So Take Me As I Am Quotes & Sayings

I think one of the keys to happiness is accepting that I am never going to be perfectly happy. Life is uncomfortable. So I might as well get busy loving the people around me. I'm going to stop trying so hard to decide whether they are the "right people" for me and just take deep breaths and love my neighbors. I'm going to take care of my friends. I'm going to find peace in the 'burbs. I'm going to quit chasing happiness long enough to notice it smiling right at me. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I've been miserable. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I've wanted to pound down your doora million times. But I kept telling myself you just needed your space. That you'd sort your shit out. So I give you space. Then Riley tells me you're as miserable as I am. So I agree to come here. I had it all worked out in my head, Mays. I was going to come here and beg you to take me back. Hell, I was going to get on my knees if I had to. Because all I know is that I can't be without you. — A Meredith Walters

The individual who rebels against the arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your hypocritical respect; I prefer to be happy.
The inventors of the Christian marriage have done well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust goes into the formation of new beings?
Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me.
Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

160Any change makes me apprehensive, even if it offers the greatest promise of improving my condition, and I am persuaded by this natural instinct of mine that I must take heed if I wish that the threads which the Fates spin so thin and weak in my case to be spun to any length. My great thanks, to my well-wishers and friends, who think so kindly of me as to undertake my welfare, but at the same time a most humble request to protect me in my current condition from any disturbance. — Immanuel Kant

Apologizing to me again, thought Miles miserably. For me. He keeps telling me I'm all right - and then apologizing. Inconsistent, Father.He shuffled back and forth across the room again, and his pain burst into speech. He flung his words against the deaf door, "I'll make you take back that apology! I am all right, damn it! I'll make you see it. I'll stuff you so full of pride in me there'll be no room left for your precious guilt! I swear by my word as Vorkosigan. I swear it, Father," his voice fell to a whisper, "Grandfather. Somehow, I don't know how . . . — Lois McMaster Bujold

I am half inclined to think we are all ghosts ... it is not only what we have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are dormant all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so miserably afraid of the light, all of us. — Henrik Ibsen

If you would take one step forward, darling, you could cry in my arms. And while you do, I'll tell you how sorry I am for everything I've done -" Unable to wait, Ian caught her, pulling her tightly against him. "And when I'm finished," he whispered hoarsely as she wrapped her arms around him and wept brokenly, "you can help me find a way to forgive myself."
Tortured by her tears, he clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper: "I'm sorry," he told her. He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. "I'm sorry." Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his. "I'm so damned sorry. — Judith McNaught

A few seconds more and the Negress will sing. It seems inevitable, so strong is the necessity of this music: nothing can interrupt it, nothing which comes from this time in which the world has fallen; it will stop by itself, as if by order. If I love this beautiful voice it is especially because of that: it is neither for its fulness nor its sadness, rather because it is the event for which so many notes have been preparing, from so far away, dying that it might be born. And yet I am troubled; it would take so little to make the record stop: a broken spring, the whim of Cousin Adolphe. How strange it is, how moving, that this hardness should be so fragile. Nothing can interrupt it yet it can break it.
The last chord has died away. In the brief silence which follows I feel strongly that there is, that SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED.
Silence.
SOME OF THESE DAYS
YOU'LL MISS ME HONEY — Jean-Paul Sartre

Words

Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.
Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren't good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair. — Anne Sexton

I grew up loving action movies and films that were set in supernatural, unimaginable places. So I take being a woman in the film industry who is able to do action movies very seriously because I'm making the kind of movies that I wanted to watch as I was a kid and that inspired me and are the reason as to why I am here. — Zoe Saldana

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point ... You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that ... (Much Ado About Nothing) — William Shakespeare

The voice of grief is rather convincing, isn't it? It tells you you're "too old," "not good enough," or "not worthy enough" for another chance at life, that starting over is impossible. This voice in your head is the first thing you hear in the morning and the last thing you hear at night. It drives with you to work. It stays with you at lunch. Its message is so consistent that because of its repetitive power, you may be inclined to believe it. But, as persuasive as the voice of grief is, everything it says is a lie.
It's all a pack of lies.
Do you want the truth? If you do, then start listening to life calling to you inside your grief.
How? Every time you are yearning to be held and loved, to laugh again, listen to your yearning. Do not listen to your fear . . . Listen to life calling you, "I am here, come on over. Take a chance on me. I am your life, and you're all that I've got. — Christina Rasmussen

I deserve this shrimp. Born to people who clearly shouldn't have reproduced, I date my best friend and turn him gay, date another man who doesn't know he's gay, almost have dinner with a third man who's more interested in his reflection than me, and land on a yeti who turns out to be a millionaire playboy.

"I lost the man I thought of as a father, had my thirtieth birthday party minus any family, and now I'm being dissed in the gossip rags. I am only human and I can take no more, so, yes, I have consumed my body weight in wine and I plan on eating this whole goddamn plate of shrimp. — L.A. Fiore

Nothing had been the same; and this slight, all-pervading instability, had given her greater pain than if all had been too entirely changed for her to recognise it. I begin to understand now what heaven must be-and, oh! the grandeur and repose of the words-"The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." Everlasting! "From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." That sky above me looks as though it could not change, and yet it will. I am so tired-so tired of being whirled on through all these phases of my life, in which nothing abides by me, no creature, no place; it is like the circle in which the victims of earthly passion eddy continually. I am in the mood in which women of another religion take the veil. I seek heavenly steadfastness in earthy monotony. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time; my heart was full.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. — Charlotte Bronte

I want to keep audiences off balance, so they don't know who I am or how to take me. If I duck and weave, as Frank Bruno might say, I'll have a longer shelf life. — Robert Carlyle

I am going to make you what you may perhaps consider rather a singular proposition. It is this, that if you don't like me, say so at once, and we will part now, before we have time to know anything more of each other, and I will endeavour not to cross your path again unless you seek me out. But if on the contrary, you do like me, - if you find something in my humour or turn of mind congenial to your own disposition, give me your promise that you will be my friend and comrade for a while, say for a few months at any rate. I can take you into the best society, and introduce you to the prettiest women in Europe as well as the most brilliant men. I know them all, and I believe I can be useful to you. But if there is the smallest aversion to me lurking in the depths of your nature" - here he paused, - then resumed with extraordinary solemnity - "in God's name give it full way and let me go, - because I swear to you in all sober earnest that I am not what I seem! — Marie Corelli

I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me." "That I never should, sir: you know - " Impossible to proceed. — Charlotte Bronte

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen)
What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
of sitting out on the sand to watch
the moon rise. Full tonight.
So we go
and the moon rises, so beautiful it
makes me shudder, makes me think about
time and space, makes me take
measure of myself: one iota
pondering heaven. Thus we sit,
I thinking how grateful I am for the moon's
perfect beauty and also, oh! How rich
it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
leans against me and gazes up into
my face. As though I were
his perfect moon. — Mary Oliver

I'm not crying out for help, but I am sharing my experience in the hopes that readers will get something out of it. I'm not the one who gets to decide what that is, if anything. I'm just starting the "journey" if you will, so I can't possibly know yet what the "message" of my life really is. I only know what has happened so far, and how I've felt up until this moment. I agree that reading about the pain of others is concerning when they are still hurting and in the same situation as when they wrote about it. But what can you do? You can reach out, ask how you can help and be there to listen. You can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. You can't love someone who doesn't love themselves enough to take care of themselves and stay out of bad situations. Believe me, I know this. — Ashly Lorenzana

BEATRICE
Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.
BENEDICK
Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.
BEATRICE
I took no more pains for those thanks than you take
pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would
not have come.
BENEDICK
You take pleasure then in the message?
BEATRICE
Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's
point ... You have no stomach,
signior: fare you well.
Exit
BENEDICK
Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in
to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that ... — William Shakespeare

I told her, Don't touch me that way. Don't come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life - the life we make together. Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted. — Dorothy Allison

Wait a second," Four says. I turn toward him, wondering which version of Four I'll see now-the one who scolds me, or the one who climbs Ferris wheels with me. He smiles a little, but the smile doesn't spread to his eyes, which look less tense and worried.
"You belong here, you know that?" he says. "You belong with us. It'll be over soon, so just hold on, okay?"
He scratches behind his ear and looks away, like he's embarrassed by what he said.
I stare at him. I feel my heartbeat everywhere, even in my toes. I feel like doing something bold, but I could just as easily walk away. I am not sure which option is smarter, or better. I am not sure that I care.
I reach out and take his hand. His fingers slide between mine. I can't breathe.
I stare up at him, and he stares down at me. For a long moment, we stay that way. Then I pull my hand away and run after Uriah and Lynn and Marlene. Maybe now he thinks I'm stupid, or strange. Maybe it was worth it. — Veronica Roth

Emily,' she said, 'I am going to ask you to Mallowe on the 2nd. I want you to help me to take care of people and keep them from boring me and each other, though I don't mind their boring each other half so much as I mind their boring me. I want to be able to go off and take my nap at any hour I choose. I will *not* entertain people. What you can do is to lead them off to gather things or look at church towers. I hope you'll come. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

I wished for death," he whispered, and the words took the smile from both our lips.
His gaze met mine again, this time it was earnest and beseeching. "I knew I could not leave you behind, so I planned to kill you first. I could not. I sat here with the pistol at your head for a long time. I thought of...how much you loved me, that you would make such a request, and...I could not. So I am chained here in this life, with you." He shook his head quickly. "Non, that did not sound as it should. I...will not betray you by leaving you alone, and I cannot take you with me, so I will remain, because I love you. — W.A. Hoffman

It's kind of like this," Decker said: "You wake up in the middle of the night and you're dying for a glass of milk. So you stumble out of bed, stub your toe in the darkness, scream with pain, and limp your way to the refrigerator. You open it up and the light is brilliant. You're saved. Then you fold back the paper container, open up the milk, take a deep breath, and put it to your lips. Only
yhrch!
the milk is spoiled. Sure, you're bummed. You fold the thing close and put it back in the fridge. It's dark again. But as you're making your way to your lonely old bed, you think to yourself, Wait a minute, maybe that milk wasn't so bad. And I am still thirsty? So you do an about-face and go back to the fridge. The light warms you up again. You take a sip and yup, it's still spoiled. That, to me, is the fitting metaphor for most every relationship I've ever been in. — Ethan Hawke

The Eight Guiding Principles to Living a Spiritually Reliable Life: 1) I am committed to Divine higher guidance and I understand that I co-create my life with the Divine. 2) I am willing to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 3) I operate from a high level intention to serve. 4) My contribution to the world is an up level and I ask myself: How can I serve, rather than what can I get? 5) I take time to breathe, get calm and quiet my mind in order to hear God's whispers. 6) I hear, feel, see and sense Divine guidance as it arrives. 7) I show up where God needs me next, and in doing so, this allows my life to be utilized for a greater higher purpose. 8) I know that I am always connected to the Divine without interruption and there is no place God is not. — Richard Seaman

So you just kill people for power."
"As do you."
"How dare you-"
He laughs, loud. "You're free to lie to yourself, if it makes you feel better."
"I am not lying-"
"Why did it take you so long to break your connection with Jenkins?"
My mouth freezes in place.
"Why didn't you fight back right away? Why did you allow him to touch for as long as he did?"
My hands have begun to shake and I grip them, hard.
"You don't know anything about me."
"And yet you claim to know me so well."
I clench my jaw, not trusting myself to speak.
"At least I'm honest," he adds.
"You just agreed you're a liar!"
He raises his eyebrows. "At least I'm honest about being a liar. — Tahereh Mafi

So often has my judgment deceived me in my life, that I always suspect it, right or wrong,
at least I am seldom hot upon cold subjects. For all this, I reverence truth as much as any body; andif a man will but take me by the hand, and go quietly and search for itI'll go to the world's end with him:MBut I hate disputes. — Laurence Sterne

The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth. — Henry David Thoreau

When I suddenly see myself in the depths of the mirror, I take fright. I can scarcely believe that I have limits, that I am outlined and defined. I feel myself to be dispersed in the atmosphere, thinking inside other creatures, living inside things beyond myself. When I suddenly see myself in the mirror, I am not startled because I find myself ugly or beautiful. I discover, in fact, that I possess another quality. When I haven't looked at myself for some time, I almost forget that I am human, I tend to forget my past, and I find myself with the same deliverance from purpose and conscience as something that is barely alive. I am also surprised to find as I gaze into the pale mirror with open eyes that there is so much in me beyond what is known, so much that remains ever silent. — Clarice Lispector

I stared at our hands. "Am I ever going to see you again?"
"You better believe it," he said. "Didn't I promise you we could make out in a castle?"
Chuckling, I drew my hand back. "You did. And to take me on dates. Real dates with no swords or ghouls or angst."
"Well, there you go," he said. "As soon as we've saved the world from a demon invasion, it's you, me, and Applebee's."
I rolled my eyes, but I was grinning now. "Oh, the romance."
His smile slowly faded. "I will see you again," he said, serious this time. "I promise." He moved closer to me so that his translucent legs disappeared into the bed. "Mercer, I-"
And then, just like that, be blinked out and was gone. — Rachel Hawkins

In the modern era, many thinkers began to mistrust faith, viewing it as 'blind' and an enemy of reason. Their watchword was 'reason alone.' One of the difficulties of this stance is that reason cannot test its own reliability, any more than soapstone can test its own hardness. Any argument, accomplished by reasoning, that what reasoning accomplishes can be trusted, would be circular, because it would take for granted the very thing that it was trying to prove.
Suppose I am at the window of a burning building. Although I can hear the firemen calling to me from far below, I cannot see them because of all the smoke. They are telling me to jump. Though I may have every reason to believe that they will catch me in their net, I may not trust them enough to overcome my fear, and so, hesitating, I burn to death. Obviously, my reasons are not the same as trust; faith surpasses reason. Even so they are reasons for trust; though faith surpasses reason, it is not irrational. — J. Budziszewski

[ ... ] he played me the Fourth Prelude and Fugue (C-sharp minor). Now, I knew what to expect from Liszt at the pianoforte; but from Bach himself, much as I had studied him, I never expected what I learnt that day. For then I saw the difference between study and revelation; through his rendering of this single fugue Liszt revealed the whole of Bach to me, so that I now know of a surety where I am with him, can take his every bearing from this point, and conquer all perplexity and every doubt by power of strong faith. — Richard Wagner

I do not understand exactly what you mean by fear," said Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

Just doing the audition was going to be an experience, and I am a true collector of life experiences. I live for life experiences. I put them in my pocket like shiny rocks, and take them out every now and then to appreciate and reflect on them. I once read an article that the Eastern Indian culture considers those with AD(H)D to be old, wise souls that are coming to the end of their reincarnations, so they must pack as many life experiences and lessons into their few remaining lifetimes as possible. Makes sense to me--that's why we always have so much shit going on! — Stacey Turis

I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! — Charles Lamb

When he lay beside me with his dog-breath sighs, it was if he was saying, Give me your sadness. I will take it, as much as you need. If it kills us both, so be it. I am here. — Luis Carlos Montalvan

The Fourth Sign of The Zodiac (Part 3) by Mary Oliver

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you're in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it's happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.
Mary oliver — Mary Oliver

Jude," she whispered as she touched his face. "I'm so frightened of this. This bind that links us. It whispers to me to take what you're offering, but I fear the consequences. I have lived the consequences."
His fingertips traced the column of her throat down over the swells of her breasts where they lingered until her breath caught. "I am not your father, Isabella, and you are not your mother."
"I know, but - "
"There are no certainties in life," he murmured as he lowered his head and kissed the apex of her breast where her heart hammered so hard. "But I can give you this certainty. I love you. And I want you. I have wanted you for so long, and that feeling has only grown. There must be trust between us, Isabella. Passion is not enough for me. I want more from you."
"You ask for so much," she said, then trailed off.
"Not any more than I am offering you. — Charlotte Featherstone

The future can be a scary thing. Because it's something that's always left open for anything to happen. It's a total mystery. But at the same time, it's so exciting. Each decision we make can alter how our future will turn out, so how we end up in the future is really our decision. We never know what will be thrown at us, but it's up to each of us as to how we deal with whatever does come. No one else can decide that for us. While I might be wondering about what will happen down the road for me, and gt nervous about it now and then, I am also really hopeful for it because I know there will be so many windows of opportunity that can really change my life if I choose to take hold of them and not be afraid to go for it. — David Archuleta

If I'm afraid of someone on the street, I'll turn to him (it's always a boy) and say, "Excuse me, do you happen to know what time it is?" This is my way of saying to the person, "I see you as a friend, and there is no need to hurt me or take my stuff. Also, I don't even have a watch and I am probably not worth mugging." So far, it's worked like gangbusters ... And I've discovered that most people I'm afraid of are actually very friendly. — Rebecca Stead

I think modern education over-emphasizes the intellect. I suppose that comes from the scientific trend of the times. You cannot obtain a useful citizen if you only develop his intellect. We take children from their parents because these cannot give them an intellectual training. So far, good. But we fail to give them that training in character which parents alone can give. Home influence, as Grace Aguilar conceived it where has it gone? It strikes me that this is a grave danger for the future. We are rearing up a brood of crafty egoists, a generation whose earliest recollections are those of getting something for nothing from the State.
I am inclined to trace our present social unrest to this over-valuation of the intellect. It hardens the heart and blights all generous impulses. What is going to replace the home, Mr. Keith? — Norman Douglas

When I consider that the nobler animal have been exterminated here - the cougar, the panther, lynx, wolverine, wolf, bear, moose, dear, the beaver, the turkey and so forth and so forth, I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated country ... Is it not a maimed and imperfect nature I am conversing with? As if I were to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all it's warriors ... I take infinite pains to know all the phenomena of the spring, for instance, thinking that I have here the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I hear that it is but an imperfect copy that I possess and have read, that my ancestors have torn out many of the first leaves and grandest passages, and mutilated it in many places. I should not like to think that some demigod had come before me and picked out some of the best of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven and an entire earth. — Henry David Thoreau

Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me.
-All Quiet On The Western Front, Chapter 12 — Erich Maria Remarque

At the age when we are all of us most apt to take our colouring, in the form of a reflection from the colouring of other people, he had been sent abroad, and had been passed on from one nation to another, before there was time for any one colouring more than another to settle itself on him firmly. As a consequence of this, he had come back with so many different sides to his character, all more or less jarring with each other, that he seemed to pass his life in a state of perpetual contradiction with himself. He could be a busy man, and a lazy man; cloudy in the head, and clear in the head; a model of determination, and a spectacle of helplessness, all together. He had his French side, and his German side, and his Italian side
the original English foundation showing through, every now and then, as much as to say, Here I am, sorely transmogrified, as you see, but there's something of me left at the bottom of him still. — Wilkie Collins

I will tell you a story," Schmendrick said. "As a child I was apprenticed to the mightiest magician of all, the great Nikos, whom I have spoken of before. But even Nikos, who could turn cats into cattle, snowflakes into snowdrops, and unicorns into men, could not change me into so much as a carnival cardsharp. A last he said to me, 'My son, your ineptitude is so vast, your incompetence so profound, that I am certain you are inhabited by greater power than I have ever known. Unfortunately, it seems to work backwards at the moment, and even I can find no way to set it right. It must be that you are meant to find your own way to reach your power in time; but frankly, you should live so long as that will take you. Therefore I grant it that you shall not age from this day forth, but will travel the world round and round, eternally inefficient, until at last you come to yourself and know what you are. Don't thank me. I tremble at your doom. — Peter Beagle

Mooch? What does that word mean?"
Ellie smiled. "It's a term when you live with someone and take something freely from the person who has to work for it. It's not a good thing. It's hard to explain that one. I guess I could describe it as I'm a burden to him."
"How? He already had a room you could have."
Ellie struggled with her thoughts. Some words were hard to explain. "Yes. He did but usually you don't live with someone unless you are a couple. Then it is acceptable if you share food and a home. If you aren't, then both parties are supposed to work, similar to a partnership, be equal. I am not his girlfriend or his partner. He provides a home and food for me while I give him nothing in return. I'm a mooch."
"I think I understand." Breeze smiled. "And you are not a mooch. He doesn't know what one is so therefore you can't be what he doesn't know exists. — Laurann Dohner

Finally, let me share a feeling of mine, I hope it will not be misinterpreted as pride. I am seventy four now. But still, if they give me a duty in the wooden hut where I used to stay when I was a mentor long years ago, I will gladly run there and try to fulfill that duty. Perhaps, some of our friends can see that task as a simple and trivial one. But I have not underestimated this duty and would never do so. Even today, some people may consider our having lessons with the small circle of young scholars here as a simple and trivial job. However, in my opinion, this is the most important occupation that can take human to the highest levels. — M. Fethullah Gulen

So here I am, my affections torn between a postal service that never feeds me but can tackle a challenge and one that gives me free tape and prompt service but won't help me out when I can't remember a street name. The lesson to draw from this, of course, is that when you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. That may not be the profoundest of insights to take away from a morning's outing, but I did get a free doughnut as well, so on balance I guess I'm happy. — Bill Bryson

I smiled,Deoch, my heart is made of stronger stuff than glass. When she strikes she'll find it strong as iron-bound brass, or gold and adamant together mixed. Don't think I am unaware, some startled deer to stand transfixed by hunter's horns. It's she who should take care, for when she strikes, my heart will make a sound so beautiful and bright that it can't help but bring her back to me in winged light. — Patrick Rothfuss

Elizabeth," Jamie began gruffly, "there is aught I would speak of with you."
She lifted an eyebrow at his lordly tone. "Go ahead."
"It may take me a few hours to accustom myself to these possible future ways, but that does not mean I am weak or stupid."
Hours? She smiled. "I know that Jamie."
"Nor does that mean I have ceased being your lord. You will obey me in all things, as always."
"Of course, Jamie," she said meekly.
"And should you demand knowledge about this or that, I would give it to you because you required it, not because I thought you didn't know the answer already."
"Of course,"Jamie said arrogantly. "There would be no other reason to question you." Elizabeth suppressed her smile and was thankful that she was riding behind him so he didn't see the twinkle in her eyes. Heavens what an ego her husband had. — Lynn Kurland

This way," he murmurs and abruptly is inside me once more, but he doesn't start his usual punishing rhythm straight away. He leans over, releases my hands, and pulls me upright so I am practically sitting on him. His hands move up to my breasts, and he palms them both, tugging gently on my nipples. I groan, tossing my head back against his shoulder. He nuzzles my neck, biting down, as he flexes his hips, deliciously slowly, filling me again and again.
"Do you know how much you mean to me?" he breathes against my ear.
"No," I gasp.
He smiles against my neck, and his fingers curl around my jaw and throat, holding me fast for a moment. "Yes, you do. I'm not going to let you go." I groan as he picks up speed. "You are mine, Anastasia." "Yes, yours," I pant. "I take care of what's mine," he hisses and bites my ear. — E.L. James

So if you care to find me/ Look to the western sky/ As someone told me lately/ Everyone deserves the chance to fly!/ And if I'm flying solo/ At least I'm flying free/ Tell those who'd ground me/ Take a message back from me/ Tell them how I am defying gravity!/ I'm flying high defying gravity/ And soon I'll match them in renown./ And nobody in all of Oz/ No Wizard that there is or was/ Is ever gonna bring me down!/ — Stephen Schwartz

I don't want to...be like this," I whispered as I looked away, and once I said it, I didn't even want to take the words back. A weird sensation hit me, almost like...like relief. That didn't make sense. Or did it? "I don't like who I am."
My gaze returned to his, and the concern was still there, filling his hazel eyes and thinning out his mouth. Tears crawled up the back of my throat. Humiliating actually, to admit something so intimate like that, but now I wasn't the only one who knew this about myself. It wasn't my secret.
"It's okay. You're not going to feel that way forever." Rider smoothed his thumb along my jaw. I closed my eyes, wanting to believe him. Needing to. He kept his voice low as he spoke. "Nothing lasts forever, Mouse. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

How thin she is in her coffin, how sharp her nose has grown! Her eyelashes lie straight as arrows. And, you know, when she fell, nothing was crushed, nothing was broken! Nothing but that "handful of blood." A dessertspoonful, that is. From internal injury. A strange thought: if only it were possible not to bury her? For if they take her away, then ... oh, no, it is almost incredible that they take her away! I am not mad and I am not raving - on the contrary, my mind was never so lucid - but what shall I do when again there is no one, only the two rooms, and me alone with the pledges? Madness, madness, madness! I worried her to death, that is what it is! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

God still speaks to us. He speaks not from a life of ease, far removed from our suffering. He speaks from the cross, the same place of agony where we live. He speaks as one who joins our suffering wherever we are. He blesses us as he says, "I am with you now in your suffering. Take courage. Soon you will be with me in Paradise." So we realize that from the cross Jesus enacts the words of Aaron's benediction. Lifted on the rough beams, Jesus is yet God shining on us in favor. Even when we killed him, Jesus was gracious to us. Lined with pain, cut and bleeding, his countenance yet radiated love. The most shameful thing human beings have ever done, putting the incarnate Son of God to death, has become the greatest sign of his blessing grace. — Gerrit Scott Dawson

Miss Finch, it's not wise for officers to quarter in the same house with an unmarried gentlewoman. Have a care for your reputation, if your father does not."
"Have a care for my reputation?" She had to laugh. Then she lowered her voice. "This, from the man who flattened me in the road and kissed me without leave?"
"Precisely." His eyes darkened.
His meaning washed over her in a wave of hot, sensual awareness. Surely he wasn't implying ...
No. He wasn't implying at all. Those hard jade eyes were giving her a straightforward message, and he underscored it with a slight flex of his massive arms: I am every bit as dangerous as you suppose. If not more so.
"Take your kind invitation and run home with it. When soldiers and maids live under the same roof, things happen. And if you happened to find yourself under me again ... " His hungry gaze raked her body. "You wouldn't escape so easily."
She gasped. "You are a beast."
"Just a man, Miss Finch. Just a man. — Tessa Dare

The photographer from the magazine, Masao Kageyama, would ride along in the van that accompanied me. He'd take pictures as they drove along. It wasn't a real race, and there weren't any water stations, so I'd occasionally stop to get water from the van. The Greek summer is truly brutal, and I knew I'd have to be careful not to get dehydrated.
"Mr. Murakami," Mr. Kageyama said, surprised as he saw me getting ready to run, "you're not really thinking of running the whole route, are you?"
"Of course I am. That's why I came here."
"Really? But when we do these kinds of projects most people don't go all the way. We just take some photos, and most of them don't finish the whole route. So you really are going to run the
entire thing?"
Sometimes the world baffles me. I can't believe that people would really do things like that. — Haruki Murakami

I still love you," he says, "but I have to go my own way." "So you want to break up?" I ask, trembling. "I guess so," he says. I fall to the floor, like a woman in the twelfth century fainting at the sight of a hanging in her town square. Later, my mother comes home from a party and finds me catatonic, lying across the bed, surrounded by pictures of him and me, the mittens he bought me at Christmas folded beneath my cheek. I am crippled by what feels like sadness but what I will later diagnose as embarrassment. She tells me this is a great excuse: to take time for myself, to cry a bunch, to eat only carbohydrates slathered in cheese. "You will find," she says, "that there's a certain grace to having your heart broken." I will use this line many times in the years to come, giving it as a gift to anyone who needs it. — Lena Dunham

The sun is rising through a yellow, howling wind. Time for breakfast. Inside the trailer now, broiling bacon and frying eggs with good appetite, I hear the sand patter like rain against the metal walls and brush across the windowpanes. A fine silt accumulates beneath the door and on the window ledge. The trailer shakes in a sudden gust. All one to me
sandstorm or sunshine I am content, so long as I have something to eat, good health, the earth to take my stand on, and light behind the eyes to see by. — Edward Abbey

I know exactly how you feel," Schmendrick said eagerly. The unicorn looked at him out of dark, endless eyes, and he smiled nervously and looked at his hands. "It's a rare man who is taken for what he truly is," he said. "There is much misjudgment in the world. Now I knew you for a unicorn when I first saw you, and I know that I am your friend. Yet you take me for a clown, or a clod, or a betrayer, and so must I be if you see me so. The magic on you is only magic and will vanish as soon as you are free, but the enchantment of error that you put on me I must wear forever in your eyes. We are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream. Still I have read, or heard it sung, that unicorns when time was young, could tell the difference 'twixt the two - the false shining and the true, the lips' laugh and the heart's rue. — Peter S. Beagle

I'm not used to sugar-coating my words, Delia. I call 'em like I see 'em and sometimes I can be a dick." This wasn't news to me, not after the way he'd ended our conversation this morning. "Is that supposed to be an apology?" His chest shook as he laughed, the sound wrapping around me as I felt the reverberations on my cheek. "More like a heads up. You wanna do this thing with me, you better be prepared to brace and take me as I am - in bed and out." "This thing?" "Baby, you just gave yourself to me. When you got on your knees and crawled over my body so I could eat your pussy while you sucked my dick? That was the start of something between us. I'm not sure what to call it. Words are your thing, not mine. Feel free to put a name to it. — Rochelle Paige

Thou hast put me in this world for something, Lord; show me what that is, and help me to work out my life-purpose: I cannot do much, but as the widow put in her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and eternity too into thy treasury; I am all thine; take me, and enable me to glorify thee now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I have. — Charles Spurgeon

I don't see makeup as a defense. I see it as a creative outlet. I am a woman who has my extreme vulnerable side and my baggage
and at times I feel extremely weak. And who's to say a little mascara doesn't make you feel more confident when you pop it on and look in the mirror? It helps, especially in my position, where I have people waiting down the street to take pictures of me so they can evaluate and criticize every little flaw on my face. — Christina Aguilera

There is one thing that, more than any other, throws people absolutely off their balance - the thought that you are dependent upon them. This is sure to produce an insolent and domineering manner towards you. There are some people, indeed, who become rude if you enter into any kind of relation with them; for instance, if you have occasion to converse with them frequently upon confidential matters, they soon come to fancy that they can take liberties with you, and so they try and transgress the laws of politeness. This is why there are so few with whom you care to become more intimate, and why you should avoid familiarity with vulgar people. If a man comes to think that I am more dependent upon him than he is upon me, he at once feels as though I had stolen something from him; and his endeavor will be to have his vengeance and get it back. The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men, is to let it be seen that you are independent of them. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I do not fear being hurt, nor am I ever sorry should such pain take hold of me. My real fear would be to never know the the joy of loving someone so deeply as to be that vulnerable ... — Tonny K. Brown

Am I filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man's wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him? — Oswald Chambers

I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me - once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn - take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself. — Charles Fort

I do not teach truth as such; I do not transform myself into a diaphanous mouthpiece of eternal pedagogy: I settle accounts , however I can, on a certain number of problems; with you and with me or me, and through you, me and me, with a certain number of authorities represented here. I understand that the place I am now occupying will not be left out of the exhibit or withdrawn form the scene. Nor do I intend to withhold even that which I shall call, to save time, an autobiographical demonstration, although I must ask you to shift its sense a little and to listen to it with another ear. I wish to take a certain pleasure in this, so that you may learn this pleasure from me. — Jacques Derrida

Then, as we ascend into the fifth and final act of the show, we can choose what we want to take back with us: a piece of our underworld self that, frankly, the cheating boyfriend may need to meet, or the boss that doesn't appreciate you, or the terrorizing Bitch at school - or maybe you're the terrorizing Bitch, maybe I am. Some fragments that took their masks off while we were on this underworld journey sometimes walk quietly with me. Only I know that after the show they will be staying with me as my figurative New Renter in my seafront condo, down the street from Pituitary Lane, behind Heart Terrace. Then again, some unmasked Beings that I see during a performance find me once I'm back in my dressing room and receive from me the Okay you, thank you for the perspective and the vision, but in this century you can't just chop people's heads off and feed them to your cats, and I know these guys are bad guys, and thank you for the vision. So you can haunt me during the show again in Indy — Tori Amos

I went into the experience with the notion that I was merely going to get a taste of a deviant lifestyle. The Dom was charismatic and the kinky sex might be good if I could get past the whipping part, because there was no way I would ever think that was fun. I believed I could never be truly submissive or enjoy pain. I was so very wrong

My life changed forever. The connection between Dom and sub is one of the closest relationships two people can have. Give and take became more than words. They became the basis of my existence. My body is no longer my own. He has access to everything I am - privacy does not exist, but when he looks at me it's with love. There is no fear and no shame because I am safe. I will always be safe with him.

As my Master will be safe with me. — Debra Varva

Who are you?" I asked.
"Are we playing that game again?" she asked me with a nice smile. "Lana, sorry to disappoint you, but I really am in a hurry, so I will have to take a rain check on this. We can play later this evening, if you don't mind!"
"What game? I really mean it, who are you and why am I here?" I must have looked like I had really freaked out, and for a moment, she looked at me seriously. But then, she gave me another nice smile and kissed me on my cheek and said "Really babe, as much as I appreciate your playful morning mood, I really don't have time now. I have a big job interview today, remember? — Nico J. Genes

My dear," said my mother suddenly, "take the money and run on. I am going to faint." This was certainly the end for us both, I thought. How I cursed the cowardice of the neigbors; how I blamed my poor mother for her honesty and her greed, for her past foolhardiness and present weakness! We were just at the little bridge, by good fortune, and I helped her, tottering as she was, to the edge of the bank, where, sure enough, she gave a sigh and fell on my shoulder. I do not know how I found the strength to do it all, and I am afraid it was roughly done, but I managed to drag her down to the bank and a little way under the arch. Farther I could not mover her, for the bridge was too low to let me do more than crawl below it. So there we had to stay--my mother almost entirely visible and both of us within earshot of the inn. — Robert Louis Stevenson

As for suffering I do not wish even the slightest; as for happiness I am never satisfied. In this, there is no difference between others and me. Bless me so I may take joy in others' happiness. — Dalai Lama XIV

Starling lowered her voice, but it carried anyway. "He is FitzChivalry, son of Chivalry the Abdicated. And you are the Fool."
"Once, perhaps, I was the Fool. It is common knowledge here in Jhaampe. But now I am the Toymaker. As I no longer use the other title, you may take it for yourself if you wish. As for Tom, I believe he takes the title Bed Bolster these days."
"I will be seeing the Queen about this."
"A wise decision. If you wish to become her Fool, she is certainly the one you must see. But for now, let me show you something else. No, step back, please, so you can see it all. Here it comes." I heard the slam and the latch. "The outside of my door," the Fool announced gladly. "I painted it myself. Do you like it? — Robin Hobb

I look out again at the sun-my first full gaze. It is blood-red and men are walking about on rooftops. Everything above the horizon is clear to me. It is like Easter Sunday. Death is behind me and birth too. I am going to live now among the life maladies. I am going to live the spiritual life of the pygmy, the secret life of the little man in the wilderness of the bush. Inner and outer have changed places. Equilibrium is no longer the goal-the scales must be destroyed. Let me hear you promise again all those sunny things you carry inside you. Let me try to believe for one day, while I rest in the open, that the sun brings good tidings. Let me rot in splendor while the sun bursts in your womb. I believe all your lies implicitly. I take you as the personification of evil, as the destroyer of the soul, as the maharanee of the night. Tack your womb up on my wall, so that I may remember you. We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow ... — Henry Miller

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? — Kyung-Sook Shin

I am falling, tumbling through the air, but this time the darkness is alive around me, full of beating things, and I realize that I'm not surrounded by dark but have only had my eyes closed all this time. I open them, feeling silly, and at the same time a hundred thousand butterlies take off around me, so many of them in so many brilliant colors they are like a solid rainbow, temporarily obscuring the sun. But as they wing higher and higher they reveal a landscape below us, all green and gold and sun-drenched fields and pink-tinged clouds drifting underneath me, and the air around me is clear and blue and sweet smelling, and I'm laughing, laughing, laughing as I spin through the air because, of course, I haven't been falling all the time.
I've been flying. — Lauren Oliver

"You're thinking too much, as usual," I said.
A dismissive snort as he got to his feet. He tried running again, and didn't fall, but did more lurching than loping, his legs threatening to tangle at every step.
"Apparently this could take a while, so how about you practice and I'll head back to the house - "
He darted past me and veered to block my path.
I smiled. "I knew that'd work. So as I right? It's better when you act, not think?"
A sigh whistled out of his nostrils, condensation hanging in the frigid air.
"You hate that, don't you? We should keep a scorecard, see who's right more often: me or you."
He rolled his eyes.
"Not a chance, huh? You'd never live it down if I beat you. But I am right this time. Your body knows how to move as a wolf. You just need to shut your brain off and let your muscles do their thing." — Kelley Armstrong

Celeste walked up, as strong as I'd ever seen her, and whispered something into Maxon's ear.
When she was done, he smiled. "I don't think that will be necessary."
"Good." She left, closing the door behind her, and I stood to take whatever was coming.
"What was that about?" I asked, nodding toward the door.
"Oh, Celeste was making it clear that if I hurt you, she'd make me cry," he said with a smile.
I laughed. "I've been on the receiving end of those nails, so be careful there."
"Yes, ma'am. — Kiera Cass

I am a strong Christian. Not a perfect one - not close. But I strongly believe in God, Jesus, and the Bible. When I die, God is going to hold me accountable for everything I've done on earth. He may hold me back until last and run everybody else through the line, because it will take so long to go over all my sins. "Mr. Kyle, let's go into the backroom. . ." Honestly, I don't know what will really happen on Judgment Day. But what I lean toward is that you know all of your sins, and God knows them all, and shame comes over you at the reality that He knows. I believe the fact that I've accepted Jesus as my savior will be my salvation. But in that backroom or whatever it is when God confronts me with my sins, I do not believe any of the kills I had during the war will be among them. Everyone I shot was evil. I had good cause on every shot. They all deserved to die. — Chris Kyle

I'm incredibly proud to have been nominated in the past and it really means a lot to me because I do work very hard when I'm making a film and I do really do absolutely give my all. To get that kind of pat on the back, it's really amazing and also never something that I anticipated would possibly happen to me, ever. So I am very, very proud to have been there before. And, you know, the nice thing about nominations is that, same as awards, no one can actually take them away from you and I'm proud of that. — Kate Winslet

Are you planning on asking my daughter's permission to ravish me as I deserve? If so, please take heed when she informs you that I am lonely and need a woman in my life. She's been nagging me for the last five years to find one."
"In your dreams, bat boy. — Katie MacAlister

he leaned down and pressed his face to my belly.

"You're having my baby," he announced against my skin.

I felt my eyes well up and tears drip down my face. finally. He'd finally said it.

"Sure am," I replied, my hoarse voice belying the nonchalance of my words.

"I'm going to do my best, okay?" he said nervously. "I promise. I'll be a good dad to him."

"You're already a good dad."

But to this baby," he replied, lifting his face and pressing his hand to my belly. "I'm going to be a good dad to this baby."

"I never doubted that."

"I did," he confessed, his head rising to shamefully meet my eyes.

The truth of his words hit me like a ton of bricks, and I finally understood why he'd ignored the proof of our child for so long.

I nodded once, and he nodded back, as if, without words, we were making a pact then and there to take care of this baby we hadn't planned for or wanted. — Nicole Jacquelyn

I'm really not sure what people think or expect me to be, but I am surprised when people say, 'You're not supposed to be like that ... ' I'm not exactly sure what 'that' is, so I choose to take it as a compliment. — Jennifer Hudson

I am not asking you to understand, Papa. I'm asking for you to accept."
"Accept what?"
Me. Accept me, Papa. "My decision to live my own life as I see fit."
It is so quiet that I suddenly wish I could take it back. Sorry, it was only a terrible joke. I should like a new dress, please. — Libba Bray

-Paint-
My girlfriend is so besotted that she can't take her eyes off me. After we've turned out the light she puts on her night-vision goggles, and watched me as I sleep. Quite often I am woken by her sighing and involuntary yelps of happiness. This has been going on for years, and is showing no sign of abating. Once I asked her to stop all this infra-red activity, but it didn't really work; I'd wake up to find her covering me in luminous paint, and softly whispering, 'Sometimes I wonder if you know how much I love you. — Dan Rhodes

Has the gift of laughter been withdrawn from me? I protest that I do still, at the age of forty-seven, laugh often and loud and long. But not, I believe, so long and loud and often as in my less smiling youth. And I am proud, nowadays, of laughing, and grateful to any one who makes me laugh. That is a bad sign. I no longer take laughter as a matter of course. — Max Beerbohm

They want to do something - anything - to help me. Anything to change my situation. But they are as powerless as I am. The two of them are in a lifeboat, together, but so alone. The boat leaks, and they must bail in tandem to keep themselves afloat. It must be exhausting.
The terrible truth of their helplessness is almost too much to bear. I wish I would take them on board, but even if they could reach us, the captain would never allow it.
Right now it sucks to be me - but until now, it never occurred to me that it also sucks to be them. — Neal Shusterman

I am a star at rest, my daughter," answered Ramandu. "When I set for the last time, decrepit and old beyond all that you can reckon, I was carried to this island. I am not so old now as I was then. Every morning a bird brings me a fire-berry from the valleys in the Sun, and each fire-berry takes away a little of my age. And when I have become as young as the child that was born yesterday, then I shall take my rising again (for we are at earth's eastern rim) and once more tread the great dance." "In our world," said Eustace, "a star is a huge ball of flaming gas." "Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of. And in — C.S. Lewis

Say, "This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone." That which I created, I can demolish; that which is created by some one else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore, stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future. "Let the dead past bury its dead." The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever. (II. 225) — Swami Vivekananda

I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power — Maeve Binchy

It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
"Because, he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you - especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land some broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, - you'd forget me. — Charlotte Bronte

Look around. Take the tour. Fear hangs on the wall and shame sometimes. Emotional dislocation too. But I am brave in my admission. Are you? When no one is looking, I check to see if anyone seems as scared as me, or lonely, or shy, or insecure. Is it just me? I'm not so sure. Is your heart an onion too? Show me yours, I'll show you mine we used to say. Your turn. Peel away. — Nikki Grimes

We part, then, for the nonce, do we?'
'I fear so, sir.'
'You take the high road, and self taking the low road, as it were?'
'Yes, sir.'
'I shall miss you, Jeeves.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Who was that chap who was always beefing about gazelles?'
'The poet Moore, sir. He complained that he had never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad him with its soft black eye, but when it came to know him well, it was sure to die.'
'It's the same with me. I am a gazelle short. You don't mind me alluding to you as a gazelle, Jeeves?'
'Not at all, sir. — P.G. Wodehouse

I had to arrange things as well as I could. That's obviously a very bad place for the bed, in front of the door. For instance when the judge I'm painting at present comes he always comes through the door by the bed, and I've even given him a key to this door so that he can wait for me here in the studio when I'm not home. Although nowadays he usually comes early in the morning when I'm still asleep. And of course, it always wakes me up when I hear the door opened beside the bed, however fast asleep I am. If you could hear the way I curse him as he climbs over my bed in the morning you'd lose all respect for judges. I suppose I could take the key away from him but that'd only make things worse. It only takes a tiny effort to break any of the doors here off their hinges. — Franz Kafka

My native gifts are not remarkable, but I have a certain force of character which has enabled me in a measure to supplement my deficiencies. I have common-sense. Most people cannot see anything, but I can see what is in the front of my nose with extreme clearness; the greatest writers can see through a brick wall. My vision is not so penetrating. For many years I have been described as a cynic; I told the truth. I wish no one to take me for other than I am, and on the other hand I see no need to accept others' pretences. — W. Somerset Maugham

I am what I am, so take me as I am!. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe