Quotes & Sayings About Someone Who Isn't There For You

Actors, who should pride themselves on their singularity, are forever trying to be someone else. It isn't necessary for you, the actor, to like yourself - self-love isn't easy to come by for most of us - but you must learn to trust who you are. There is no one else like you. — Michael Shurtleff

If you know someone who's depressed, please resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn't a straightforward response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.
Try to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they're going through. Be there for them when they come through the other side. It's hard to be a friend to someone who's depressed, but it is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do. — Stephen Fry

There's a phenomenon I call the Helpless Traveler. If you're traveling with someone who's confident, organized, and decisive you become the Helpless Traveler: "Are we there yet?" "My bags are too heavy." "My feet are getting blisters." "This isn't what I ordered." We've all been that person. But if the person you're traveling with is helpless, then you become the one able to decipher train schedules, spend five hours walking on marble museum floors without complaint, order fearlessly from foreign menus, and haggle with crooked cabdrivers. Every person has it in him to be either the Competent Traveler or the Helpless Traveler. Because Joe is so clearheaded and sharp, I've been able to go through life as the Helpless Traveler. Which, now that I think about it, might not be such a good thing. It's a question for Joe. His — Maria Semple

Imagine what it would be like to have a bookshelf filled only with books that you really love. Isn't that image spellbinding? For someone who loves books, what greater happiness could there be? — Marie Kondo

A best friend isn't someone who's just always there for you.It's someone who understands you a bit more than you understand yourself — Anonymous

*The best way to describe Mr. Windling would be like this: You are at a meeting. You'd like to be away early. So would everyone else. There really isn't very much to discuss, anyway. And just as everyone can see Any Other Business coming over the horizon and is putting their papers neatly together, a voice says "If I can raise a minor matter, Mr. Chairman ... " and with a horrible wooden feeling in your stomach you know, now, that the evening will go on for twice as long with much referring back to the minutes of earlier meetings. The man who has just said that, and is now sitting there with a smug smile of dedication to the committee process, is as near Mr. Windling as makes no difference. And something that distinguishes the Mr. Windlings of the universe is the term "in my humble opinion," which they think adds weight to their statements rather than indicating, in reality, "these are the mean little views of someone with the social grace of duckweed". — Terry Pratchett

Listen my friend, if one person doesn't want the relationship, then it's simply not a fit. No sense trying to figure out why they don't want it. No sense blaming it on their commitment issues. No sense waiting around for them to realize they wanted it after all. Because it doesn't matter why they don't want it. What matters is that you are met heart-on by a fully engaged partner. If they don't want it, then you don't want it, because you don't want to be with someone who isn't there for it fully.
That's the thing about love relationship - it's an agreement that has to be signed by both souls. If one doesn't sign, then nothing has been lost. If it's not a fit for them, it's not a fit for you either. — Jeff Brown

There's a huge difference in sex and making love. We have sex with someone who can satisfy us physically, but we make love to someone who can satisfy us soulfully and eternally. Once you realize the fine-line between making love and having sex, you will understand the meaning of life! Life isn't only about survival, it's about living and so is making love. We have sex to satisfy our lust and hunger, which is nothing, but survival, but we make love to feed our soul and our mind, to fill a void that is there since a long time, that longs for a partner and that needs someone whom we want to spend the next morning with!
When you have sex just for physical pleasure, you are ashamed and guilty at one point of life or another, but when you make love to someone who means everything to you, you are always proud of it. Never in life, not even a single time, you regret that time and the moments spent with that person. You will always rejoice it and remember it with equal passion and joy. — Mehek Bassi

Huh. Well you and I just disagree. Maybe the world just feels differently to us. This is all going back to something that isn't really clear: that avant-garde stuff is hard to read. I'm not defending it, I'm saying that stuff - this is gonna get very abstract - but there's a certain set of magical stuff that fiction can do for us. There's maybe thirteen things, of which who even knows which ones we can talk about. But one of them has to do with the sense of, the sense of capturing, capturing what the world feels like to us, in the sort of way that I think that a reader can tell "Another sensibility like mine exists." Something else feels this way to someone else. So that the reader feels less lonely. — David Foster Wallace

Nevertheless, I still wait for someone. Who on earth am I waiting for, sitting here everyday? For what sort of person? Maybe what I'm waiting for isn't even a human. I dislike humans. No, I fear them. When I meet someone and indifferently exchange such greetings as 'How are you?' or 'It's become cold', greetings I don't want to make, I somehow get the unpleasant feeling that there is no such horrible liar in the whole world as I, and I wish I were dead. — Osamu Dazai

Trying to be white? What the hell does that mean? I've never understood that. How could anyone be white when they aren't white? Seems like a simple enough thing to prove, right? Hold out your arm next to someone else's arm and do a simple swatch test. Of course, what people mean when they say that is that there's some kind of authentic black experience that the accused isn't properly expressing. But what is the authentic experience? Clothes that wannabe gangbangers wear on the street? Hood style? What's authentic about that? For that matter, is fashion even a good marker of authenticity or race, anyway? Aren't clothes a second skin you wear over your real skin to obscure who you really are? Can they also express who you really are? — Ahmir Questlove Thompson

So what part did I play in all this? Well, none really. They completely ignored me for the whole twenty or thirty minutes. Which was perfectly fine, of course, I didn't mind. But it did puzzle me, because early every morning they would come yelping and scratching around the doors and windows of my house until I got up and took them for their walk. If anything disturbed the daily ritual, like I had to drive into town, or have a meeting, or fly to England or something, they would get thoroughly miserable and simply not know what to do. Despite the fact that they would always completely ignore me whenever we went on our walks together, they couldn't just go and have a walk without me. This revealed a profoundly philosophical bent in these dogs that were not mine, because they had worked out that I had to be there in order for them to be able to ignore me properly. You can't ignore someone who isn't there, because that's not what "ignore" means. — Douglas Adams

I may bring other women here, to this place, and I may tell them I love them, and make love to them. But they will be impostors. And I will be a ghost. Because it means I will have lost you. My body, my brain, my lungs, my stomach, my guts, legs, arms will be here but I won't be. I will be out there, looking for you. And if we meet somewhere, at a restaurant, or a party and I'm with someone, I want you to know that they are by my side only because you are not. And she will be beautiful. And I will be laughing and smiling and she will be laughing and smiling, but she will be laughing at a lie. Because all I will have done to that person is lie to them. All I will do to anyone else, forever, from this moment forward, anyone who isn't you, is lie. I have no choice. — Jez Butterworth

But don't you understand, Amy? You're wrong. Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three- That's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which there qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll end up with nothing. — Hanya Yanagihara

Young white men in the eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old range are often coming to grips with the fact that life isn't as easy as they were promised. I've been there myself. When you realize that life isn't going to hand you the job you want or the woman you want to fuck, you look around for someone to blame, and feminism becomes an easy target. If only women were subservient objects who stayed at home, there would be more jobs open to young white men and more women with no other option but to have sex with them for sustenance.
I realize that white-man utopia sounds really pleasing to these guys, but it's basically everyone else's worst nightmare It's not so great for them either, but they won't get that for a long time, if ever.
Suffice to say you won't convince them of this in an online comments section, either. — Kameron Hurley

No. I like to listen to music, but only the kind you play - absolute music, the kind where you can feel someone rattling the gates of Heaven and Hell. I think I like music because it has so little to do with morality. Everything else is moral or immoral, and I am looking for something that isn't. Morality has only ever made me suffer. I'm not expressing myself very well. - Did you know that there needs to be a god who is god and devil at once? I have heard it said that there once was a god like that." The — Hermann Hesse

You and Nick are good together," Jake said. "Probably in more ways than you know."
"Let's not go there."
"You keep saying that to yourself, but maybe it's time for a rethink."
"Since when are you interested in my love life?"
"You don't have one. You're all about the job. With Bob, you can have both."
"You don't know anything about Bob."
"I know it's got to be Nick, because there isn't anybody else," Jake said. "Who could possibly compete?"
"Someone who isn't a criminal on the FBI's Most Wanted list for starters."
"How boring would that guy be? He couldn't match the excitement Nick brings to your life. — Janet Evanovich

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.
That it is permissible to want.
That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn't necessarily perverse.
That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.
That God - unless you're Charlton Heston, or unhinged, or both - speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God.
That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there's a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it's interested in re you. — David Foster Wallace

Perhaps there isn't anything Alec is afraid of."
Magnus glanced at Alec and raised his eyebrows. "Boo," he said.
Jace was grinning. "Come on, surely you've got a phobia or two. What scares you?"
Alec thought for a moment. "Spiders," he said.
Clary turned to Luke. "Have you got a spider anywhere?"
Luke looked exasperated. "Why would I have a spider? Do I look like someone who would collect them?"
"No offense," Jace said, "But you kind of do."
"You know"
Alec's tone was sour
"Maybe this was a stupid experiment."
"What about the dark?" Clary suggested. "We could lock you in the basement."
"I'm a demon hunter," Alec said, with exaggerated patience. "Clearly, I am not afraid of the dark. — Cassandra Clare

There's so much more to life than finding someone who will want you, or being sad over someone who doesn't. There's a lot of wonderful time to be spent discovering yourself without hoping someone will fall in love with you along the way, and it doesn't need to be painful or empty. You need to fill yourself up with love. Not anyone else. Become a whole being on your own. Go on adventures, fall asleep in the woods with friends, wander around the city at night, sit in a coffee shop on your own, write on bathroom stalls, leave notes in library books, dress up for yourself, give to others, smile a lot. Do all things with love, but don't romanticize life like you can't survive without it. Live for yourself and be happy on your own. It isn't any less beautiful, I promise. — Emery Allen

But didn't everyone get everything? Hadn't they had enough yet? Everything on earth is tailored for this everyone. Everyone gets all the TV programs, damn near all the cinema, and about eighty percent of all music. After that come the secondary medium of painting and those other visual arts that do not move. Those are generally just for someone and although you always hear people moaning that there isn't enough of them, in truth someone does all right. Galleries, museums, basements in Berlin, studio flats, journals, bare walls in urban centers - someone gets what they want and deserve, most of the time. But where are the things that no one wants? Every now and then Alex would see or hear something that appeared to be for no one but soon enough it turned out to be for someone and, after a certain amount of advertising revenue had been spent, would explode into the world for everyone. Who was left to make stuff for no one? — Zadie Smith

It's often pretty hard to speak to others about my cancer. I have a number of pet peeves. Many folks are overly solicitous. They can't do enough for you. There's that Kaiser nurse who keeps asking "Isn't there someone who can drive you here?" And some people are too prying. I think they are voyeuristic and attempt to satisfy their morbid curiosity about having cancer. I don't like that and have sometimes wanted to say, "Go get your own damn fatal illness. — Irvin D. Yalom

This is not about how hot you are. That doesn't make someone any more or any less desirable. I believe there is a soul mate for everyone because I found mine. Attraction is only the smallest part of when it happens to you. It may be the initiating factor, but it isn't what seals you to them. There is a deep, sad part of you that opens showing what you are all about inside and out. First, you are afraid. Then, that fear and sadness gets pushed out by an overwhelming urge to give everything of yourself. Yet, you still hold back. At some point, you come to reality and it hits you who you're with. It's the one you've been waiting for. The one who can break you into a thousand pieces with one look. One word. One action. Cas can destroy me if he really wanted to. — Cyndi Goodgame

I couldn't think of anything other than her and the components of her. For example, her red hair. But was I so primitive I let myself be bewitched by hair? I mean, really. Hair! It's just hair! Everyone has it! She puts it up, she lets it down. So what? And why did all the other parts of her have me wheezing with delight? I mean, who hasn't got a back, or a belly, or armpits? This whole finicky obsession serves to humiliate me even as I write it, sure, but I suppose it isn't that abnormal. That's what first love is all about. What happens is you meet a love object and immediately a hole inside you starts aching, the hole that is always there but you don't notice until someone comes along, plugs it up, and then runs away with the plug. — Steve Toltz

It's true: Everyone needs a reason to stay alive
someone who justifies your existence. Someone who loves you. Not beyond all reason. Just loves you. Even just shows an interest. Even someone who doesn't exist, or isn't yours. No, no! They don't even have to love you! They just have to be there to love! Target for your arrows. Magnetic Pole to drag on your compass needle and stop it spinning and tell you where you're heading and ... Someone to soak up all the yearning. That's what I think. — Geraldine McCaughrean

If you care so much about it," she asks him, "then why did you run?"
He takes a moment before answering, shifting his weight and grimacing again. "Their work is good," he says. "It just isn't mine."
This baffles her. His motives - his hazy integrity. It was easy to dismiss Lev as "part of the problem" when she did not know him, but now it's not so easy. He's a paradox. This is a boy who almost blew himself to bits in an attempt to kill others, and yet he offered himself to the parts pirate in order to save Miracolina's life. How could someone go from having no respect for one's own existence to being willing to give himself as a sacrifice for someone he barely knows? It flies in the face of the truths that have defined Miracolina's life. The bad are bad, the good are good, and being caught in between is just an illusion. There is no gray. — Neal Shusterman

Then why don't you know about the dead men who wandered into Bamboo House of Dolls for human sushi?" "Never. I'd have heard and we'd be on alert." "I guess omnipotence isn't what it used to be. But I can fix that for you. I've already killed three Drifters. Give me a contract and I'll get the rest. There's probably a lot of them, so I ought to get time and a half on this one." Wells scowls. He looks around like he's expecting someone. "If — Richard Kadrey

I'm going to need help, and I need someone who is fearless. Someone who isn't afraid to stand up to dragons and battle them day after day. Our results may not show promise for years. Our patients will die. There will be days when you feel so beaten down you'll want to crawl home and give up. But I'll need you to get up, dust yourself off, and be ready to wage battle the next day." He locked eyes with her. "I need someone who wants to win as badly as I do. That is why I want you for this job. — Elizabeth Camden

It's a two-way street," Emma murmured, her words soft, but fierce at once. "Sometimes you have to take what you need and hope the other person can handle the invasion."
"Invasion?"
"That's what love is, isn't it? Families, friends, lovers. It's an invasion of each other's space, minds, hearts. Someone's always jockeying for control. For it to truly work, there has to be equality. Each side has to be strong enough to handle it."
Invasion. An oddly perfect way to describe it. "Yet again, I ask, who are you, Emma Strickland? — Kate Meader

For Grace, After a Party"

You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
me, it was love for you that set me
afire,

and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little

different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding. — Frank O'Hara