Someone I Once Knew Quotes & Sayings

When I say I'm going to forget you I know it's impossible to forget someone I once knew. What I want is to erase you from my thoughts and purge you from my memories. I'm saying it's what I wish for, not what is or could ever be. — Donna Lynn Hope

I knew that Malcolm X had an almost fanatical obsession about time. "I have less patience with someone who doesn't wear a watch than with anyone else , for this type is not time-conscious," he had once told me. — Malcolm X

I said once that my idea of happiness is to always be with you, and it is. I'm always going to think of you as the source of everything. To me, the sun rises and sets on you. You make all things true. I am in love with you, and I cannot imagine being in love with anyone else. It would be like becoming someone else. Your name was the first word for love I ever knew. — Sarah Rees Brennan

I am learning to see. I don't know why it is, but everything enters me more deeply and doesn't stop where it once used to. I have an interior that I never knew of ... What's the use of telling someone that I am changing? If I'm changing, I am no longer who I was; and if I am something else, it's obvious that I have no acquaintances. And I can't possibly write to strangers. — Rainer Maria Rilke

And I thought I knew him. I knew him; I repeat it in my head bitterly. It's a funny thing to say, you know, to think that you know someone. Well, maybe once I DID know him, but I just wasn't smart enough to notice him change, because people do change, sometimes we just choose not to notice it. — Melanie Sargsian

Though Alec had never seen the occupants of the first floor loft, they seemed to be engaged in a tempestuous romance. Once there had been a bunch of someone's belongings strewn all over the landing with a note attached to a jacket lapel addressed to "A lying liar who lies." Right now there was a bouquet of flowers taped to the door with a card tucked among the blooms that read I'M SORRY. That was the thing about New York: you always knew more about your neighbors' business than you wanted to. — Cassandra Clare

I was slow to pick up on their hints. I knew what the Selection was, but never, not even once, had it been suggested as an option for any of us, let alone me.
"No."
Mom put up her hands, cautioning me. "Just listen-"
"A Selection?" I burst out. "That's insane!"
"Eadlyn, you're being irrational. "
I glared at her. "You promised- you promised- you'd never force me into marrying someone for an alliance. How is this any better?"
"Hear us out," she urged.
"No!" I shouted. "I won't do it. — Kiera Cass

Uh, Miss Carlson," I said, standing at her desk after everybody else had gone on to their next class, "somebody told me you went to that guy's funeral the one the highway patrol shot."
"Yes," SHe said. "I did."
She didn't look like she was mad at me about it. She had real long eyelashes. I bet she was good-looking when she was young.
"Was he a relative or something?" That was what I was afraid of.
"No. Not even a friend really." She paused, like she was hunting for the right words. Finally she said, "I read a book once that ended with the words 'the incommunicable past' You can only share the past with someone who's shared it with you. So I can't explain to you what Mark was to me, exactly. I knew him a long time ago. — S.E. Hinton

Clean boyfriend someday. I love you. Joe. On the other side was a photograph of the Sylvia Beach Hotel on the Oregon coast, where we'd stayed together once. I stared at the photograph for several moments, a series of feelings washing over me in waves: grateful for a word from someone I knew, nostalgic for Joe, disappointed that only one person had written to me, and heartbroken, unreasonable as it was, that the one person who had wasn't Paul. I bought two bottles of Snapple lemonade, a king-sized Butterfinger, and a bag of Doritos and went outside and sat on the front steps, devouring the things I'd purchased while reading the postcard over and over again. After a while, I noticed a box in the corner of the porch stuffed — Cheryl Strayed

She turned down her street once more, glaring at the garish lights someone had put up along their house. Might as well light the roof with "Santa Park Here". Sheesh. The closer she got to home, though, the lower her heart sank. The overly bright house looked suspiciously like ... No. Oh, no. He wouldn't. He had. Light up animated animals were dotted all over her lawn. The circle of life has apparently found our power outlet. And why the fuck is there a Star of David on my roof? She wasn't exactly the most church-going member of the community, but you'd think Simon would know what religion she was. After all, she knew exactly who was going to officiate at his funeral. She picked up her cell phone and called Emma. "I'm going to kill him. — Dana Marie Bell

Someone once asked me if I knew the feeling of fear. Oh, I knew fear. Well, really speaking I never feared any fucker at that time; I've got to be honest. But I knew fear, the fear of losing! There was never any fear of combat! My father instilled that fear in to me and that was what drove me on to win ... the fear of what was to come after you went home saying you'd lost! — Stephen Richards

Once I had been jerked back to reality, like I was in a log on Splash Mountain and someone quickly applied the brakes, I knew this had been a terrible choice, but I was in it now. There was no getting out; there was no abandoning the mission. — Laurie Notaro

I'm positive I wouldn't consider having sex with Guy if I hadn't already had sex beforehand. I always knew I wanted my first time to be with someone I loved and who loved me, which it was ... but shouldn't I want that for every
time? I disagree with what Amy said about how once you go all the way, you can't go back to "everything but." But now that I have done it, it doesn't seem nearly as big a deal to do it again. — Daria Snadowsky

I wondered whether I wanted to hear more. The Jean business was long over, but even when you have ceased to love someone, that does not necessarily bring an indifference to a past shared together. Besides, though love may die, vanity lives on timelessly. I knew that I must be prepared to hear things I should not like. Yet, although where unfaithfulness reigns, ignorance may be preferable to knowledge, at the same time, once knowledge is brutally born, exactitude is preferable to uncertainty. — Anthony Powell

There are nonreaders, of course. I knew a man in his nineties who, when he learned that I was a writer, admitted to me that he had tried to read a book, once, long before I was born, but he had been unable to see the point of it, and had never tried again. I asked him if he remembered the name of the book, and he told me, in the manner of someone who tried to eat a snail once and did not care for it, and who does not need to remember the breed of the snail, that one was much like another, surely. — Neil Gaiman

I looked out of the window and saw him sitting in the early rays of the sun, a dark silhouette in the sand, motionless as a rock, and knew at once that I had substituted one memory for another and that this one would leave me with as little peace as the other one had. I would exist in someone else's mind, without knowing who I was in there. — Cees Nooteboom

I used to think I couldn't go a day without your smile. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back.
Then, that day arrived and it was so damn hard but the next was harder. I knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and I wasn't going to be okay for a very long time.
Because losing someone isn't an occasion or an event. It doesn't just happen once. It happens over and over again. I lose you every time I pick up your favorite coffee mug; whenever that one song plays on the radio, or when I discover your old t-shirt at the bottom of my laundry pile.
I lose you every time I think of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. I go to bed at night and lose you, when I wish could tell you about my day. And in the morning, when I wake and reach for the empty space across the sheets, begin to lose you all over again. — Lang Leav

Today the tower's flock, the usual birds, flew in a kind of scatter pattern, their paths intricately chaotic, the bunch parting and interweaving like boiling pasta under a pot's lifted lid. It appeared someone had given the birds new instructions, had whispered that there was something to avoid, or someone to fool. I once heard Perkus Tooth say that he'd woken that morning having dreamed an enigmatic sentence: "Paranoia is a flower in the brain." Perkus offered this, then smirked and bugged his eyes
the ordinary eye, and the other. I played at amazement (I was amazed, anyway, at the fact that Perkus dreamed sentences to begin with). Yet I hadn't understood what the words meant to him until now, when I knew for a crucial instant that the birds had been directed to deceive me. That was when I saw the brain's flower. Perkus had, I think, been trying to prepare me for how beautiful it was. — Jonathan Lethem

Ever heard someone tell you that hard physical labor can be soothing? Can take your mind off your problems? Can leave you feeling better? I'd heard that. In my opinion, hard physical labor gives you blisters, and the only real distraction I got was trying to remember the spells I'd once known for curing them. He was much better than me, by the way; turns out there is even skill involved in digging holes. Who knew? — Steven Brust

Gilderoy Lockhart is also a lot like someone I once knew, but I don't think I'd better elaborate! — J.K. Rowling

I have not yet proven myself."
"I don't care if you succeed or not."
"But I do. And pretending. there is a future for us, allowing myself to hope, to-" he reached out and touched her soft cheek.
"It would only make it more difficult for me when the inevitable happens." He held her gaze, willing her to see all the sentiments he knew he should not express.
"The inevitable?"
He sighed. "When you marry someone else." There he'd said it. What should she do now, now that he had taken her no doubt light flirtation and carried it out to its logical conclusion like a killjoy?
"Who says it's inevitable?" She pouted, and he saw a glimpse of the adorable little girl she's once been.
He smiled indulgently. "I do." He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek.
"And it's time that you accepted that fact as well."
He resolutely stepped to the door and gestured for her to precede him from the room. — Julie Klassen

I knew a girl, once, immortal like me-"
"And she was with someone mortal?" said Alec. "What happened?"
"He died," Magnus said. There was a finality to the way he said it that spoke of a deeper grief than words could paint. — Cassandra Clare

Once again I had the desolating sense of having all along ignored what was finest in him. Perhaps it was just the incongruity of seeing him aloft and stricken, since he was by nature someone who carried others. I didn't think he knew how to act or even how to feel as the object of help. — John Knowles

Was I wilfully blind when I married Michael? Of course I was. I knew about his heart condition - everyone did. But I fell in love with him and decided it didn't matter. We were going to live for ever, somehow. Now I know that the fact that we had the same initials, were both expatriates, had gone to the same university, and were of medium build made the relationship highly determined. But I might have done the research and discovered his short life expectancy or talked to psychologists about the pain of grieving or read books about the sadness of widowhood. But I didn't do any of those things. I looked away from those sad certainties and pretended that they weren't there.
Love is blind, not, as in mythology, because Cupid's arrows are random but because, once struck by them, we are left blind. When we love someone, we see them as smarter, wittier, prettier, stronger than anyone else sees them. — Margaret Heffernan

She had the look of someone who'd declared herself, and seeing it, my indignation collapsed and her mutinous bath turned into something else entirely. She'd immersed herself in forbidden privileges, yes, but mostly in the belief she was worthy of those privileges. What she'd done was not a revolt, it was a baptism. I saw then what I hadn't seen before, that I was very good at despising slavery in the abstract, in the removed and anonymous masses, but in the concrete, intimate flesh of the girl beside me, I'd lost the ability to be repulsed by it. I'd grown comfortable with the particulars of evil. There's a frightful muteness that dwells at the center of all unspeakable things, and I had found my way into it. As Handful began to shove the vessel back across the piazza, I tried to speak. ". . . . . . Wait. . . . . . I'll. . . . . . help . . ." She turned and looked at me, and we both knew. My tongue would once again attempt its suicide. — Sue Monk Kidd

Ah, the beautiful Celine," Desmund said, earning a smile from her. "Did I ever tell you that you remind me of a courtesan I knew once in King George's court? She was stunning to look upon and much sought after."
Celine toyed with her hair. "You flatter me, Desmund. Was she someone of noble birth?"
"No, but I believe she serviced a duke or two."
I choked on my water. Tristan reached over to pat my back, while smiling graciously at the outraged woman. — Karen Lynch

Why do you keep staring at me?" I muttered under my breath.
He glanced around to make sure no one was listening and then leaned towards me. His voice was hushed. "You have pen on your face. Here," he said, touching the space by his nose.
"Oh." I felt my face go red as I wiped my cheek with my hand.
"That and you remind me of someone I know. Or once knew. But I can't place who it is."
"I thought you didn't have any friends," I challenged.
Dante smiled. "I don't. Only enemies. Which doesn't bode well for you, considering the fact that you must resemble one of them. — Yvonne Woon

When I was younger, I thought the worst part about love was needing it. And that once you got it, no matter what kind it was, you would lose it. But by then you knew how it tasted, how it sounded, how it felt. To have someone whose presence brought you the utmost comfort. To have someone else whose brain fascinated you. To have someone special whose heart harmonized with yours. So although the worst part about love may be needing it, I have learned that the best part is having it. And that, to me, is what truly matters. — Alice

I used to think truth was eternal, that once I knew, once I saw, it would be with me forever, a constant by which everything else could be measured. I know now that this isn't so, that most truths are inherently unretainable, that we have to work hard all our lives to remember the most basic things. Society is no help. It tells us again and again that we can most be ourselves by acting and looking like someone else ... — Lucy Grealy

I hated when people thought they knew everything there was to know about a person. There was no room to be anything different in their minds. Once someone else decided who you were, you had to be that person forever, even if it wasn't really who you wanted to be. How could anyone be. How could anyone know who they really were with all of this outside pressure to be what others expected? — Shana Norris

Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone's been missing too long. I have to think my mother felt something like that. — Leif Enger

On the other hand, men are sometimes wildly inappropriate in the way they share with women. By a show of hands, how many of you have seen a strange penis on the street? On the subway? At a sleepover? I was once walking with my friend Keri in the middle of the day and some guy asked us for the time. When we looked down at our watches, his dick was in his hands. We giggled and screamed and ran away. We were probably ten. I have been really drunk in high school and had a guy try to fool around with me. I have been called a bitch and a lesbian when I rejected a guy in college. I have locked eyes with various subway masturbators. I have been mugged but not raped, pushed and spit on by someone I knew, and forced to pull over in a road-rage incident where a man stuck his head into my car and told me he was going to "cum in my face." And I count myself very lucky. That is what "very lucky" feels like. Oof. — Amy Poehler

Someone once pulled me aside and said it was all right to succeed, and I realised that I knew what failure felt like, but I didn't know what success felt like. I've carried that with me ever since. — Nick Frost

The thing is, I don't know if these stories he was telling were mine, or his, or someone else's. You spend your life among words, listening, making sense out of what you say and out of what you imagine other people are saying to you, believing that something in particular happened like this or that, as a result of this or that, with these or those consequences. But it is never so simple, is it? I suppose that if we read about ourselves in a book, we wouldn't recognize ourselves, we wouldn't realize that those people doing certain things and behaving in a particular manner are us. I always believed that I knew Alejandro, that I knew him intimately, I mean, the way you might know a doll you've once taken to pieces. But it wasn't true. — Alberto Manguel

I used to think that once we started going out, Derek would change. When I admitted that to Tori, she nearly laughed herself into an aneurysm and gave me a lecture on the stupidity of expecting to change a guy. Maybe I didn't have her dating experience, but I knew you didn't go out with someone because you thought you'd change him. That wasn't what I'd meant. I liked Derek the way he was. I'd just hoped getting closer would mean landing on the sharp side of his tongue less often. — Kelley Armstrong

Someone who knew me well once accused me of being unromantic. And that's probably true: I don't trust romance. — Jamaica Kincaid

But here's the thing about having been in love that first time: I always knew, every time after, that what I was faced with was a pale imitation. I never found someone else I could trust with my soul. After that first time, nothing else was acceptable. — Courtney Milan

Alex leaned over and treated me to a Rhett Butler kiss, slow and deep but not too sweet. He once told Scarlett something to the effect of how badly she needed kissing, and by someone who knew what he was doing. Alex knew what he was doing. By the time he finished proving it, I was breathless. I rested my head on his shoulder, basking in his warmth and filling my lungs with his scent. "What was that for?"
"That was to show you how glad I am that we got out of that mess in one piece and that we're here together." He extracted his arm from around my shoulders and sat back. "Now let's talk about your crazy stunt."
Damn it, Rhett did that, too. He'd kiss Scarlett silly, then lecture her. — Suzanne Johnson

We'd walk home together in the foggy summer night and I'd tell her about sex; the good stuff, like how it could be warm and exciting
it took you away
and the not-so-good things, like how once you showed someone that part of yourself, you had to trust them one thousand percent and anything could happen. Someone you thought you knew could change and suddenly not want you, suddenly decide you made a better story than a girlfriend. Or how sometimes you might think you wanted to do it and then halfway through or afterward realize no, you just wanted the company, really; you wanted someone to choose you, and the sex part itself was like a trade-off, something you felt like you had to give to get the other part. I'd tell her that and help her decide. I'd be a friend. — Sara Zarr

I read a book once - about love that was developed and love that just is," I paused. "And when I read the part about love that just is I scoffed. I knew better. I knew that it was merely words written by some shallow man that wanted to say what he had to say. And then I met you. And I now, Kelli, know what it is that books are written about. I know what people write poems about, I know what it feels like to know, and I do mean know what it feels like to be certain that someone loves you unconditionally. Love that just is, — Scott Hildreth

I felt I had taken someone who once knew how to draw a dog and turned him into someone who instead knew only how to draw shapes. — Hanya Yanagihara