Still After All This Time Quotes & Sayings

I know that you spent years pouring yourself into another person who you thought was going to love you forever; and when he was faced with the realities of the world, he abandoned you." I froze, taking in his words. "I'm not him, America. I have no intentions of giving up on you."
I shook my head. "You can't see it, Maxon. He might have let me down, but at least I knew him. After all this time, I still feel like there's a gap between us. The Selection has forced you to hand over your affection in slices. I'll never really have all of you. None of us will. — Kiera Cass

A Farewell For a while I shall still be leaving, Looking back at you as you slip away Into the magic islands of the mind. But for a while now all alive, believing That in a single poignant hour We did say all that we could ever say In a great flowing out of radiant power. It was like seeing and then going blind. After a while we shall be cut in two Between real islands where you live And a far shore where I'll no longer keep The haunting image of your eyes, and you, As pupils widen, widen to deep black And I am able neither to love or grieve Between fulfillment and heartbreak. The time will come when I can go to sleep. But for a while still, centered at last, Contemplate a brief amazing union, Then watch you leave and then let you go. I must not go back to the murderous past Nor force a passage through to some safe landing, But float upon this moment of communion Entranced, astonished by pure understanding - Passionate love dissolved like summer snow. — May Sarton

I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn't go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god's knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don't share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death. — Marcus Speh

For the first time, I realize that it's not just the king who appears inhuman.
I do too.
The ferocity of the scar that runs down my cheek, the tightness of my jaw, the look in my eye - I'm no natural thing. Murder and violence have made me this way. Loss and war have made me this way.
I look like a savage.
A savage queen. One who doesn't need a crown or even a weapon to appear powerful.
I see it now - this world's faith in me. It's not just that I am an anachronism; the harshness of my face speaks to these people who have only ever known war.
No wonder the West wants me gone.
A century has gone by, and yet even after all that time I am still something to fear. — Laura Thalassa

Many in our world today want us to believe that we can except Christ simply as a Savior from sin, but not the Lord of our lives. They teach essentially that a person can perform an act of believing on Christ once, and after this, they can fall away even into total unbelief and yet still supposedly be "saved". Christ does not call men in this way. Christ does not save men in this way. The true Christian is the one continually coming, always believing in Christ. Real Christian faith is an ongoing faith, not a one-time act. If one wishes to be eternally satiated, one meal is not enough. If we wish to feast on the bread of heaven, we must do so all our lives. We will never hunger or thirst if we are always coming and always believing in Christ. He's our sufficiency. Christ the bread from heaven. We must feed on all of Christ, not just the parts we happen to like. Christ is not the Savior of anyone unless He is their Lord as well. — James R. White

Still, it was a starting point for someone with my special skills - the professional ones - and I pondered it as I worked. It was, after all, an area of real personal interest to me. And additionally, if this had been Deborah's case, she would almost certainly have demanded some kind of special insight from Sick and Twisted Me. So I thought about it, and although I came up with nothing helpful, at least it passed the time. — Jeff Lindsay

Well, well, so you aren't going to be a maidservant this time?" said Pippi, stroking his back. "Oh, that was a lie, that's true," she continued. "But still, if it's true, how can it be a lie?" she argued. "You wait and see, it's going to turn out he was a maidservant in Arabie after all, and if that's the case, I know who's making the meatballs at our house hereafter! — Astrid Lindgren

Once upon a time, [ ... ]. There was a world that was perfectly made and full of birds and striped creatures and lovely things like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels
[ ... ] And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn't need any rouge stars to come and save it, and it had no use for bleeding suns or weeping moons, either, and most important, it had never known war, which is a terrible and wasteful thing that no world needs. It had earth and water, air and fire, all four elements, but it was missing the last element. Love.
[ ... ]
And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel. There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness. The end.
[ ... ]
The story is unfinished. The world is still waiting. — Laini Taylor

I realize that the English language is sadly devoid of names for people like me. I try to cut the world some slack for this every day. All day. And the day after that, too. But the truth is that every time I am misgendered, a tiny little sliver of me disappears, A tiny little sliver of me is reminded that I do not fit ... I remember that the truth of me is invisible, and a tiny little sliver of me disappears. Just a sliver, razored from the surface of my very thick skin most days, but other times right from my soul, sometimes felt so deep and other days simply shrugged off, but still. All those slivers add up to something much harder to pretend around. — Ivan E. Coyote

It's funny how when you're little, you miss all the little lies. They float right past you, but you don't wonder about them much. For a long time, you think this is just something adults still do after being kids - pretend. Then one day you wake up and realize most of the world you're in is built on someone's make-believe. — V.C. Andrews

This is what makes this team so dangerous: at any time in the game, even after they've gotten hit in the mouth all day, they're still that explosive. — Michael Irvin

To have one's race brutally treated for so many years, even after the end of slavery and segregation, people are going to rise up with violence to attain what they believe is rightfully theirs. The most important thing at this time is raising the awareness of everyone; people need to be educated everywhere about all aspects of racism and how it affects people still today. — Assata Shakur

A few years have gone and come around when we were sittin' at our favorite spot in town and you looked at me, got down on one knee. Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle; the whole town came and our mammas cried. And you said "I do.", and I did, too. Take me home where we met so many years before; we'll rock our babies on the very front porch. After all this time, you and I. And I'll be eighty-seven you'll be eighty-nine, I'll still look at you like the stars that shine. In the sky. Oh, my my my. — Taylor Swift

She loved sinking into her bed on evenings like this, but apparently she shouldn't, because it worried her aunts, who thought she ought to be out dancing. It worried her a little bit, too, because what if they were right, and because sometimes a great loneliness welled up in her and threatened all the dams she built to hold it back. You couldn't cure loneliness by wallowing in it, up above the world, on an island removed from everything. She knew that. But she had such a hard time with all the cures. They seemed rough and brusque and brutal, as if they abused her skin with a pot scrubber ... forcing herself into a mass of people, a stranger among strangers ... But it was much more tempting to curl up with a book under her thick white comforter.
Still, sometimes after she curled up, she regretted her lack of courage and felt bleakly lonely.
It was important to have a really good book. — Laura Florand

Arch glared at him. I've spent hundreds of years watching you mope around because you thought you lost your soul mates. You wouldn't recognize a soul mate if she walked up to you and hit you in your face. Even after all this time, you still haven't figured it out. — Rose Wynters

There's still this thing that happens after you break up with
someone. It barely takes any time to work. All you have to do
is continue with your life, and then when you find yourself in a
room with her again it's as if you're a different person. Maybe
your posture is a little more confident. Maybe your laughter is
louder. You're wearing perfume she's never smelled before and
you have a new way of pinning back your hair. You don't even
have to say anything because your presence alone is enough to
say Look at who I am without you. — Nina LaCour

She sees only what's gone, I see only what's stayed the same. Her hair is no longer halfway down her back or pulled up in a French pleat; nowadays it is cut close to her skull and the grey is allowed to show.
Those peasanty frocks she used to wear have given way to cardigans and well-cut trousers. Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it's still the eyes we look at, isn't it? That's where we found the other person, and find them still. The same eyes that were in the same head when we first met, slept together, married, honeymooned, joint-mortgaged, shopped, cooked and holidayed, loved one another and had a child together. And were the same when we separated.
But it's not just the eyes. The bone structure stays the same, as do the instinctive gestures, the many ways of being herself. And her way, even after all this time and distance, of being with me. — Julian Barnes

On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it. — Ann Hood

We are all glorified motion sensors.
Some things only become visible to us when they undergo change.
We take for granted all the constant, fixed things, and eventually stop paying any attention to them. At the same time we observe and obsess over small, fast-moving, ephemeral things of little value.
The trick to rediscovering constants is to stop and focus on the greater panorama around us. While everything else flits abut, the important things remain in place.
Their stillness appears as reverse motion to our perspective, as relativity resets our motion sensors. It reboots us, allowing us once again to perceive.
And now that we do see, suddenly we realize that those still things are not so motionless after all. They are simply gliding with slow individualistic grace against the backdrop of the immense universe.
And it takes a more sensitive motion instrument to track this. — Vera Nazarian

I scanned the body head to toe, marveling at the thoroughness of the devastation, and the Passenger murmured its appreciation. Someone had spent a great deal of time and effort doing this, and although the results were certainly not up to my high artistic standards, they still showed a certain primitive vigor and abandon that were admirable, even infectious. The technique was clumsy, inefficient, even brutal, but it spoke of a wild experimental joy in the work that was a pleasure to see. After all, so very few of us seem to enjoy our jobs nowadays. Whoever did this clearly did enjoy it. Just as clearly - at least to me - the killer was exploring, seeking something he had not quite found, in spite of a very thorough search. — Jeff Lindsay

I am going to miss yu, so yu know. Yu grew up ok, despite everything. I hope yu don't hate me or n e thing for this, but maybe Ill be back one day if this doesn't work out. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe, I was never meant to be a mom. I see yu sometimes and I think how much better it would have been for yu if yu were never born. But I remember yu as such a happy baby, not like Ty who cried all the time. Yur smile still makes it worth it and I hope yull still smile even after this. — T.J. Klune

New York always feels more like my hometown than the places where I actually grew up (which weren't far from New York), perhaps because I did my artistic "growing up" while working in this crazy, wonderful city back in my twenties. Although I love the quieter, slower, nature-rich life I live now in the sheep-dotted hills of Devon, there are ways in which I still feel more truly myself here in New York, more than anywhere else. Even after all this time in the desert and on Dartmoor. Strange, isn't it? — Terri Windling

And after all this time that you still owe, you're still a good-for nothing I don't know. — Gerard Way

One cannot exclude the possibility of a fascist period in Russia," Staravoitova said on the radio station Echo of Moscow. "We can see too many parallels between Russia's current situation and that of Germany after the Versailles Treaty. A great nation is humiliated, and many of its nationals live outside the country's borders. The disintegration of an empire has taken place at a time when many people still have an imperialist mentality. ... All this is happening at a time of economic crisis. — David Remnick

My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me. — Ariel Pink

And now, she felt the presence of Grandmother Deal, as always--that same unexplainable presence of the woman who had mothered them all, whose love for her children and her children's children was so deep that after all the years it still seemed a tangible thing, delicate and rare, like the faint subtle odor of a fine perfume.

Could such things be, she wondered vaguely...? Could the loved dead come back? At a time like this, was the memory of them so keen to one sensitive like herself, that they only seemed to return and mingle with those to whom they had been devoted? Or was there in some way unknown to humans, a definite magical blending of these imperishable spirits with the mortal spirits of those they had so deeply loved? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

After all that I had read during the night. Even into this quiet place the war had reached like the tentacle of an octopus and had touched this girl and brought about her death. Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it's all over. — Nevil Shute

You still excite me after all this time, probably even more so now than in the beginning." My voice is a low threatening growl as the fingers on my free hand slide her panties over to reveal what I already know to be true; she is wet. "I love the way your body responds to me." I pull her from the wall and lead her to the fainting couch adorning the sitting area in my office. Brushing her hair back from her ear, I lean in and whisper, "Turn around, bend over, and put your hands on the end of the couch. I don't care what I do to you, those hands better not fucking move out of position. — Suzanne Steele

What did she want him to say - that he was still hurt over his disappointment with Margaret Macy? After all this time? It was imbecilic. He would not do it. — Julie Klassen

There was a point in my teenage years, when we were starting to play bigger shows and females were running after tour buses and all that, and my mom - and I remember this like it was yesterday - said: "Look, I want you to know that I couldn't be prouder of you. You are extraordinary. You move people. But it doesn't make you better than them. You still put your pants on the same way as them, one leg at a time every morning." I thought about learning to jump right into them, just to mess with her. But what she said stuck with me, and I think it's true. — Justin Timberlake

Andrew closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the memories of that night as the rest of the world moved on around him. He realized that even after all this time he hadn't forgotten the smile she seemed to have patented, the light blue tank top she wore so well, or the way she had laughed when he accidentally spilled an entire can of Mountain Dew on the carpet she'd spent hours steam cleaning. And although he hadn't kissed Cooper McKay that night, or even held her hand, he could still remember the feeling of finding out that love at first sight did truly exist. — Joey Jones

Sometimes I wonder if the planets are still up there, still aligned, still managing to get along after all this time. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them. — Tahereh Mafi

JD: Anyway, I tried to convince myself the reason that I didn't come earlier was because of you coming into work drunk. But that's not it. I was scared. I guess after all this time I still thought of you as a superhero that will help me out of any situation I'm in. I needed that. But that's my problem. I'll deal with that. I guess I came over here to tell you how proud of you I am. Not because you did the best for those patients. But because after 20 years of being a doctor, you still take it this hard. — Bill Lawrence

Seth had promised the demon he would heal him. Graulas had no other hope for aid. He might have lived an evil life, but the demon had helped Seth multiple times. Seth fingered the Translocator. Could this be a bad move? What if Graulas turned on him? Of course, even in his weakened state, the demon could have killed Seth upon any of his previous visits. If Seth healed him, Graulas would probably be more grateful than ever. Maybe the cunning demon could suggest strategies to stop the Sphinx, or provide insight about Nagi Luna. After a dusting from the Sands of Sanctity, the demon would still be old and dying, but curing the disease would reduce the pain and maybe buy Graulas a little extra time. And Seth would keep the Translocator handy. If all else failed, he could always teleport away. Seth — Brandon Mull

Never has so much military and economic and diplomatic power been used so ineffectively, and if after all of this time, and all of this sacrifice, and all of this support, there is still no end in sight, then I say the time has come for the American people to turn to new leadership not tied to the mistakes and policies of the past. — Richard M. Nixon

After lunch, and Evans still not appearing, we looked out, to see him still afar off. By this time we were alarmed, and all four started back on ski. I was first to reach the poor man and shocked at his appearance; he was on his knees with clothing disarranged, hands uncovered and frostbitten, and a wild look in his eyes. — Robert Falcon Scott

Maeve went as still as death while Celaena lifted the ring between two fingers.
'I think you've been looking for this for a long time,' Celaena said.
'That does not belong to you.'
'Doesn't it? I found it, after all. in Goldryn's scabbard, where Brannon left it after grabbing it of Athril's corpse-the family ring Athril would have given you someday. And in the thousands of years since than, you never found it so ... I suppose it's mine by chance.' Celaena closed her fist around the ring. 'but who would have thought you were so sentimental?'
So Celaena said, ' I'll make a trade with you though.' Maeve's browns narrowed. Celaena jerked her chin. 'Your beloved's ring-for Rowan's freedom from his blood oath. — Sarah J. Maas

I looked across at Alex and a wicked twinkle appeared in his eyes.
"How is it that you're still so sexy after all this time?" he mused.
I shrugged my shoulders and raised an eyebrow but remained
silent, a lascivious smile creeping across my features. I teased the
strap of my dress slightly off the shoulder and he growled. He dipped
a hand underneath the table and reached for my knee, pushing my
dress up as far as he could. It appeared he had just remembered that I
had chosen not to wear any underwear. I quickly devoured the last of
the Champagne as the waitress appeared and ushered us to our table. — Kitty Mulholland

Wherever I was, I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything, nothing had form but I was still me, you know? And I was warm and I was loved and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or any of it, really but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out by my friends. Everything here is hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch this is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that knowing what I've lost ... — Joss Whedon

Vampires did this all the time, you remember. It was normal for them, it was their own unique take on resource conservation. They could have taught your kind a few things about restraint, if that absurd aversion to right-angles hadn't done them in at the dawn of civilization. Maybe they still can. They're back now, after all - raised from the grave with the voodoo of paleogenetics, stitched together from junk genes and fossil marrow steeped in the blood of sociopaths and high-functioning autistics. One of them commands this very mission. A handful of his genes live on in your own body so it too can rise from the dead, here at the edge of interstellar space. Nobody gets past Jupiter without becoming part vampire. — Peter Watts

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when I imagined my life could happen in another way. It's true that early on I became used to the long hours I spent alone. I discovered that I did not need people as others did. After writing all day it took an effort to make conversation, like wading through cement, and often I simply chose not to make it, eating at a restaurant with a book or going for long walks alone instead, unwinding the solitude of the day through the city. But loneliness, true loneliness, is impossible to accustom oneself to, and while I was still young I thought of my situation as somehow temporary, and did not stop hoping and imagining that I would meet someone and fall in love ... Yes, there was a time before I closed myself off to others. — Nicole Krauss

The novel has become the leading hero in the drama of literary development in our time precisely because it best of all reflects the tendencies of a new world still in the making; it is, after all, the only genre born of this new world and in total affinity with it. — Mikhail Bakhtin

After all this time, it still seems to me like straight and fast is the only way out - but I choose the labyrinth. The labyrinth blows, but I choose it. Chip/Colonel — John Green

In the first period after his return from Moscow, when he still gave a start and blushed each time he remembered the disgrace of the refusal, Levin said to himself: 'I blushed and shuddered in the same way, thinking all was lost, when I got the lowest grade in physics and had to repeat my second year; I thought myself lost in the same way after I bungled my sister's affair, which had been entrusted to me. And what happened? Now that years have passed, I remember it and wonder how it could have upset me. It will be the same with this grief. Time will pass and, and I'll grow indifferent to it. — Leo Tolstoy

Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end. Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn't supposed to happen after the glorious last stand. I saved the world, or I think I did, and look, the world is still here, with sunsets and interlibrary loans. And it doesn't care about me any more than the Shire cared about Frodo. — Jo Walton

When I first saw you, I saw love
And the first time you touched me, I felt love
And after all this time,
You're still the one I love. — Shania Twain

For a long time," he said at last, "when I was small, I pretended to myself that I was the bastard of some great man. All orphans do this, I think," he added dispassionately."It makes life easier to bear, to pretend that it will not always be as it is, that someone will come and restore you to your rightful place in the world."
He shrugged.
"Then I grew older, and knew that this was not true. No one would come to rescue me. But then-" he turned his head and gave Jamie a smile of surpassing sweetness.
"Then I grew older still, and discovered that after all, it was true. I am the son of a great man."
The hook touched Jamie's hand, hard and capable.
"I wish for nothing more. — Diana Gabaldon

The Ukraine is still under Russian influence, even if they did give us independence. Ethnic Russians number 22% of our population. The facts remain they will control us economically. We will continue to owe them monetarily for the natural gas, the petroleum and all other industrial tools we need. After they've exhausted our scant resources and we have run up large bills, they will just walk right back in and take us over again. Monitor it closely in the years to come, Nicholas, you will see I am right. It could be easy to disregard this movement of mine, if it weren't for the queer twists and turns history takes from time to time. — Nicholas Anderson

Don't you know Im still standing better than I ever did. Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid. I'm still standing after all this time. — Elton John

Just FYI," Lenny says, his face still red from the nasty sunburn. "I've got a shitload of condoms in my duffle. Front pocket."
"For what?"
"Listen if you don't know what condoms are for I'm not gonna teach you."
"I know what they're for, shithead. I just highly doubt you're getting any ass on this trip."
"Watch me," Lenny says. "My boy gets action all the time."
"Yeah, I bet your right hand is tired from all that action" I mumble as I walk to the bathroom. "I'm a leftie!" Lenny calls after me.
I try not to wince from thinking about it. — Simone Elkeles

There is also a psychological phenomenon at work here that I believe is particularly male. A woman or girl
presuming one could be induced to take part in this sort of activity in the first place
having burned her hair and eyebrows would conclude that she had been lucky and reduce the amount of gas she put into the balloon next time. The man doesn't come to the same conclusion at all. He, singed and blackened, arrives at the point of view that he still has a margin of error to play with. After all, he isn't dead, and he's hardly likely to burn his eyebrows off again. They've already gone, history; he's moved on. There can be but one deduction
the dose needs to be increased. — Mark Barrowcliffe

She done mellowed plenty since this marriage. Soft around the edges without getting too soft at the center. You fear that sometimes for women, that they would just fold up and melt away. She'd seen it happen so much in her time, too much for her to head on into it without thinking. Yes, that one time when she was way, way young. But after that, looking at all the beating, the badgering, the shriveling away from a lack of true touching was enough to give her pause. Not that she mighta hooked up with one of those. And not that any man - even if he tried - coulda ever soaked up the best in her. But who needed to wake up each morning cussing the day just to be sure you still had your voice? A woman shouldn't have to fight her man to be what she was; he should be fighting that battle for her. — Gloria Naylor

Of course this is Vegas and it is the melting pot for all over the world, but people from all over the world know Donny and Marie. It is amazing. I have been in the business a long time to realize careers can be fleeting. Five years is a long career nowadays for some people, and here we are still going strong after 40 years. — Donny Osmond

us. I do not want to be around our pregnant friends, and I become hysterical when someone announces a pregnancy. And Pete doesn't understand it. To try to explain it to him, I used this analogy: We are saving for a house, but we can't afford it. I tell him, "Picture it like this: Even after all this time, we still can't afford the house we want. How would you feel if, while we're scrimping and saving, all of a sudden every one of our friends was handed a house for free? Absolutely free. Wouldn't that feel unfair? — Alice D. Domar

Who is there today who still cares about a well-finished death? No one. Even the rich, who could after all afford this luxury, are beginning to grow lazy and indifferent; the desire to have a death of one's own is becoming more and more rare. In a short time it will be as rare as a life of one's own. — Rainer Maria Rilke

You know that movie, where the little boy says 'I see dead people'?
The Sixth Sense.
Well, I see them all the time, and I'm getting tired of it. That's what's ruined my mood. Here it is, almost Christmas, and I didn't even think about putting up a tree, because I'm still seeing the autopsy lab in my head. I'm still smelling it on my hands. I come home on a day like this, after two postmortems, and I can't think about cooking dinner. I can't even look at a piece of meat without thinking of muscle fibers. All I can deal with is a cocktail. And then I pour the drink and smell the alcohol, and suddenly there I am, back in the lab. Alcohol, formalin, they both have that same sharp smell. — Tess Gerritsen

We're totally different people from when we first met, but I still love her and she loves me, after all this time.

And this weekend I'm going to meet her in person. — Hannah Moskowitz

Remember all those who suffer from their own downfall, after having believed themselves to be winners, and who now weep for the many lost hours. So while you still have time, seek to enrich your own spirits for the tomorrow which awaits you because, in accordance with the teachings of the Lord, it is of no use to retain the outward appearance of the splendor of all the empires of this world, if you maintain darkness within your heart. — Chico Xavier

THE WHISTLER
All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden
I mean that for more than thirty years she had not
whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was
in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and
she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and
cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war-
bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.
Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she
said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can
still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled
through the house, whistling.
I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an-
kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too.
And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin
to know each other? Who is this I've been living with
for thirty years?
This clear, dark, lovely whistler? — Mary Oliver

There's nothing in this courtyard, after all, that wasn't here in 1977; maybe it's not this year but that one, and everything that follows is still to come ... For if the evidence points to anything, it's that there is no one unitary City. Or if there is, it's the sum of thousands of variations, all jockeying for the same spot. This may be wishful thinking; still, I can't help imagining that the points of contact between this place and my own lost city healed incompletely, left the scars I'm feeling for when I send my head up the fire escapes and toward the blue square of freedom beyond. And you out there: Aren't you somehow right here with me? I mean, who doesn't still dream of a world other than this one? Who among us--if it means letting go of the insanity, the mystery, the totally useless beauty of the million once-possible New Yorks--is ready even now to give up hope? — Garth Risk Hallberg

Sometimes the principal emotion of the person arrested is relief and even happiness! This is another aspect of human nature. It happened before the Revolution too: the Yekaterinodar schoolteacher Serdyukova, involved in the case of Aleksandr Ulyanov, felt only relief when she was arrested. But this feeling was a thousand times stronger during epidemics of arrests when all around you they were hauling in people like yourself and still had not come for you; for some reason they were taking their time. After all, that kind of exhaustion, that kind of suffering, is worse than any kind of arrest, and not only for a person of limited courage. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I hid this one in the hopes that you would find it long after I'm gone. I hope you find this months from now, when I'm still out there, on the road, away from you. I can't imagine what the time apart has done to us. I'm hoping we're closer.
I'm hoping we're more in love than ever. I'm hoping that when I come back, you'll move in with me. In all honesty, I'm hoping that when I come back you'll agree to marry me someday. Because that's what I want, what I dream about.
You, mine, for the rest of my life. I hope you feel the same ... because I don't know what I would do without you. I love you so much. But, if for some reason we're not closer, if something has gotten between us, please, I'm begging you ... don't give up on me. Stay. Stay with me. Work it out with me. Just don't leave me ... please.
I love you, always, Kellan — S.C. Stephens

I dreamed about you sometimes.
In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn't been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.
In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled. You kissed me one more time.
In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.
You said it had to be this way.
You said you were a goddess of fire.

Life went on. It always did, and that summer was no exception. — Joe Schreiber

Each word that she left behind is precious, including the simple three I rediscovered a few days after Marina's memorial service. Her long-forgotten note, scrawled with a dry-erase marker on the back of a BB&N book slip and left on my desk when she was visiting from college, simply read, "Marina was here!" Marina was here. Yes, she was, in so many ways. And with an exclamation point. My hope is that through this book and Marina's many legacies, we may all still hear her and be inspired by how she used her fleeting time to be passionately, vibrantly, fully here. - Beth McNamara August 2014 — Marina Keegan

But in our time women are no longer subject to the will of men. Quite the contrary. They have been given every opportunity to win their independence and if, after all this time, they still have not liberated themselves and thrown off their shackles, we can only arrive at one conclusion: there are no shackles to throw off. — Esther Vilar

Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons. Even after all this time, it's still the best satire since Monty Python. — Alice Cooper

I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity. In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear my so-called, violent point of view, but we can also examine the virtues of wonderful 'Christian' stories of disease, murder, adultery, suicide and child sacrifice. Now that seems like 'entertainment' to me. — Marilyn Manson

I still think of her as mine. After all this time, when I think of Meredith, she's my Meredith. Irrational? Yes.
Stupid? Most definitely.
But I don't give a fuck. — Kristen Proby

You know, hon, after Stephie died, we never really talked about her." she says, her hands tight around the cart handle. "There's a lot of pain there. Still. I guess we feel like we failed her. Like maybe if we were home instead of away at college, we could've done something to fix her. Something my patents and the doctors and her boyfriend missed. Sometimes I think I don't have the right to talk about her. Like at the end, I don't know her well enough to say anything. So much of her life became secret. She spent all of her time with her boyfriend, and when she was home, her nose was buried in her diary. I swear that diary was her best friend, even more than Megan."
"Did you ever read it?" I ask.
"No."
"Not even after she died?"
Aunt Rachel shakes her head, removing an eggplant from the middle row and pressing her fingers against its flesh. "To this day, I don't know if I would've, either. We never found it, Delilah. It's like she just ... took it with her. — Sarah Ockler

I remember just how bizarre my friendship with Tiffani has been - but then I remember that no one else but Tiffani could really even come close to understanding how I feel after losing Nikki forever. I remember that apart time is finally over, and while Nikki is gone for good, I still have a woman in my arms who has suffered greatly and desperately needs to believe once again that she is beautiful. In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher's Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I'm on and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. There's something honest about all of this, and I cannot imagine any other woman lying in the middle of a frozen soccer filed with me-in the middle of a snowstorm even - impossibly hoping to see a single cloud break free of a nimbostratus. Nikki would not have done this for me, not even on her best day. — Matthew Quick

After some time my husband reached over to hold my hand, which reminded me that at least there was this, at least we still had hands that remembered how to love each other, two bone-and-flesh flaps that hadn't complicated their simple love by speaking or thinking or being disappointed or having memories. They just held and were held and that is all. Oh, to be a hand. — Catherine Lacey

This perfect quiet had settled into their house after the death of their father. That event had troubled the very medium of their lives. Time and air and sunlight bore wave and wave of shock, until all the shock was spent, and time and space and light grew still again and nothing seemed to tremble, and nothing seemed to lean. — Marilynne Robinson

God 10 A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. 12 For we* are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore, put on every piece of God's armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. 14 Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. 15 For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so — Anonymous

Try it! You might like it !! I wrote this letter to tell you that I am very, very sorry. When you are mad at me, your face looks like Daddy's when he smelled that skunk that was hiding in the garage. And this made me very sad. Your face, not the smelly skunk. Are you still mad? Pleeze circle one: YES NO If you are still mad, pleeze accept my sorryness for taking your clock, calling you a sandwich stealer, playing games on your phone and drawing my very cute face on it, and trying to call Price Princess Sugar Plum. I did not reech her. But I did reech a guy named Moe by mistake, and he was not very polite at all. He said if I reech him again he will call the cops. That would be very bad becuz I do not think they serve chicken nuggets in jail. Then I would starve to death, which would not be a very fun time . Anyway, I made this sandwich just for you because I really care about you. I hope you love it! You are my very best friend! After Miss Penelope and Princess Sugar Plum. — Rachel Renee Russell

Change is the only constant in the universe. This goes for all aspects. The seasons may repeat in cycles year after year, but they still change slightly as time passes. While they remain the same in what they are, they change in what they do. So should those whom have the intelligence to observe them, contemplate them, and give them names. Humans are the embodiment of change, and even if we keep the same labels and practices, humanity will change as the need arises. We've been resilient thus far, and this is evidence that if we can adapt to the changes we are faced with, then so can our inventions: philosophy, science, and religion.

John M. Penkal, Truly Satanic Volume I: Satanism — John M. Penkal

Please don't take him away from this world. Please don't let him die here in my arms, not after everything we've been through together, not after You've taken so many others. Please, I beg You, let him live. I am willing to sacrifice anything to make this happen- I'm willing to do anything You ask. Maybe you'll laugh at me for such a naive promise, but I mean it in earnest, and I don't care if it makes no sense or seems impossible. Let him live. Please. I can't bear this a second time.
Tell me there is still good in this world. Tell me there is still hope for all of us. — Marie Lu

You get this drama, babe, you got until the end of Tack's meeting to burn it out, but mark this, Lanie. After that meeting, I don't give a fuck if you're strapped into a rocket to go to the goddamned moon, I'm findin' you, we're sortin' this shit out and we're movin' on," he warned. "I just made a mental note to find a plastic surgeon who does emergency face alterations so you won't know who to look for," I shot back. "Jesus, I'm pissed as all fuck and still she's cute," he groused like he wasn't talking to me but actually complaining to the Son of God. "Jesus works on Sunday, Hop. You want a direct line, time to haul your biker ass to church," I shared. "You want me to let you go so you can burn this out, you better stop bein' cute, lady. You keep bein' cute, I'll kiss you in the goddamn forecourt and I won't give a fuck who sees." I snapped my mouth shut. "That's what I thought," he — Kristen Ashley