Return Back Quotes & Sayings

There is a wonderful simple human reality to Christ's hunger. The man is famished. He's missed meals for three days, He has a lot on his mind, He's on His way back to heaven, but before He goes He is itching for a nice piece of broiled fish and a little bread on the side with the men and women He loves. Do we not like Him the more for His prandial persistance? And think for a moment about the holiness of our own food, and the ways that cooking and sharing a meal can be forms of love and prayer. And realize again that the Eucharist at the heart of stubborn Catholicism is the breakfast that Christ prepares for Catholics, every morning, as we return from fishing in vast dreamy seas? — Brian Doyle

Whenever I've been stuck on a project, it's always brought me solace to the return to books that moved me in the past. It's a nice way to get outside my own head; and it brings me back to one of the most important reasons I write at all: to bring some pleasure to readers, to make them think or feel. — Leslie Jamison

Will you go back?" asked the Lord of the Gallows. "To America?"
"Nothing to go back for," said Shadow, and as he said it he knew it was a lie.
"Things wait for you there," said the old man. "But they will wait until you return. — Neil Gaiman

I've gone to work, I've raised a child, and I've spent 30 years trying to better the lives of children and families. But I often return to one thing I said way back then - that politics is the art of making possible what appears to be impossible. — Hillary Clinton

Vel took both of her hands and stepped backwards on to the gangplank. 'No!' she squealed, pulling him back on to the quay.
'What?'
'You might fall in, going backwards.' His grip on her hands tightened enough to hurt. 'Ow!'
'I'm going up.' He glowered at her. 'I'm going backwards. I'm going now. Are you coming, or shall I tell the others to come and wave you goodbye?'
That earned him a glower in return. 'You're a brute. I hate you and I'm only coming to keep Ren safe from you. — Helen Bell

Diversion is the absolute worst remedy for depression. When we ignore the things that haunt us or taunt us, not only do they keep coming back, but they're bigger and stronger each time they return. Stop shoving us depressives in that direction. — Northern Adams

She snuggled close, nuzzling her hair beneath his chin. "Never leave me," she whispered back.
The siren chuckled sadly, the sound vibrating up through his chest and pleasantly against her ear. "But I must return to the sea every now and then or I will die." He sighed. "Some part of me believes it would be a good death. — Ash Gray

People are ignorant of what any street clock knows. Why? Because the crack that cleaves existence also swallows their existence-reflecting consciousnesses. Thrown back into existence, the poor souls don't suspect that a moment ago they didn't exist - and only isolated things and persons, swallowed by the crack never to return to this world, arouse a certain fear and foreboding. — Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

When I asked her if she was afraid to fall in love, she damn near doubled over. "Afraid? My heart has been through hell and back. Yet it never quits, refuses to rest, gives without asking in return, and is deeper than the deepest sea. It's love, my dear, that should fear me." That night my heart was signed, by my one of a kind. — J. Raymond

When a man lives with the wilderness he comes to an acceptance of death as a part of living, he sees the leaves fall and rot away to build the soil for other trees and plants to be born. The leaves gather strength from sun and rain, gathering the capital on which they live to return it to the soil when they die. Only for a time have they borrowed their life from the sum of things, using their small portion of sun, earth, and rain, some of the chemicals that go into their being - all to be paid back when death comes. All to be used again and again. — Louis L'Amour

By concentrating single-mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50 percent or more. It has been estimated that the tendency to start and stop a task - to pick it up, put it down, and come back to it - can increase the time necessary to complete the task by as much as 500 percent. Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself with where you were when you stopped and what you still have to do. You have to overcome inertia and get yourself going again. You have to develop momentum and get into a productive work rhythm. But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively. — Brian Tracy

I will put my hook in thy nose and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way which thou camest. 'Destroyer' thou hast embraced, and Abaddon shalt thou be. From the furnace of the Kiln wast thou taken and to the furnace of Hell shalt thou return. — Donovan M. Neal

Orien," Birle protested again.
"You can stay if you must." Orien's cheeks were hollow with hunger and he had little strength for anger. "But I wish you'd come. I don't know how long it would be before I could come back for you."
So she followed him, since he would return for her. — Cynthia Voigt

I don't pretend to understand him, but I can enjoy him as a poet and comedian. I liked the idea of the eternal return. Sometimes I think that being on tour year after year is an eternal return; you play a certain club in Copenhagen and then ten years later you are back again, traveling the same roads year after year. — Dean Wareham

Then she fell on her knees, saying: 'I beg thee!'
'Nay, lady,' he said, and taking her by the hand he raised her. The he kissed her hand, and sprang into the saddle, and rode away, and did not look back; and only those who knew him well and were near to him saw the pain that he bore. — J.R.R. Tolkien

For a bowl of water give a goodly meal; For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal; For a simple penny pay thou back with gold; If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold. Thus the words and actions of the wise regard; Every little service tenfold they reward. But the truly noble know all men as one, And return with gladness good for evil done. — Mahatma Gandhi

This morning when I looked out the roof window
before dawn and a few stars were still caught
in the fragile weft of ebony night
I was overwhelmed. I sang the song Louis taught me:
a song to call the deer in Creek, when hunting,
and I am certainly hunting something as magic as deer
in this city far from the hammock of my mother's belly.
It works, of course, and deer came into this room
and wondered at finding themselves
in a house near downtown Denver.
Now the deer and I are trying to figure out a song
to get them back, to get all of us back,
because if it works I'm going with them.
And it's too early to call Louis
and nearly too late to go home.
[from poem, "Song for the Deer and Myself to Return On"] — Joy Harjo

I will never go back. For the simple reason that all the Russia I need, after all, is with me
always with me. Her literature, her language, my own Russian childhood. I will never return, I will never surrender. — Vladimir Nabokov

But he could not call the doctors at the leprosarium. They would return him to Louisiana. They would treat him and train him and counsel him. They would put him back into life as if his illness were all that mattered, as if wisdom were only skin deep, as if grief and remorse and horror were nothing but illusions, tricks done with mirrors, irrelevant to chrome and porcelain and clean, white, stiff hospital sheets and fluorescent lights. — Stephen R. Donaldson

Well, it's like you're saving your energy for something. Holding back. But it doesn't make any sense. Life is one-way, and there is no return trip. What are you waiting for? — Penelope Douglas

The pain is stronger than ever. I've seen bit of lost Paradises and I know I'll be hopelessly tryng tu return even if it hurts. The deeper I swing into the regions of nothingness the further I'm thrown back into myself, each time more and more frightening depths below me, until my very being becomes dizzy. There are brief glimpses of clear sky, like falling out of a tree, so I have some idea where I'm going, but there is still too much clarity and straight order of things, I am getting always the same number somehow. So I vomit out broken bits of words and sintaxes of the countries I've passed through, broken limbs, slaughtered houses, geographies. My heart is poisoned, my brain left in shreds of horror and sadness. I've never let you down, world, but you did lousy things to me.
(from "As I was moving ahead occasionally I saw brief glimpses of beauty", 2000) — Jonas Mekas

I was encouraged to break all the rules but to take the best of philanthropy, the best of investing, and the best of development finance, and experiment with new ways to create this venture capital model of using philanthropy to back patient capital investments, and then build solutions that were measured in terms of the kind of impact and change they were making on people's lives and in the world, not just on the financial return. — Jacqueline Novogratz

Human relationships are chemical reactions. If you have a reaction then you can never return back to your previous state of being. — Sui Ishida

I talked about places, about the ways that we often talk about love of place, by which we mean our love for places, but seldom of how the places love us back, of what they give us. They give us continuity, something to return to, and offer a familiarity that allows some portion of our lives to remain connected and coherent ... And distant places give us refuge in territories where our own histories aren't so deeply entrenched and we can imagine other stories, other selves, or just drink up quiet and respite. — Rebecca Solnit

When I met Thanatos," [Hazel] said, "you know ... Death ... he told me I wasn't on your list of rogue spirits to capture. He said maybe that's why you were keeping your distance. If you acknowledged me, you'd have to take me back to the Underworld."
Pluto waited. "What is your question?"
"You're here. Why don't you take me to the Underworld. Return me to the dead?"
Pluto's form started to fade. He smiled, but Hazel couldn't tell if he was sad or pleased. "Perhaps that is not what I want to see, Hazel. Perhaps I was never here." (226) — Rick Riordan

If you've never been rocked back by the presence of purpose this poem is too soon for you. Return to your mediocrity, plug it into an amplifier and rethink yourself. — Buddy Wakefield

How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried. — Charlotte Bronte

No one can sustain rage for long. I am still angry and always will be. My dear son was stolen from me and his family to never return. He was killed for profit and lies. How can I not be angry? Sometimes though, the rage comes back. — Cindy Sheehan

Later, I could get that drizzle feeling just about any time I saw a kid on a swing. The hopelessness of it - the forward excitement, the midflight return. The futile belief that the next time around, the next flight forward, you wouldn't get dragged back again. You wouldn't have to start over, and over. — Emily Fridlund

Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own. — Richard Bachman

Her father would return from China. He'd come back with all his soldiers. He'd pick her up in his strong arms and say that he'd never meant to leave, that he hadn't meant to sail away and leave her and her mother alone in the canals of the Drowned Cities as the Army of God and the UPF and the Freedom Militia came down like a hammer on every single person who'd ever trafficked with the peacekeepers. A stupid little dream for a stupid little war maggot. Mahlia hated herself for dreaming it. But sometimes she curled in on herself and held the stump of her right hand to her chest and pretended that none of it had happened. That her father was still here, and she still had a hand, and everything was going to get better. — Paolo Bacigalupi

Elliot waved goodbye, and before he thought better, Ilyas waved in return.
Only once he got back into his own tent did he realise he'd been smiling the entire way back. — Astrid Amara

It's a word called symbiotic, you send the messages and it comes back in return. Together, it's a wonderful thing, it's why television is so great and film can never reach. — Robert Stack

What is faith? It is a memory. Of a time when all was perfect in the world. When there was no fear and no judgment and no death. It is a memory of a time before we were born, a beacon to guide us back from the end to the beginning, to the memory of where we came from. It is a memory of a promise made before the earth was formed, before the stars glittered in the primordial sea. A promise that says that we will remember what we have learned on this journey so that we may return full circle, the same and yet different. Older. Wiser. Filled with compassion for others. And for ourselves. What is faith? It is the memory of love. — Kamran Pasha

The whiff of ocean on the southern breeze and the smell of burning asphalt brought back memories of summers past. It had seemed as though those sweet dreams of summer would last forever: the warmth of a girl's skin, an old rock 'n' roll song, freshly washed button-down shirt, the odor of cigarette smoke in a pool changing room, a fleeting premonition. Then one summer (when had it been?) the dreams had vanished, never to return. — Haruki Murakami

Be ahead of all parting, as if it had already happened,
like winter, which even now is passing.
For beneath the winter is a winter so endless
that to survive it at all is a triumph of the heart.

Be forever dead in Eurydice, and climb back singing.
Climb praising as you return to connection.
Here among the disappearing, in the realm of the transient,
be a ringing glass that shatters as it rings.

Be. And, at the same time, know what it is not to be.
The emptiness inside you allows you to vibrate
in full resonance with your world. Use it for once.

To all that has run its course, and to the vast unsayable
numbers of beings abounding in Nature,
add yourself gladly, and cancel the cost. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love - the money, the car, the house, the prestige - we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're nothing. ("A Return to Love") — Marianne Williamson

The IRS sent back my tax return saying I owed $800. I said If you'll notice, I sent a paper clip with my return. Given what you've been paying for things lately, that should more than make up the difference. — Emo Philips

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I look at him ... and I remember how it was when I kissed him and felt that love. It makes me want that back. I want to feel it again. I want to return to it. Other times though ... other times, I'm so scared. I listen to these guys ... and to Jerome ... and then the doubts gnaw at me. I can't get them out of my head. We've been sleeping together, you know. Literally. It hasn't been a problem so far, but sometimes I lie awake watching him, thinking this can't last. The longer it does ... I feel like ... like I'm standing on a high wire, with Seth at one end and me at the other. We're trying to reach each other, but one misstep, one breeze, one side-glance, and I'll fall over the edge. And keep falling and falling."
Carter leaned toward me and brushed the hair away from the side of my face. "Don't look down then," he whispered. — Richelle Mead

Because he likes you, Melbourne. That's what guys do. They buy dinner and gifts, hoping that in return you'll - um, like them back. — Richelle Mead

I tried to bring them back, but apparently fixing the bodies doesn't return the souls. — Brandon Sanderson

We can make ourselves say the kind things that rise in our hearts and tremble on our lips - do the gentle and helpful deeds which we long to do and shrink back from; and little by little, it will grow easier - the love spoken will bring back the answer of love - the kind deed will bring back a kind deed in return. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

I don't think anyone ever remembers what they were really like as kids. Adults think they do, but they don't. Photos and videos don't capture the real you, or bring back to life the person you used to be. You have to return to the past to do that. — Darren Shan

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me, This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country - I now go back there, I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn." — Walt Whitman

Each day the mythical return Enzian dreamed of seems less possible. Once it was necessary to know uniforms, insignia, airplane markings, to observe boundaries. But by now too many choices have been made. The single root lost, way back there in the May desolation. Each bird has his branch now, and each one is the Zone. — Thomas Pynchon

For the first time I understood why people come back from Alaska with fifty pictures of glaciers or return from a honeymoon in Tahiti with fifty pictures of the same sunset. The world is so beautiful in these places, it is impossible to register that there will be more, more, more. Surely this is it. Negotiate with your ailing camera battery. How can it not stay alive for this? How can you believe that twenty minutes from now there will be an even taller forest, an even wider waterfall? We are only as good as our most extreme experiences. — Sloane Crosley

We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return; prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only, as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again; if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk. — Henry David Thoreau

I hold the door to the post office open for a weathered man in a wheelchair. He is gracious, thanking me. One leg is missing, and just as I notice this, I see the sticker on the back of his chair: VIETNAM VETS.

My thoughts jumble as an ache brews in my heart. I think of war and how it destroys, divides, and damages. I see the faces of those in the refugee camp and those who found their names on The List and are now in America. I want to tell this wounded soldier that I am sorry for his loss and for the abandonment he may have felt upon his return. I want to say other things, but right now I'm just honored to hold the door for him. — Alice J. Wisler

4. You've had enough of the big city and decide to return home. Waiting for a bus, you pick up a discarded copy of Larva and, because you have a long bus-ride ahead of you, begin reading. You quickly discover it is not a conventional novel. Do you:
(a) discard it and stare out the window all the way back home?
(b) — Steven Moore

Every time we have a thought that's not a thought of kindness towards others - then we've left the field of intention and, therefore, lost the power of the field of intention, as well. The whole idea is to connect yourself back to this field from which all things emanate, to return to your source and watch it in every thought that you have. — Wayne Dyer

For a long time, the film business was a single-digit business on investment return. Now, because of home video, it's a low double-digit business, and the studios want to make sure it doesn't go back into the single-digit business. — Charles Roven

we can learn a lot from a tree; she
gives so much without expecting
anything in return. oxygen, shade,
fruit, resources. she is proud of her
roots and tough to tear down.
try to be more like a tree.

give without expectations, be
proud, be strong. — JaTawny Muckelvene Chatmon

Now, this pair," he waved the shoes he held, "are new. They haven't been walked a mile, and for new shoes like these I charge a talent, maybe a talent and two." He pointed at my feet. "Those shoes, on the other hand, are used, and I don't sell used shoes."
He turned his back on me and started to tidy his workbench rather aimlessly, humming to himself ...
I knew that he was trying to do me a favor, and a week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity for free shoes. But for some reason I didn't feel right about it. I quietly gathered up my things and left a pair of copper jots on his stool before I left.
Why? Because pride is a strange thing, and because generosity deserves generosity in return. But mostly because it felt like the right thing to do, and that is reason enough. — Patrick Rothfuss

It will be possible in a few more years to build radio controlled rockets which can be steered into such orbits beyond the limits of the atmosphere and left to broadcast scientific information back to the Earth. A little later, manned rockets will be able to make similar flights with sufficient excess power to break the orbit and return to Earth. (1945) [Predicting communications satellites.] — Arthur C. Clarke

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding. — Conrad Aiken

And then she leaned back her head with the faintest smile and, tapping her chin, asked, Are you in love with him, this mystery composer? How can I be? I asked in return. I don't even know him. Almost every opera is about this, she said, her smile growing. Love before first sight. — Alexander Chee

Leaders should get out of their comfort zone but stay in their strength zone. When their work lies within their natural gifting and strengths, leaders experience the greatest return in productivity and contentment. Life is too short to live in the comfort zone, where growing and accomplishing and achieving your potential takes a back seat. I suggest you refocus if the comfort zone is your leadership priority. — John C. Maxwell

How are you? How was your flight? He hit the Send button without recognizing that in writing to her he was taking a step back from his life as he knew it and into the unknown future, for one cannot embark upon the new without giving up something in return. — Jill Bialosky

Everything in The Room, we did it the same way the big studios do it. The only difference is the budget and the actors. We put an ad in Back Stage West and in return we got almost 8,000 headshots from people who wanted to be in the film. We then do a process of selection and a rehearsal process after they are selected. The process of audition is very time consuming. — Tommy Wiseau

He got up, wishing to go around, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox right over Helene, behind her back. Helene moved forward so as to make room and, smiling, glanced around. As always at soirees, she was wearing a gown in the fashion of the time, quite open in front and back. Her bust, which had always looked like marble to Pierre, was now such a short distance from him that he could involuntarily make out with his nearsighted eyes the living loveliness of her shoulders and neck, and so close to his lips that he had only to lean forward a little to touch her. He sensed the warmth of her body, the smell of her perfume, and the creaking of her corset as she breathed. He saw not her marble beauty, which made one with her gown, he saw and sensed all the loveliness of her body, which was merely covered by clothes. And once he had seen it, he could not see otherwise, as we cannot return to a once-exposed deception. — Leo Tolstoy

He had cast out of heaven his dim star; it had fallen, and its track was lost in the darkness of night. It would never return to the sky again, because life was given only once and never came a second time. If he could have turned back the days and years of the past, he would have replaced the falsity with truth, the idleness with work, the boredom with happiness; he would have given back purity to those whom he had robbed of it. He would have found God and goodness, but that was as impossible as to put back the fallen star into the sky, and because it was impossible he was in despair. — Anton Chekhov

We laughed, then Keir took my hand. "I've something to show Lara down by the river. We will return."

Marcus put his hands on his hips. "None of that, now. There's a celebration to start, and no time for 'showing' her - "

Keir cut him off, as I blushed. "We'll be back in time."

Marcus gave him an evil smile. "I'll have the first meats waiting."

Keir grimaced, and grabbed my hand. "Come, Lara. — Elizabeth Vaughan

Much later, she would go back and read the entry, and think to herself that memories were that way, too. When you wanted to forget, everything would return in raw, brutal focus. When you wanted to remember, the details would slip away like a dream at dawn. — Emily Giffin

She knew what it meant to want to return to safety and seed-husk again. But you cannot get back into your seed-husk, once it is cracked open and no longer yours. — Katherine Catmull

Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. Winter is of a more heroic cast, and addresses the intellect. The severe studies and disciplines come easier in winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses ... The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread. — John Burroughs

They take no from our first breath. go back and return it to your mouth. your heart. your light. — Nayyirah Waheed

You realize I had half my guard out searching for you?" Eddard Stark said when they were alone. "Septa Mordane is beside herself with fear. She's in the sept praying for your safe return. Arya, you know you are never to go beyond the castle gates without my leave."
"I didn't go out the gates," she blurted. "Well, I didn't mean to. I was down in the dungeons, only they turned into this tunnel. It was all dark, and I didn't have a torch or a candle to see by, so I had to follow. I couldn't go back the way I came on account of the monsters. Father, they were talking about killing you! Not the monsters, the two men. They didn't see me, I was being still as stone and quiet as a shadow, but I heard them. They said you had a book and a bastard and if one Hand could die, why not a second? Is that the book? Jon's the bastard, I bet. — George R R Martin

As soon as he had left the room and walked into the air, he knew that he would never return and for the first time his fears lifted. It was a spring morning, and when he walked into Severndale Park he felt the breeze bringing back memories of a much earlier life, and he was at peace. He sat beneath a tree and looked up at its leaves in amazement - where once he might have gazed at them and sensed there only the confusion of his own thoughts, now each leaf was so clear and distinct that he could see the lightly coloured veins which carried moisture and life. And he looked down at his own hand, which seemed translucent beside the bright grass. His head no longer ached, and as he lay upon the earth he could feel its warmth beneath him. — Peter Ackroyd

If I come back to you now, can we be what we were before life's uncertain rhythms tore us so far apart? If I return today, will your arms gather me in, or will I be wrenched away, snatched by riptide I have no power to resist? If I find my way to you, one man standing in a crowd, will I even know who you are? — Ellen Hopkins

Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever. — Kevin Smith

He saw clearly how plain and simple - how narrow, even - it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome. — Kenneth Grahame

It does not seem to me, Austerlitz added, that we understand the laws governing the return of the past, but I feel more and more as if time did not exist at all, only various spaces interlocking according to the rules of a higher form of stereometry, between which the living and the dead can move back and forth as they like, and the longer I think about it the more it seems to me that we who are still alive are unreal in the eyes of the dead, that only occasionally, in certain lights and atmospheric conditions, do we appear in their field of vision. — W.G. Sebald

Heavily and hypnotically,with her soul flattening itself back like the ears of a hissing cat,Kizzy leaned in and drank of Jack Husk's full,moist mouth,and his red,red lips were hungry against hers,drinking her in return.Their eyes closed.Fingers clutched at collars and hair,at the picnic blanket,at the grass.And as they sank down,pinning their shadows beneath them,the horizon tipped on its side,and slowly,thickly,hour by hour,the day spilled out and ebbed away.
It was Kizzy's first kiss, and maybe it was her last, and it was delicious. — Laini Taylor

My wishing star glowed slightly and winked back at me. I could almost hear its voice, tinkling like wind chimes and church bells, reassuring me that everything would return to normal. — Erica Sehyun Song

Unconditional love. That's what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn't he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain? — Alan Lightman

I got a letter from the IRS. Apparently I owe them $800. So I sent them a letter back. I said, If you'll remember, I fastened my return with a paper clip, which according to your very own latest government pentagon spending figures will more than make up for the difference. — Emo Philips

I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past. — Ishmael Beah

And I ask myself what it is about me that makes this wonderful, beautiful woman return. Is it because I'm pathetic, helpless in my current state, completely dependent on her? Or is it my sense of humour, my willingness to tease her, to joke my way into painful, secret places? Do I help her understand herself? Do I make her happy? Do I do something for her that her husband and son can't do? Has she fallen in love with me?
As the days pass and I continue to heal, my body knitting itself back together, I begin to allow myself to think that she has. — Mohsin Hamid

On no account must you return back to the world — Sunday Adelaja

They'd get that back; when children no longer lived in fear and privation, the ability to hope was one of the first things to return. From — Mercedes Lackey

Loneliness isn't about being by yourself. That's fine, right and good, desirable in many ways. Loneliness is about finding a landing-place, or not, and knowing that, whatever you do, you can go back there. The opposite of loneliness isn't company, it's return. A place to return. — Jeanette Winterson

If I preach against the modern artificial life of sensual enjoyment, and ask men and women to go back to the simple life epitomized in the charkha, I do so because I know that without an intelligent return to simplicity, there is no escape from our d. — Mahatma Gandhi

The abbess may well try and force me to return to the convent, silent and in disgrace, but I will not go back. Not like this. Indeed, I can see no way I can ever return to the convent, for the abbess will not let me return in victory, and I refuse to do so in defeat. — Robin LaFevers

In recent years, we have seen the United States back away from pressuring the Castro regime, under the misguided view that placating them with an open hand would yield progress. That naivete has invited only more cruelty and oppression in return. — Mitt Romney

Don't think about what you've left behind" The alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. "If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return. — Paulo Coelho

No need to mince words. And you don't need to force yourself to like me. No one likes me now. It's only to be expected. I don't even like myself much. I used to have a few really good friends. You were one of them. But at a certain stage in life I lost them. Like how Shiro at a certain point lost that special spark. ... But you can't go back. Can't return an item you've already opened. You just have to make do. — Haruki Murakami

Obsession is an addiction you may never shake free of. It just ... holds you and never gives anything in return. But love, you can give all you've got to love and it always gives you back more. That's how you can tell the difference between the two. I know that now.
Robyn Hannaford from The Great Northern Coven — Bruce Jenvey

Sex.
Love.
Fucking.
Call it what you want but they are all the same. Each one requires you to give a piece of yourself that you can never get back.
But with the right person, everything will align perfectly. The world stops turning on its axis, time slows and you realize that while you're losing a piece of yourself, you're also gaining something in return. What they give you fits you just right. — Calia Read

It is to the prodigals ... that the memory of their Father's house comes back. If the son had lived economically he would never have thought of returning. — Simone Weil

If we didn't kill all of these animals and eat them, then we wouldn't have to breed all of these cows, pigs, chickens, and other livestock. If we didn't breed these animals, then we wouldn't have to feed these animals. If we didn't have to feed them, we wouldn't have to devote all of the land to growing grains and legumes to feed to them. So then the forest could come back, wildlife could return, ocean life would return, the rivers would be clean again, the air would be clean again, and our health would return. This is achievable by switching to a plant-based diet and encouraging other people to do the same. Educate yourself and others. Show them that there are delicious and nutritious alternatives to eating meat, and that by eating meat they are contributing to the pollution of the planet. There are plenty of plant foods that will provide you with more than enough nutrients to be healthy. — Joseph P. Kauffman

A few miles away across the East River was the apartment he could never get used to, the job where he had nothing to do, the dozen or so people he knew slightly and cared about not at all: a fabric of existence as blank and seamless as the freshly plaster wall he passed. Soon his wife would return from New Jersey. Soon everyone would be back, and things would go on much as they had before. From the street outside came the sound of laughter and shouting, bottles breaking, voices droning in the warm air, and children playing far past their bedtime. It all meant nothing whatever to Lowell. Standing in the parlor of a house no longer his, listening to the voices of people whose lives were closed to him forever, contemplating a future much like his past, he realized that it was finally too late for him. Everything had gone wrong, and he had succeeded at nothing, and he was never going to have any kind of life at all. — L.J. Davis

Regret is a painful thing. Few people understand that there are three important things that leave us and can never return. Words. Time. Opportunity. These are things we can never get back. — Kathryn Perez

I thought the Invalids were beasts; I thought they would rip me apart. But these people saved me, and gave me the softest place to sleep, and nursed me back to health, and haven't asked for anything in return.
The animals are on the other side of the fence: monsters wearing uniforms. They speak softly, and tell lies, and smile as they're slitting your throat. — Lauren Oliver

I also want to return to doing stand-up. I've become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again. — Johnny Vegas

You've seen a herd of goats
going down to the water.
The lame and dreamy goat
brings up the rear.
They are worried faces about that one,
but now they're laughing,
because look, as they return,
the goat is leading!
They are many different kind of knowing.
The lame goat's kind is a branch
that traces back to the roots of presence.
Learn from the lame goat,
and lead the herd back home. — Rumi

Your footsteps are the road, wanderer, and nothing else
there is no road, it is born of walking
and looking back, you gaze upon the path
to which you never shall return
there is no road, wanderer
only wakes upon the sea — Antonio Machado

Finally, he smiled, and although his smile was bumpy because some of his teeth were jagged and broken, it was a warming, infectious smile that was reflected in his eyes. It made her smile widely in return. She felt as if the room had been lit up. He held out his arms, and she went across the room to him, almost running. She buried her face in his shirt, her nose wrinkling up as the scent of his cologne mixed with the nutty, sourish smell of camphor that filled the room. He put his arms around her, but gently, so that there was space between his forearms and her back, holding her as if she was to fragile to hug properly. Awkwardly, he patted her light, bushy aureole of dark brown hair, repeating: Good girl. Fine daughter. — Helen Oyeyemi

People can hold things back without outright lying, Kerry. People can care about each other without wanting something in return. No doubt, he had good reasons for not making a move. — Kelly Moran

Sting told me if I love somebody I should set them free.
I doubt Sting ever loved anyone with wings. If he did he might rethink such a stupid sentiment.
I suppose the point is to wait for your love to come back to you voluntarily.
I wonder if there's a difference between setting something free and letting it go?
I probably did it wrong.
I should stop taking advice from my radio.
I worry that you're lost.
I keep a heart-shaped cage unlocked for you, out on the street where it can easily be seen.
So if one day you return at least you'll have a place to stay. — Erin Morgenstern

Religion is trust, and that trust arose in the beginning from the impressions made on the mind and heart of man by the order and wisdom of nature, and more particularly, by those regularly recurring events, the return of the sun, the revival of the moon, the order of the seasons, the law of cause and effect, gradually discovered in all things, and traced back in the end to a cause of all causes, by whatever name we choose to call it. — Friedrich Max Muller