rural life for good, and I had no intention of ever returning, not because I didn't like my home but because I had always known that I would leave. Leaving was part of my life romance, part of an idea I had about myself as a person destined for adventure; and as far as I could tell, adventure lay in the urban wilds of Manhattan, not in the farmland of Minnesota. — Siri Hustvedt

PAPER TOWERS
The library was on the second floor of the House, not far from my room. It had two floors - the first held the majority of the books and a balcony wrapped in a wrought-iron railing held another set. It was a cavalcade of tomes, all in immaculate rows, and with study carrels and tables thrown in for good measure. It was my home away from home(away from home.
I walked inside and paused for a moment to breathe in the scent of paper and dust - the perfumes of knowledge. The library was empty of patrons as far as I could tell, but I could hear the rhythmic squeal of a library cart somewhere in the rows. I followed them down until I found the dark-haired vampire shelving books with mechanical precision. I knew him only as "the librarian." He was a fount of information, and he had a penchant for leaving books outside my door. — Chloe Neill

Home is where the heart is, I thought now, gathering myself together in Betty's Luncheonette. I had no heart any more, it had been broken; or not broken, it simply wasn't there any more. It had been scooped neatly out of me like the yolk from a hard-boiled egg, leaving the rest of me bloodless and congealed and hollow.
I'm heartless, I thought. Therefore I'm homeless. — Margaret Atwood

[A]dventures befall the unadventuresome as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result
and have been since at least the time of Odysseus
of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. — Michael Chabon

The only parental authority I had was the studio. When I was a star, there was always somebody with me, to guard me. I was not allowed to be photographed with a cigarette, a drink, a cup of coffee or even a glass of water because someone might think it was liquor. When I left the studio I was already married and had two children, but I felt as sad as a child leaving home for the first time. — June Allyson

Many writers believe in arrival without leaving home. They believe in talent but not skill. — Judy Delton

Home was truly the best place he could possibly be, but, alas, was not an available option. — Kenneth Eade

I don't know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York's not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I'm coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it's like leaving the world. It's silly. I can't explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I'd go stark raving living in Maycomb. — Harper Lee

It doesn't take a farm to invoke the iron taste of leaving in your mouth. Anyone who loves a small plot of ground - a city garden, a vacant lot with some guerilla beds, a balcony of pots - understands the almost physical hurt of parting from it, even for a minor stint. I hurt every day I wake up in our city bed, wondering how the light will be changing over the front field or across the pond, whether the moose will be in the willow by the cabin again, if the wren has fledged her young ones yet and we'll return to find the box untended. I can feel where the farm is at any point in my day, not out of some arcane sixth sense developed from years of summer nights out there with the coyotes under the stars, but because of the bond between that earth and this body. Some grounds we choose; some are our instinctive homes. — Jenna Butler

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits. — Pico Iyer

Now go. Leaving quickly is the best thing you can do. Don't think about it, don't look back, and don't think that what's behind you is better than what's in front because it's not. Not in the very least, Hannah. — Celia Mcmahon

I watched the early morning light pass over and through the windows of colored glass, leaving streaks of red and green and yellow on the stone floor. When I was little, I used to try and capture the colored light. I thought I could hold it in my hand and carry it home. Now I know it is like happiness
it is there or it is not, you cannot hold it or keep it. — Karen Cushman

It was six hours to Hosannah Beach and he didn't glance at the silver coin that Dad had given him, not even once. All the way he clutched it tight in the palm of his hand and fel the bevelled edge bite into his skin. [ ... ] Waiting in the car while Yvonne unlocked the house, he brought his hand up to his face and opened it. His sweat had the bitter smell of hot metal, hot and bitter, this was what leaving home would always smell like. — Rupert Thomson

I'm back, Beatrice. I'm back for you, and I'm not going anywhere. You're not a girl anymore, so run home for now but know that I'll see you again tomorrow. And I'm not leaving you again. — Elizabeth Hunter

Then I probably fainted. The woman at the registration desk managed to put on a sympathetic expression afterward, as if she wanted to ask, "What are you going to do now?" I told her not to worry, I was really leaving, I was going home.
But go home where? Without my children I no longer had a home. — Barbara Honigmann

You need a village, if only for the pleasure of leaving it. A village means that you are not alone, knowing that in the people, the trees, the earth, there is something that belongs to you, waiting for you when you are not there. — Cesare Pavese

...as if in rebellion, certain emotions become amplified at the exact moments when you are expected not to feel them at all. — Chinelo Okparanta

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her pack. She didn't like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. — E.L. Konigsburg

Nothing could stop tragedy from visiting your home. The angel of death would not pass over, leaving you unscathed, no matter how large your house was. — Charlaine Harris

Not wandering in the world of desire is another way of describing cool loneliness. Wandering in the world of desire involves looking for alternatives, seeking something to comfort us - food, drink, people. The word desire encompasses that addiction quality, the way we grab for something because we want to find a way to make things okay. That quality comes from never having grown up. We still want to go home and be able to open the refrigerator and find it full of our favorite goodies; when the going gets tough, we want to yell "Mom!" But what we're doing as we progress along the path is leaving home and becoming homeless. Not wandering in the world of desire is about relating directly with how things are. Loneliness is not a problem. Loneliness is nothing to be solved. The same is true for any other experience we might have. — Pema Chodron

...go live happily alone requires a serious amount of intentional thought. It's not as simple as signing the lease on your own apartment and leaving it at that. You must figure out what you need to feel comfortable at home and in the world, no matter your means (indeed, staying within your means), and arrange your life accordingly--a metaphorical architecture. — Kate Bolick

All the trouble you will cause by not leaving a will. All the heartache! Family feuds are going to happen anyway, so be as clear as you can. And even if it's only to leave it to the cat's home, make a will. — Joanna Lumley

When I got married and had a child and went to work, my day was all day, all night. You lose your sense of balance. That was in the late '60s, '70s, women went to work, they went crazy. They thought the workplace was much more exciting than the home. They thought the family could wait. And you know what? The family can't wait. And women have now found that out. It all has to do with women, or the homemaker leaving the home and realizing that where they've gone is not as fabulous, or as rewarding, or as self-fulfilling as the balance between the workplace and the home place. — Martha Stewart

I did not enjoy Cambridge. But I shouldn't blame Cambridge alone. I wasn't ready for university or for the wrench of leaving home. It was a big cultural shock. — Naomie Harris

Go home, talk about it together. Bake Christmas cookies and crap. Then tell me what you want to happen. Know that I'm yours. My loyalty, my soul is yours no matter what you decide. Crap, you can shoot me in the back, and I'll never want anything but to be around you hookers."
Blake stood and shook his head. "Nah, I don't need time. I appreciate the place in Hawaii, and it would be great to go to - maybe for a vacation sometime? But I'm here. I'm not leaving you. You're my family. — Debra Anastasia

In Eudora Welty's masterful story "Why I Live at the P.O." (1941), the narrator is engaged in a sibling rivalry with her younger sister, who has come home after leaving under suspicious if not actually disgraceful circumstances. The narrator, Sister, is outraged at having to cook two chickens to feed five people and a small child just because her "spoiled" sister has come home. What Sister can't see, but we can, is that those two fowl are really a fatted calf. It may not be a grand feast by traditional standards, but it is a feast, as called for upon the return of the Prodigal Son, even if the son turns out to be a daughter. Like the brothers in the parable, Sister is irritated and envious that the child who left, and ostensibly used up her "share" of familial goodwill, is instantly welcomed, her sins so quickly forgiven. Then — Thomas C. Foster

I will miss
my chest exploding
you coming home late
not turning on the light
always waking me up

I will miss
the sudden burst of safety
when you look at me
or hold my hand
or say something like
"let's go home"

I will miss
the years I lost
on something or someone.
The pieces didn't fit, shaped wrong
the timing slightly off.

I loved you like I always will. — Charlotte Eriksson

I'm just living in Eau Claire, not really leaving for much. I go to the farmers market, go to the studio, go home and play with my cats. I don't know if I've ever been this happy, which is really awesome. — Justin Vernon

I want to hate him for what he did. Leaving us. It's not right. He's gone and I'm stuck here in this fucking funeral home, staring at his casket. There's no way out. Not for me, and certainly not for him. The casket is closed. Bolted shut for eternity. No one forced him to be a Jackass wannabe, though. — Jolene Perry

Now, cherub," his words roll off his lips like honey, "the first repayment of the day: you're coming home with me, and you're not leaving until your debts have all been paid. — Laura Thalassa

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

Danes, Norse... all were from the northlands in the eyes of her people. To their fright-frozen minds, Hakan was another of the dreaded Norse, sweeping over the land like a plague and leaving little in the wake. But summer had yielded a different crop for her: not all Norse were vicious raiders out for death and plunder.
Hakan braced one foot on a rock. "And now the Norse wolf brings you safely home."...
"Aye," she said. — Gina Conkle

It's not the traveling that takes courage Tally. I've done much longer trips on my own. It's leaving home. — Scott Westerfeld

I've been acting since I was a little kid. It was my escape from my day which had to do with a father leaving, and a mother not being home, and her struggling and doing her best and all that. But it wasn't fun. I would go into theater class. If she were a stay-at-home mom, I wouldn't have that discomfort inside that kept me pushing. — Daphne Zuniga

Carmen: I want you to leave me alone, but not ignore me. I want you to miss me when I go away to college, but not be sad. I want you to stay exactly the same, but not be lonely or alone. I want to do the leaving, and not have you ever leave me. — Ann Brashares

In theory, sure, Gregor could still go home. Pack up his three-year-old sister, Boots, get his mom out of the hospital, where she was recovering from the plague, and have his bat, Ares, fly them back up to the laudry room of their appartment building in New York City. Ares, his bond, who saved his life numerous times and who had had nothing but suffering since he had met Gregor. He tried to imagine the parting. "Well, Ares, it's been great. I'm heading home now. I know by leaving I'm completely dooming to annihilation everbody who's helped me down here, but I'm really not up for this whole war thing anymore. So, fly you high, you know?" Like that would ever happen. — Suzanne Collins

[A]dventures befall the unadventurous as readily, if not as frequently, as the bold. Adventures are a logical and reliable result - and have been since at least the time of Odysseus - of the fatal act of leaving one's home, or trying to return to it again. All adventures happen in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home. As soon as you have crossed your doorstep or the county line, into that place where the structures, laws, and conventions of your upbringing no longer apply, where the support and approval (but also the disapproval and repression) of your family and neighbors are not to be had: then you have entered into adventure, a place of sorrow, marvels, and regret. — Michael Chabon

We can't all leave this country, Bijan had told me-this is our home. The world is a large place, my magician had said when I went to him with my woes. You can write and teach wherever you are. You will be read more and heard better, in fact, once you are over there. To go or not to go? In the long run, it's all very personal, my magician reasoned. I always admired your former colleague's honesty, he said. Which former colleague? Dr. A, the one who said his only reason for leaving was because he liked to drink beer freely. I am getting sick of people who cloak their personal flaws and desires in the guise of patriotic fervor. They stay because they have no means of living anywhere else, because if they leave, they won't be the big shots they are over here; but they talk about sacrifice for the homeland. And then those who do leave claim they've gone in order to criticize and expose the regime. Why all these justifications? — Azar Nafisi

Darling,
i wish someone would realize im not happy. im alone and in pain because of you leaving me and never coming home. im nothng compared to you but i feel like im everything better than you. im sick of you and your judgement and you knowing exactly nothing about me at all. so tell me why should i i get know who you really are when your the person who need to get to know me? — Jessica Holt

A mother's body against a child's body makes a place. It says you are here. Without this body against your body there is no place. I envy people who miss their mother. Or miss a place or know something called home. The absence of a body against my body created a gap, a hole, a hunger. This hunger determined my life ... The absence of a body against my body made attachment abstract. Made my own body dislocated and unable to rest or settle. A body pressed against your body is the beginning of nest. I grew up not in a home but in a kind of free fall of anger and violence that led to a life of constant movement, of leaving and falling. It is why at one point I couldn't stop drinking and fucking. Why I needed people to touch me all the time. It had less to do with sex than location. When you press against me, or put yourself inside me. When you hold me down or lift me up, when you lie on top of me and I can feel your weight, I exist. I am here. — Eve Ensler

I think when people say they dread going into work on Monday morning, it's because they know they are leaving a piece of themselves at home. Why not see what happens when you challenge your employees to bring all of their talents to their job and reward them not for doing it just like everyone else, but for pushing the envelope, being adventurous, creative, and open-minded, and trying new things? — Tony Hsieh

To separate from my culture (as from my family) I had to feel competent enough on the outside and secure enough inside to live life on my own. Yet in leaving home I did not lose touch with my origins because lo mexicano is in my system. I am a turtle, wherever I go I carry 'home' on my back. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

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

In life, a person will come and go from many homes. We may leave a house, a town, a room, but that does not mean those places leave us. Once entered, we never entirely depart the homes we make for ourselves in the world. They follow us, like shadows, until we come upon them again, waiting for us in the mist. — Ari Berk

For the first time he considers the full emotional dimensions of the day. His life is changing but his parent's lives are changing too. Like a habitat, abruptly deprived of a major species, the household will be wrenched into realignment by his departure. Like all young people, he has no idea who his parents really are. For 18 years he has experienced their existence only in so far as it is related to his own needs. Suddenly his mind is full of questions. What do they talk about when he's not around? What secrets do they hold from each other? What aspirations have been left to languish? What private grievances held in check by the shared project of child rearing will now in his absence, lurch into the light? — Justin Cronin

It is not just bookstores and libraries that are disappearing but museums, theaters, performing arts centers, art and music schools - all those places where I felt at home have joined the list of endangered species. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe and my own hometown paper, The Washington Post, have all closed their weekend book review sections, leaving books orphaned and stranded, poor cousins to television and the movies. In a sign of the times, the Bloomberg News website recently transferred its book coverage to the Luxury section, alongside yachts, sports clubs and wine, as if to signal that books are an idle indulgence of the super-rich. But if there is one thing that should not be denied to anyone rich or poor it is the opportunity to dream. — Azar Nafisi

You're not leaving me here alone, I say. Because if he dies, I'll never go home, not really. I'll spend the rest of my life in this arena, trying to think my way out. — Suzanne Collins

Social topics may hit too close to home for people, but then again, if you pull a heartstring, then that's what country music is. It's not just songs about getting drunk and leaving your girl. — Kenny Chesney

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough. — Audrey Hepburn

It was a time before Facebook and Instagram and texting. I imagine it must be easier now, for college students. Home must not feel so far away anymore. But how do you cut the apron strings if the strings are virtual? — Kirstie Collins Brote

Grown-ups shouldn't finish books they're not enjoying. When you're no longer a child, and you no longer live at home, you don't have to finish everything on your plate. One reward of leaving school is that you don't have to finish books you don't like. — John Irving

If we keep on ignoring and leaving children to their own devices at home, they become latchkey kids, and trust me, the consequences of that are not good. — Eric Braeden

I arrived in Dallas two days before the party and planned on leaving the day after. I hated the city as much as I thought I would. All anyone could talk about were the Cowboys and their chances in the playoffs. Charlene was happy. Joe was not, or so it seemed to me, in spite of the fact that he had finally gotten exactly what he thought he wanted from a wife: she gave him an adorable boy, she did everything in their home including laundry, and most important, she did not embarrass him. Whenever I was alone with Joe during the two days I was there, Charlene would send her son into the room with us. The first time I carried him, Charlene made sure to mention how surprised she was that I had motherly instincts. She probably used the pronoun we more in one day than I have in my whole life. I did not blame her. Most plain women stake their claims clumsily. — Rabih Alameddine

A complex world of intrigues and power play among couples has
combined to deny young people the love and attention they truly
deserve, more and more teenagers are leaving home to peer up with
bad influence which eventually lands them in jail for the lucky ones
and six feet under for the not so lucky. — Oche Otorkpa

I knew that this was something that was going to be an intense experience, just from the way I typically approach my work. I did not take the fact that I was going to portray a soldier lightly. It was so very important to me that I came across as believable and honest and truthful. I wanted to be able to convey the psychology behind the choice of leaving home for an extended period of time, knowing that you may never come back while still being a devoted parent. — Michelle Monaghan

The foster home they were leaving was no place to be. The mother, Mrs. Boone, slapped Paris around every time her real daughter did something that called for punishment....After each beating, the daughter, Lisa, would swear she had no clue how her mama got the mistaken notion that Paris was the one who'd smashed a favorite vase, or stained the kitchen tablecloth, or whatever. My name is Paris, not Stupid, Paris would say to herself. — Nikki Grimes

We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people. We're building a new partnership between our nations and we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home. This is an extraordinary achievement — Barack Obama