We Can't Go On Like This Quotes & Sayings

She smiled, lifted her arm, and tugged on a couple of his pain-in-the-ass curls, her expression tender enough to bring him back to cold reality. He was an ex-cop. She was the president's daughter. He was scrap metal. She was pure gold. Beyond all that, he had a dead zone a mile wide inside him, while she bubbled with life. "Lucy ... "
"Oh lord ... " She rolled her eyes and flopped to her back. "Here we go. The speech." She deepened her voice in exaggerated imitation of him. "Before this goes any further, Lucy, I need to make sure you don't get the wrong idea. I'm a cowboy, wild and free. No little filly can ever tame a man like me." She sneered. "As if I'd want to. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

You're not safe to go back there," he said.
"I'm going," I returned.
"We'll see."
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
"You do know that there's this little thing called the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?" I asked.
"I heard of that," he said and there was a smile in his voice.
"And there's this whole movement called fem ... in ... is ... im." I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. "Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that."
He rolled into me, which made me roll onto my back.
"Sounds familiar."
"Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I'l read it out loud and explain as I go along."
He got up on his elbow. "Only if you do it naked." I slapped his shoulder. — Kristen Ashley

See, we live in a phallus obsessed culture, where we're all brought up to believe that everything having to do with gender and sexuality somehow revolves around the penis. That's why so many clueless straight guys come on to dykes with pickup lines like "Once you've had the real thing, baby, you won't ever go back." Some men actually believe that phallocentric crap! And it's also why most people can't even talk about transsexual women or SRS without centring the discussion on the penis. But my desire to have SRS has virtually nothing to do with my penis. This is about my wanting to have a clitoris and vagina. But we don't even have the language to describe this desire. — Julia Serano

For shit's sake, it wasn't like there was a twelve-step for being the Scribe Virgin's kid:
Hi, I'm Vishous. I'm her son and I've been her son for three hundred years.
HI, VISHOUS.
She's done a head job on me again, and I'm trying not to go to the Other Side and scream bloody murder at her.
WE UNDERSTAND, VISHOUS.
And on the bloody note, I'd like to dig up my father and kill him all over again, but I can't. So I'm just going to try to keep my sister alive even though she's paralyzed, and attempt to fight the urge to find some pain so I can deal with this Payne.
YOU'RE A STRAIGHT-UP PUSSY, VISHOUS, BUT WE SUPPORT YOUR SORRY ASS. — J.R. Ward

When we are distracted by a strong emotion, do we remember that it is part of our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can't practice when distracted but know that we can't, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what's going on. 51 Deepening Tonglen IN TONGLEN, after genuinely connecting with the pain and your ability to open and let go, then take the practice a step further and do it for all sentient beings. — Pema Chodron

As if Japan weren't small enough to begin with, I fail to understand why it is necessary to think of it in even smaller units. No matter where I go in the world, although I can't speak any foreign language, I don't feel out of place. I think of the earth as my home. If everyone thought this way, people might notice just how foolish international friction is, and they would put an end to it. We are, after all, at a point where it is almost narrow-minded to think merely in geocentric terms. Human beings have launched satellites into outer space, and yet they still grovel on earth looking at their own feet like wild dogs. What is to become of our planet? — Akira Kurosawa

Do you know what happens to all the things we did together in the past? When I asked my daughter this, although it was you I wanted to ask, my daughter said, "It's so strange to hear you say something like this, Mom," and asked, "Wouldn't they have seeped into the present, not disappeared?" What difficult words! Do you understand what that means? She says that all the things that have happened are actually in the present, that old things are all mixed in with current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it's just that we can't feel it. But now I can't go on. Do — Kyung-Sook Shin

Siddhartha wants liberation, Dante wants Beatrice, Frodo wants to get to Mount Doom - we all want something. Quest is elemental to the human experience. All road narratives are to some extent built on quest. If you're a woman, though, this fundamental possibility of quest is denied. You can't go anywhere if you can't step out onto a road ...
... (T)here is no female counterpart in our culture to Ishmael or Huck Finn. There is no Dean Moriarty, Sal, or even a Fuckhead. It sounds like a doctoral crisis, but it's not. As a fifteen-year-old hitchhiker, my survival depended upon other people's ability to envision a possible future for me. Without a Melvillean or Kerouacian framework, or at least some kind of narrative to spell out a potential beyond death, none of my resourcefulness or curiosity was recognizable, and therefore I was unrecognizable. — Vanessa Veselka

Dr. Finch clenched his hands and tucked them under his chin. "Human birth is most unpleasant. It's messy, it's extremely painful, sometimes it's a risky thing. It is always bloody. So is it with civilization. The South's in its last agonizing birth pain. It's bringing forth something new and I'm not sure I like it, but I won't be here to see it. You will. Men like me and my brother are obsolete and we've got to go, but it's a pity we'll carry with us the meaningful things of this society - there were some good things in it." "Stop woolgathering and answer me!" Dr. Finch stood up, leaned on the table, and looked at her. The lines from his nose sprang to his mouth and made a harsh trapezoid. His eyes blazed, but his voice was still quiet: "Jean Louise, when a man's looking down the double barrel of a shotgun, he picks up the first weapon he can find to defend himself, be it a stone or a stick of stovewood or a citizens' council. — Harper Lee

But like my young friend said, this is not the way it seems in the beginning. Before things go bad, it's just a night that sounds like a lot of fun. A day that feels like wasting. A risk that looks like something we can likely handle, a limb that'll probably hold our weight. We don't think getting back home will be a problem when we're finished. After all, we're not going far. Not until we're well down the mountain, much too far to pull ourselves easily back up to the top, we realize we've gotten ourselves into a mess. Instead of three or four good ways to get back on our feet, we now have maybe one - or none - none that don't come without a long, hard process, without a good bit of shame — Priscilla Shirer

You taste injustice, even if it's fictional, really taste it,it has a way of doing that. Sometimes, you can never put the shoe on the other foot. We can't go back in time and know what it was like to be a black person then. Even today, when things are supposed to be so much better, not one of you can understand what it's like to be black, to live with the knowledge of what happened to your ancestry and still face injustice. But that book makes us taste it and, reading it, we know how bitter that taste is and we know we don't like it. But that bitter wakes you up, and when you wake up, you open your mind to things in this world, you make yourself think. Then you'll decide you don't like the taste of injustice, not for you and not for anyone, and you'll understand that even though all the battles can't be won, that doesn't mean you won't fight. — Kristen Ashley

And lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin. Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if'n he's in the way. If'n you'd a-got kilt, it'd mean you jest didn't move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog. You think God favors the dog over the rabbit, son?" I shook my head. "I don't neither. When it comes to prayin', we got it all over the other animals, but we ain't no different when it comes to livin' and dyin'. If'n you give God the credit when somebody don't die, you go'n blame Him when they do die? Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don't die but once't? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if'n we can. Hit ain't never His will for us to die - cept in the big sense. In the sense He was smart enough not to make life eternal on this here earth, with people — Olive Ann Burns

And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can't resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once-old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did. — Frank Yerby

You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it. I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. — Linda Tirado

I can't
I can't think about anything or anyone else," he whispered. A hand drifted up, dragging back through his hair. "I can't think straight when you're around. I can't sleep. It feels like I can't breathe
I just
"
"Liam, please," I begged. "You're tired. You're barely over being sick. Let's just ... Can we just go back to the others?"
"I love you." He turned toward me, that agonized expression still on his face. "I love you every second of everyday, and I don't understand why, or how to make it stop
"
He looked wild with pain; it pinned me in place, even before what he had said registered in my mind.
"I know it's wrong; I know it down to my damn bones. And I feel like I'm sick. I'm trying to be a good person, but I can't. I can't do this anymore. — Alexandra Bracken

Positively, the delinquent behavior seems to speak clearly enough. It asks for what we can't give, but it is in this direction we must go. It asks for manly opportunities to work, make a little money, and have self-esteem; to have some space to bang around in, that is not always somebody's property; to have better schools to open for them horizons of interest; to have more and better sex without fear or shame; to share somehow in the symbolic goods (like the cars) that are made so much of; to have a community and a country to be loyal to; to claim attention and have a voice. These are not outlandish demands. Certainly they cannot be satisfied directly in our present system; they are baffling. That is why the problem is baffling, and the final recourse is to a curfew, to ordinances against carrying knives, to threatening the parents, to reformatories with newfangled names, and to 1,100 more police on the street. — Paul Goodman

I got on with Louis from the word go. We're very similar and I like the fact that he has this ability to be nice to everyone while living totally for the moment. It puts a smile on your face when you see someone like that. I feel I can tell him anything, and I felt like that straight away. He can be really funny one minute, but if someone has a problem he can go into serious mode straight away and he gives really good advice. — One Direction

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

The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneurship - is you realize one day that you can't really work anyone else. You have to start your won thing. It almost doesn't matter what the thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal.
If that one didn't work out, if we still had the money and the people, obviously we would not have given up. We would have iterated on the business model and done something else. I don't think there was ever clarity as to who we were until we knew it was working. By then, we'd figured out our PR pitch and told everyone what we do and who we are. But between the founding and the actual PayPal, it was just like this tug-of-war where it was like, "We're trying this, this week." Every week you go to investors and say, "We're doing this, exactly this. We're really focused. We're going to be huge." The next week you're like, "That was a lie. — Jessica Livingston

Continuous external growth, like continuous inhaling, is not sustainable. But because we have been inhaling for so long, consuming for so long, even though we see that it can't go on this way, we don't know how to alter the pattern. We have to recover our natural sense of balance ... only when we exhale can we inhale again, and that's how life continues. — Ilchi Lee

There are so many things we can't do anything about if we think about generalities. Things won't go well because there is a huge gap between the generalities and the particulars. If we see generalities from the top of a mountain or from a plane, we feel it's hopeless, but if we go down, there is a nice road running about fifty meters, we feel this is a nice road, and if the weather is fine and shining, we feel we can go on ... Since the people in the community are cleaning up the river in my neighborhood, I join them when I have the time. A human can often be satisfied with the particulars. That's what I like best these days. — Hayao Miyazaki

She blames herself. I hurt from knowing that I hurt her. Even when we know all of these other people are to blame. My friends. The media. Not her. Not me.

I can't help myself. I continue the cycle and I say, "I don't want to hurt you."

Lily is quiet for a moment before she says, "I'm tougher than you think. You just need to believe in me. You know, like a fairy."

I do believe in fairies. I do. I do. The jubilant chorus from Peter Pan fills my ears.

I look up at her, tears in both our eyes. Is that how we end this? I trust that I can share my grief with her and that she won't crumble beneath the pain?

She nods to me like go on. I can handle it. — Becca Ritchie & Kristia Ritchie

Too bad. There's a party on the coast. I thought we could go." He actually sounded sincere. ( a bit after) I affected a yawn. "Well, like I said, it's a school night." In hopes of convincing myself more than him, I added, " if this party is something you'd be interested in, I can almost guarantee I won't be." There, I though. Case closed- page 77 — Becca Fitzpatrick

Scripture breathes wisdom like we breathe oxygen. It can't not. Through Scripture, God reveals himself. This wisdom cannot be captured, let alone contained, on a neon bumper sticker or rubber bracelet. Wisdom itself invites us to go deeper- right into a relationship with God himself.
Through wisdom, we learn to love God and love what he loves. We find rich counsel on the life we were meant for- in our families, communities, and world. We discover our personal responsibilities to others. And we unearth how to put love into action. -Organic God — Margaret Feinberg

Rule One: Make friends with death
Tailgating in the Antarctic is no joke. We are trying to do nothing less ambitious than reverse the course of history. We want Team Krill to defeat Team Whale.
Look, if you want to tailgate in comfort, don't get on the boat. You can buy some quail eggs or snails or whatever you people eat and you can watch the Food Chain Games on your flat TV. Stay in Los Angeles. Hug your wife on your plush banquette. Cheer for the Antarctic minke whales, like every other asshole.
No, wait a second, here comes the real Rule One: if you are a supporter of Team Whale, you can go fuck yourself, my fine sir.
This list is for the fans of Team Krill. — Karen Russell

What's to become of us? We can't go on like this."
"Yes, we can go on like this," said Cesare. "We can go on exactly like this for the rest of our lives. — Penelope Fitzgerald

I'm sorry," Leo murmured and then seemed to look through Martin for a few seconds before he returned his gaze to him. "Although if it's any comfort - and please don't take this the wrong way, because I speak from my own perspective, which I understand often places me far outside of the norm - I sometimes like to think that death, at least in the case of those we truly love, allows us to appreciate what they have done for us in ways that are not possible when we're all here, constantly changing and fixated on how to get from one day to the next. Death offers us the chance to reflect on who they were, which of course is a way to understand ourselves. As painful as it can be to see them go - and I don't mean to diminish the sense of loss or grief we all feel - there is also no greater gift. — Matthew Gallaway

Ali and the woman whose baby crawled out on the roof


A woman comes to Ali. My baby has crawled out on the roof near

the water drain, where I cannot go. He won't listen to me. I talk, but he doesn't understand

language. I make gestures. I show him my breast, but he turns away. What can I do?

Take another baby his age up to the roof. The woman does, and the child sees his friend and

crawls away from the edge. The prophets are human for this reason, that we may see them

and delight in their friendly presence, and crawl away from the downspout. Muhammad calls himself

a man like you. Likeness is a great drawing force. Those of mean dispositions learn hatred

from each other, and they try to draw others in. Anyone whose haystack has burned

does not enjoy seeing someone else's candle lit. — Jalaluddin Rumi

But for the Jews this moral-spiritual issue raises the same societal problem it does for the Greeks: how can a man have the "right" to make himself spiritually or rationally destitute or retarded when this corrupts the whole quality of the culture that we all together need and depend on? If anyone wants a cloistered and closed-minded life, an anti-aristic life, let him either go off and live among the wolves-or else join the community of like-minded idiots that (alas) compose and define the basic terms of modern society. — Kenny Smith

Tony the Beat Poet says the church is like a wounded animal these days. He says we used to have power and influence, but now we don't, and so many of our leaders are upset about this and acting like spoiled children, mad because they can't have their way. They disguise their actions to look as though they are standing on principle, but it isn't that, Tony says, it's bitterness. They want to take their ball and go home because they have to sit the bench. Tony and I agree that what God wants to do is sit the bench in humility and turn the other cheek like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power. — Donald Miller

You're here," I continued. "At least you look as if you're here. But maybe you aren't. Maybe it's just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you've hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys. Do you think we can go on like this forever? — Haruki Murakami

I'd asked Tink about good fae when I got home. He'd been busy on my computer, creating If Daryl Dies We Riot memes. He'd genuinely appeared confused by my line of questioning. According to my pint-sized roommate, all fae were bad. There was no such thing as a good fae. Something had occurred to me while I'd watched him concentrate, the white glare from my computer lighting up his face. "Do you ever leave this house, Tink? Go anywhere?" He'd frowned up at me like I'd asked him why I should watch The Walking Dead. "Why would I leave? This place has everything I need, and if it doesn't, I can order it from Amazon." He'd paused. "Though, on second thought, we could use a live-in chef, because you can't cook for shit. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

When you have a relationship with a label, it can really affect the work you're doing and if you feel like they don't believe in you sometimes you go: "maybe I'm not any good at this". Then you get on a label that is excited to have you and you go: "oh, maybe we are ok at this". It gives you a little more confidence and you work a little better. — Benji Madden

Only he with the hobbled foot knows the beauty of running. Only he with the severed ear can appreciate what the sweetest music must sound like. Our ailments complete us. That we in our sinful souls can ever imagine charity- 'She can't go on for a moment. 'We may not always be able to practice charity, but that in this world we can even imagine it at all! That act of daring requires the greatest challenge, — Gregory Maguire

Good books are rare, and to have a really good library, a few shelves are all we need. When I was still on my campus in India, I was convinced, like many professors, that if the Lord was to be found anywhere, it was in the lower stacks of the library. But now - just as when I go into a big department store, I can say, "How many things I don't need! How many expensive suits I don't want!" - when I enter a big library I say, "What tomes I don't have to read again! What folios I will never open!" This feeling of freedom will come to all of us when we realise, in the depths of our meditation, that all wisdom lies within. — Eknath Easwaran

Heisenberg and Bohr and Einstein strike me as being like gifted retriever dogs. Off they go, not just for an afternoon, but for ten years; they come back exhausted and triumphant and drop at your feet ... a vole. It's a remarkable thing in its way, a vole - intricate, beautiful really, marvellous. But does it ... Does it help? Does it move the matter on?
When you ask a question that you'd actually like to know the answer to - what was there before the Big Bang, for instance, or what lies beyond the expanding universe, why does life have this inbuilt absurdity, this non sequitur of death - they say that your question can't be answered, because the terms in which you've put it are logically unsound. What you must do, you see, is ask vole questions. Vole is - as we have agreed - the answer; so it follows that your questions must therefore all be vole-related. — Sebastian Faulks

Origins and History of Consciousness
III.
It's simple to wake from sleep with a stranger,
dress, go out, drink coffee,
enter a life again. It isn't simple
to wake from sleep into the neighborhood
of one neither strange nor familiar
whom we have chosen to trust. Trusting, untrusting,
we lowered ourselves into this, let ourselves
downward hand over hand as on a rope that quivered
over the unsearched ... . We did this. Conceived
of each other, conceived each other in a darkness
which I remember as drenched in light.
I want to call this, life.
But I can't call it life until we start to move
beyond this secret circle of fire
where our bodies are giant shadows flung on a wall
where the night becomes our inner darkness, and sleeps
like a dumb beast, head on her paws, in the corner. — Adrienne Rich

I believe in the human spirit. And usually the people who are following me - my fans and things like that - are like-minded people, in that regard. They like to hear about people being in pain, but that are okay, and people feeling like they can't go on, but then they find a reason to go on. How do you marry someone and love them, and then they die? How does that happen? Why are we on this journey? They want to talk about things, and they want to understand. So, this is the perfect vehicle for that. — J.H. Wyman

He smiled. "You're into me, I can tell."
"I'm not into you," I said hotly. Hotly, because as soon as the words left my lips, sparklers erupted on top of my head.
Hudson looked at them, and a grin spread across his face. The baby cooed and reached out, trying to grab the flaring light. Hudson moved farther away. "Don't touch. Just look at Mommy's pretty liar hat."
He was enjoying this way too much. "Okay," I said. "Maybe I like you a little."
The sparklers dimmed, but didn't go out.
Hudson raised an eyebrow.
"All right," I said, nervously eyeing the area to make sure no one saw us. "I'm into you."
The sparklers died, but I didn't wait around for more commentary. I headed to the inn. Behind me I heard Hudson still talking to the baby. "Yes, we like Mommy's flaming hairdo, don't we? — Janette Rallison

What in the seven levels of hell did my son see in this place?" Horace asks.
We're standing on the street on Thursday morning, staring up at the house, after taking inventory of the place. From here, I can see five different spots where the brick needs to be repaired and pick out where shingles are missing on the sloped roof. The porch sags, and the windows are dingy. But if I let my eyes go out of focus and ignore all that, I can kinda picture what the place might look like after a little - never mind - a lot of TLC.
"It has good bones?" I suggest.
"It's got old bones," he mutters.
I smirk. "Yeah? So do you. Doesn't mean they're all bad."
He smacks my arm, but he's grinning. "Just wait till you get to be my age, and then tell me how good old bones are. — Erica Cameron

Sam: One day, Mrs. Mandelbaum comes by the store does her usual spiel. Shows me her pictures, tells her lies. "This one's 18, a scholar. This one's 22, a beauty." Some of these pictures were taken before the flashbulb was invented. But it's like this little ritual we have. She has a business and I respect that. I'm a bachelor. She can't help herself.

Izzy: Wait a minute. You mean, you didn't hire her?

Sam: No. But on this particular day she pulled this from her bag.

(Sam pulls Izzy's photo out and shows it to her)

Izzy: Oh, no.

Sam: And I said, "Yes, Mrs. Mandelbaum this one I'll meet."
~Crossing Delancey. Movie. 1988. Peter Regent & Amy Irving. — Susan Sandler

About time," Brianna said.
"Hey, sorry, we were kind of busy," Quinn snapped. "And I didn't exactly realize I was on a schedule."
"I don't like what I have to do here," Brianna said. She handed Quinn the note.
He read it. Read it again.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded.
"Albert's dead," Brianna said. "Murdered."
"What?"
"He's dead. Sam and Dekka are off in the wilderness somewhere. Edilio's got the flu, he might die, a lot of kids have. A lot. And there are these, these monsters, these kind of bugs . . . no one knows what to call them . . . heading toward town." Her face contorted in a mix of rage and sorrow and fear. She blurted, "And I can't stop them!"
Quinn stared at her. Then back at the note.
He felt his contented little universe tilt and go sliding away.
There were just two words on the paper: "Get Caine. — Michael Grant

Separate vacations have become more popular among married couples. We don't think this is a good idea. Over time, doing your own thing will cause you to lead separate lives. We are not talking about a three-day trip to Florida with your sister or best friend - if you want to take small trips like this, feel free to. But if you want to take a major vacation - say, to spend two weeks in Europe - your husband should be your travel companion. But suppose your idea of a fun vacation is going to Europe or lying on the beach in the Caribbean, while your husband loves tours of historic sites and museums. Our advice is to figure out a way to do a little of both. One year, you can go to the beach, the next year you can do a tourist package together, or go on a trip with a beach near some sites of cultural interest. Once you start planning separate vacations, you become like roommates, not lovers. — Ellen Fein

When a young person is moved by a passion and feels compelled to go on this sort of quest, I think you have to let him. You can't stop him. In our culture we don't have formal rights of passage like in some ancient cultures. Subjecting yourself to risk ... may be something you have to go through to be a man or a woman. — Jon Krakauer

My emotional range is limited. I can't do grief, but rage is my friend. For instance, I hate death by sickness. It is nothing like Homer, the Old Testament, and Tolkien led me to expect. It is not noble and awe-inspiring. No one delivers a final soliloquy. It is as abrupt and banal as the flicking of a switch. The squiggly line on the monitor straightens out, the defibrillator doesn't even go whomp, the epinephrine is useless, the nurse doing CPR looks up and even before the doctor pronounces the words, you know. This is not what death should be. Death, the reason for religion, the subject of great literature, the certainty we spend our lives warding off, the giant mystery that looms over everything we do, death should be spectacular, not pity-inducing, a bang and not a whimper. A huge ball of fire, a shower of sparks, a final charge into the ranks of your enemies, a terrific explosion, a backward dive into the fiery pit. Not ... this. — Jessica Zafra

I don't think you can take a whole genre of very popular books and say, "This is all trash!" When we read a memoir that isn't by a celebrity, we feel like we're about to go on a journey and we don't know where the journey will lead. But when we read a memoir by a celebrity we feel like we already know the journey and we just want to travel it. — Hilary Liftin

Will you go on a second date with me?"

"We're still in the middle of our first date, Zach. You can't just ask me that out of the blue."

"I already did, and I refuse to take it back."

"What if I don't like you by the end of this date?" I volley back.

"You honestly think that's possible?" His dimples poke through his smile, and I know right then I'm going to say yes. "Say yes, Delia. Be wild. Do something crazy and fun. — Teagan Hunter

For me, it's all or nothing. I can't half-ass this. If we do this, I will pursue you like no man has ever pursued you before. And even after I've caught you, I plan to continue pursuing you like my life depends on it. If you're not prepared for that, if you're not ready to be treated as something special and treasured and precious, then I need you to roll over, go back to sleep, and pretend none of this ever happened. — Catherine Gayle

Two kinds of writers. Those who think this life is all there is, and want to describe everything: the fall, the battle, the accouchement, the horse-race. That is, Tolstoy. And those who think this life is a kind of testing-ground (for what we don't know - to see how much pleasure + pain we can bear or what pleasure + pain are?) and want to describe only the essentials. That is, Dostoyevsky. The two alternatives. How can one write like T. after D.? The task is to be as good as D. - as serious spiritually, + then go on from there. — Susan Sontag

People can go on telling themselves things like "Think before you speak!" or "You don't believe that yourself" or "Forget it!" But they can also say, "Oh, what lovely flowers!" or "Are you a phone freak or something?" or "Suit yourself," or "This record makes me feel so happy!' Wonderful! Words are delightful little gifts we exchange like the Easter eggs we paint and hide for others to find and enjoy. I'd forgotten that, but you reminded me of it. — Thomas Brussig

I tell Dylan I have to go to the bathroom. I shut the door and try to pee, but my dick's already sticking straight up at the ceiling. Great. I'm sure she caught that minor detail. We haven't even kissed yet. I shake my head and do my best to pee. I pull my pants back up, trying to make my hard-on less obvious. I stare at myself in the mirror and splash cold water on my face to calm down. My face flushed.
I concentrate on one critical thing. Last, Gray. You've got to make it last. No two pumps, you're done. Don't be that guy. You're stronger than that.
Think sports.
Try to name every candy bar you can.
Think about anything but what her body feel like, because as soon as you let yourself go there, It's over.
Enough with the pep talk. I take a deep breath. This is it. It's what you were born to do. — Katie Kacvinsky

Finn looped an arm around Callie's waist and waited.
"Are we in big trouble?"
Verdie nodded seriously. "Yes, you are. First thing is, this ain't my place nomore and it ain't my business to fuss at ya'll, but I love that kid and I can't stand to see him cry. My dad gave me a bit of advice when our boys were little that I'm about to give ya'll. You're going to argue, but it's your argument, not his. Don't let him see it and don't go to bed angry with each other. We got enough of a feud goin' on all around us. We don't need one inside the walls of the house. Now let's go have some cookies." Finn gave Callie a gentle squeeze, "Sounds like good advice to me. — Carolyn Brown

In a sec.......let's see if this will help. Once there was a bunny that was very sad
cause his ears were long and floppy and he stepped on them all the time."
"Like my shoelaces?"
"Yep, just like that. One day a beautiful fairy,,,,,,,,"
"The shoelace fairy?"
"Yep. She landed on the bunny's head and.........."
"Didn't that hurt? Does she have a wand?"
"Nope. She lifted up the bunny's ears and crossed them over like an x."
"I can cross my eyes.........look."
"Lovely. She put one ear through the bottom of the x and she pulled."
"She pulled the bunny's ears..........bad fairy."
"No, she was trying to tie his.........."
"Dan," Jordan laughed, "Stop. That is the worst thing I've ever heard."
"Well, it's better than the teepees and the arrows and crap," Danny huffed.
"Can I go see Andy now?"
"Yes, go see Andy and his Velcro sneakers," Jordan snickered. "We give up. — Grasshopper

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

We don't want that, Charlie. We don't want to fight, but we can't just go on like this. We deserve to choose what we want to be, who we want to be. — Kimberly Derting

Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren't involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It's precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive
or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. — Haruki Murakami

We cannot do this now!" ...
"Sure we can."
He scowled ... "Go home, Dory."
"Give me what I want and I will!"
Radu appeared in the doorway. "I know this is a stupid question before I ask it, but is there any chance that we can discuss this like civilized people?"
Louis-Cesare ... stepped back a pace and dangled the duffel of one long finger. "Come and get it."
I stared. "Oh, no, you didn't."
"Oh, yeah. He did. You gonna take that?" Raymond piped up ...
"You really want to do this?" I demanded ... The only answer I got was a flying tackle that caught me around the knees and sent me skidding on my back over hard wood.
I grinned. Well, all right then.
"That's what I thought." Radu sighed. — Karen Chance

One afternoon while driving back from the beach, Hugh pointed out a McDonald's bag vomiting its contents onto the pavement. "I say that any company whose products are found on the ground automatically has to go out of business," he said. This is how we talk nowadays, as if our pronouncements hold actual weight and can be implemented at our discretion, like we're kings or warlocks. "That means no more McDonald's, no more Coke - none of it."
"That wouldn't affect you any,"I told him. Hugh doesn't drink soda or eat Big Macs. "But what if it was something you needed, like paint? I find buckets of it in the woods all the time."
"Fine," he said. "Get rid of it. I'll make my own."
If anyone could make his own paint, it would be Hugh.
"What about brushes?"
"Please," he said, and he shifted into a higher gear. "I could make those in my sleep. — David Sedaris

I love you," he says, though once he's done it I can see he isn't happy with it. He shakes his head and clicks his fingers, then puts his hand on his chest as he makes the declaration. "I love you."
"The second one," I tell him, mainly because the second one gave me goose bumps. "Definitely."
"Or I could do it on one knee? Maybe add a bit of poetry? My love is a rare rose that blooms at the sight of you ... " he offers, but of course we're both trying not to laugh now. Something as terrifying as love, and somehow I'm relaxed enough to laugh. "But that's not really me, right? If I was going to go with the honest version, it'd be more like this: my love is like a giant rampaging mutant from another dimension, intent on actually ingesting you in case you had any ideas about running away. — Charlotte Stein

The world is changing because we're changing it. And that makes me understand, at least, what kind of person I'd like to be. A person can seek ways, whether big or small, to heal the world. That, to me, is spirituality and one's 'soul.' Not some disembodied eternal wishfulness but a way of being that, most days, I can work on. Life is like walking with a flashlight on a dark night. You can't see your destination, but each step illuminates the next few steps, and, taking one after another, you can get where you need to go. Only now, we'll need to quicken our pace if we are to avoid major upheaval in this century. It's up to us not just as individuals but as citizens of nations and of the world. — Carl Safina

That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we'd had the chance to talk before this," he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. "There's a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office- 'There is no grief like the grief that does not speak'- and it's true. I've found that keeping pain inside doesn't give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you're strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn't heal emotional wounds, Sayre, and you don't want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That's how people self-destruct. — Laura Wiess

There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on skull, through soft skin and softer flesh. He thought: skulls separate people. In this one sense, I could say, they would say, I lose myself in her. But in that bone box, she thinks and thinks, as I think in mine, things the other won't hear, can't hear, though we go on like this for sixty years. What does she think I am? He had no idea. He had no idea what she was. — A.S. Byatt

Relationships like this are built on honesty and trust. If you don't trust me-trust me to know how I'm affecting you, how far I can go with you, how far I can take you-if you can't be honest with me, then we really can't do this. — E.L. James

Isn't it strange??

When you don't have something you want more and more even when you see it on the TV for example the the drug from the Limitless... you want it don't ya??

A drug which makes your the smartest person on the earth... A drug which helps you understand fast everything... you can read in about 1500 books in a year... isn't it crazy... it will be awesome to have this drug... but it's not possible unfortunately... as for now...let's go in the real world shall we?

What happens when you want something... let's take it that you get it... you want more and more and more... when you have from something which is like candy like 1000 in one place... somehow a limit comes... it comes the moment when you can't eat anymore - Isn't it interesting this fact? — Deyth Banger

satisfying. You don't have to psychoanalyze yourself; you can stop obsessing about your body and dwelling in disappointment and frustration. There is only one principle that applies: Life is about fulfillment. If your life isn't fulfilled, your stomach can never supply what's missing. "What Am I Hungry For?" Everyone's life story is complicated, and the best intentions go astray because people find it hard to change. Bad habits, like bad memories, stick around stubbornly when we wish they'd go away. But you have a great motivation working for you, which is your desire for happiness. I define happiness as the state of fulfillment, and everyone wants to be fulfilled. If you keep your eye on this, your most basic motivation, then the choices you make come down to a single question: "What am I hungry for?" Your true desire will lead you in the right direction. False desires — Deepak Chopra

I want to be clear that when I used terms such as "pretense" and "intellectual dishonesty" when we first met, I wasn't casting judgment on you personally. Simply living with the moderate's dilemma may be the only way forward, because the alternative would be to radically edit these books. I'm not such an idealist as to imagine that will happen. We can't say, "Listen, you barbarians: These holy books of yours are filled with murderous nonsense. In the interests of getting you to behave like civilized human beings, we're going to redact them and give you back something that reads like Kahlil Gibran. There you go ... Don't you feel better now that you no longer hate homosexuals?" However, that's really what one should be able to do in any intellectual tradition in the twenty-first century. Again, this problem confronts religious moderates everywhere, but it's an excruciating problem for Muslims. — Sam Harris

People," Wax said, "are like cords, Steris. We snake out, striking this way and that, always looking for something new. That's human nature, to discover what is hidden. There's so much we can do, so many places we can go." He shifted in his seat, changing his center of gravity, which caused the sphere to rotate upward on its tether.
"But if there aren't any boundaries," he said, "we'd get tangled up. Imagine a thousand of these cords, zipping through the room. The law is there to keep us from ruining everyone else's ability to explore. Without law, there's no freedom. That's why I am what I am. — Brandon Sanderson

You know, when you go into the store and buy a box of laundry detergent, and the price has gone up - you know, 50 cents because of regulations ... And everything is costing more money, and we are killing our people like this ... It's the evil government that is putting all these regulations on us so that we can't survive. — Benjamin Carson

New York is where it is going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We're nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won't snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each others — John D. MacDonald

Why was it, she sometimes wondered, that in dreams we can't do the simplest things? Like a crying puppy is standing on some broken glass and you want to pick it up and brush the shards off its pads but you can't because you're balancing a ball on your head. Or you're driving and there's this old guy on crutches and you go, to Mr. Feder, your Driver's Ed teacher, Should I swerve? And he's like, Uh, probably. But then you hear this big clunk and Feder makes a negative mark in his book. — George Saunders

I'm helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are "near enemies" to every great virtue - reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can't possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a "pathological empathy" of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can't help but stay present — Krista Tippett

Tom," said Douglas, "just promise me one thing, okay?"
"It's a promise. What?"
"You may be my brother and maybe I hate you sometimes, but stick around, all right?"
"You mean you'll let me follow you and the older guys when you go on hikes?"
"Well ... sure ... even that. What I mean is, don't go away, huh? Don't let any cars run over you or fall of a cliff."
"I should say not! Whatta you think I am, anyway?"
"'Cause if worst comes to worst, and both of us are real old
say forty or forty-five some day
we can own a gold mine out West and sit there smoking corn silk and growing bears."
"Growing beards! Boy!"
"Like I say, you stick around and don't let nothing happen."
"You can depend on me," said Tom.
"It's not you I worry about," said Douglas. "It's the way God runs the world."
Tom thought about this for a moment.
"He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries. — Ray Bradbury

June Afternoon"

Didn't I tell you everything is possible in this deja vu?
Try the river boat, the carousel, feed the pigeons, Bar-B-Q.
Look at all the people, happy faces all around.
Smiling, throwing kisses, busy making lazy sounds

It's a bright June afternoon, it never gets dark.
Wah-wah! Here comes the sun.
Get your green, green tambourine, let's play in the park.
Wah-wah! Here comes the sun

Some folks are on blankets, slowly daydreaming
and reaching for their food.
Let's go buy an ice-cream and a magazine with an attitude
and put on a cassette, we can pretend that you're a star
cos life's so very simple just like la-la-la

It's a bright June afternoon...

There's a painter painting his masterpiece.
There are some squirrels jumping in the trees,
There's a wide-eyed boy with a red balloon.
All my life I've longed for this afternoon. — Roxette

How do you know all this?" Delara asked.
"I'm the Prism," Gavin said. "Five minutes."
"You can't treat us like this. We aren't slaves to take your orders. What will you do if we don't let you go?" Klytos Blue asked.
Turning cold eyes on the little man, Gavin said, "I'll kill you and piss on your corpse." He meant it.
Klytos Blue's mouth dropped open. His wasn't the only one. — Brent Weeks

I don't consider myself as a bad person, on the whole I consider myself a good person, I'm good to my parents. I treat my girl right ,,, take her out and buy her stuff. And I go to church every Sunday, But I've decided that just once I wanna do a really bad thing. I mean a really seriously bad thing. 'cause, ya know, like, we're put on this earth with free will. We can choose to do this or that. We can choose to be good or bad. But sometimes I think most people are good and not bad only because they're scared they might go to jail or hell or someplace. Some guy once said: "Anything done out of fear has no moral value" Well, I think that's right. I figure the only way you can be truly good is if you've tried been good, and you've tried being good, and you've tried being bad, and being good feels better. — Alan Moore

There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: "WHY?"
And here is the best answer I can give: Because.
Because sometimes, life is damned unfair.
Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply.
Because sometimes, as the writer, you have to put your characters in harm's way and be willing to go there if it is the right thing for your book, even if it grieves you to do it.
Because sometimes there aren't really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time.
Because acceptance is yet another of life's "here's a side of hurt" lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there.
Why, you ask? Because, I answer.
Inadequate yet true. — Libba Bray

Renunciation isn't a moral imperative or a form of self-denial. It's simply cooperation with the way things are: for moments do pass away, one after the other. Resisting this natural unfolding doesn't change it; resistance only makes it painful. So we renounce our resistance, our noncooperation, our stubborn refusal to enter life as it is. We renounce our fantasy of a beautiful past and an exciting future we can cherish and hold on to. Life just isn't like this. Life, time, is letting go, moment after moment. Life and time redeem themselves constantly, heal themselves constantly, only we don't know this, and much as we long to be healed and redeemed, we refuse to recognize this truth. This is why the sirens' songs are so attractive and so deadly. They propose a world of indulgence and wishful thinking, an unreal world that is seductive and destructive. (142) — Norman Fischer

Why me?' he said. 'That's how all men answer. And all men have a knot on their shoes, something they don't know how to do; an inability that binds them to others. Society depends on this asymmetry between people these days: a dovetailing of skills and competence. But the Flood? If the Flood came and one needed a Noah? Not so much a just man as a man able to bring along the few things it would take to start again. You see, you don't know how to tie your shoes, somebody else doesn't know how to plane wood, someone else again has never read Tolstoy, someone else doesn't know how to sow grain and so on. I've been looking for him for years, and, believe me, it's hard, really hard; it seems people have to hold each other by the hand like the blind man and the lame who can't go anywhere without each other, but argue just the same. It means if the Flood comes we'll all die together. — Italo Calvino

I learned that you can't predict your future, there's no crystal ball or formula for happiness. You can't control the weather just like you can't control the way others behave, but what you can control is how much love you give. Surrendering to this crazy thing called life is hard, but we don't have to be the soulless sheets of paper tarrying along in the wind. We can find our people, love, respect them, and then hang on for dear life because it's not where you go on this journey but who you're with that matters the most. — Renee Carlino

Another voice rages.
I hate that boy! I hate me! I am so incredibly stupid!
A sunflower leans over the fence, smiling
How dare you!
I rip off its head and throw it in the gutter.
The smart thing to do is to keep going on. Walk away quickly and no one will know what I've done. But I can't move because my eyes are locked on the slowly opening front door - locked on Mrs Muir.
'I'm sorry.' My tiny voice sounds so pathetically lame, but I've still got more lameness for her. 'I never do this sort of thing. I like sunflowers. I was just angry about something - nothing to do with you or the flower. I'm really, really sorry.'
'Oh, you are upset! Well, never mind'. Mrs Muir comes closer to me. 'Goodness, we all get cross. The main thing is: did it make you feel any better?'
'No. Yes. Maybe. A little bit.'
'Would you like to do another one? There's more out the back, too. You go for your life dear. I don't mind at all - they need a good pruning. — Bill Condon

Curran strode toward me, eyes blazing. "If I let her go, I'll need a replacement. Want to volunteer for the job."
He looked like he wouldn't be taking no for an anser. I swiped Slayer from its sheath and backed away from the edge of the roof. "And be girlfriend number twenty-three soon to be dumped in favor of girlfriend number twenty-four who has slightly bigger boobs? I don't think so."
He kept coming. "Oh Yeah?"
"Yeah, you get these beautiful women, make them dependent on you, and then you dump them. Well, this time a woman left you first, and your enormous ego can't deal with it. And to think that I hoped we could talk like reasonable adults. If we were the last two people on Earth, I'd find myself a moving island so I could get the hell away from you. — Ilona Andrews

We can't go on like this. Look at you! It's killing you! And I
I can't do it any longer, not the way we've been doing it till now ... I can't share you with something that passes itself off as a marriage, but is really habit and pride and ... empty embraces, or worse. If I loved you less, I might be able to, but
I can't. I won't. — Sarah Waters

Last year we said, 'Things can't go on like this', and they didn't, they got worse. — Will Rogers

M. I've never really thought of M objectively before, as another person. She's always been my mother I've hated or been ashamed of. Yet of all the lame ducks I've met or heard of, she's the lamest. I've never given her enough sympathy. I haven't given her this last year (since I left home) one half of the consideration I've given the beastly creature upstairs just this last week. I feel that I could overwhelm her with love now. Because I haven't felt so sorry for her for years. I've always excused myself - I've said, I'm kind and tolerant with everyone else, she's the one person I can't be like that with, and there has to be an exception to the general rule. So it doesn't matter. But of course that's wrong. She's the last person that should be an exception to the general rule.

Minny and I have so often despised D for putting up with her. We ought to go down on
our knees to him. — John Fowles

You hear stories like that all your life and think: cool, a ghost bus. But now we have to look at this stuff analytically ... a ghost bus?! The "ghost" of a motor vehicle? A public conveyance, presumably, which didn't head towards the light, move on to join the choir invisible in ... bus heaven, the great terminus in the sky, where all good buses go when they ... I don't know, break down, but instead is doomed to ... drive eternally the streets of Earth! How can there be a ghost bus?! — Paul Cornell

A knock sounds on the door.
"Who is it?" Matt yells, exasperated.
"Your father."
"What do you want?"
"Can you mow the lawn tomorrow after church?"
"Daaaaaaaad." Matt's shaking his head and laughing. My mouth has dropped open. "Couldn't you have waited until after Kate goes home to ask me?"
"I didn't want to forget," Mr. Brown says from behind the door.
Matt whispers to me, "This is his way of saying we shouldn't be in here alone together."
I nod.
Matt yells to his dad, "Fine, I'll mow the lawn. Now go away."
I smack his chest.
"What?" Matt asks, clutching my hands so I can't hit him again.
"You shouldn't treat your dad that way."
"I like her," Mr. Brown says from out in the hallway.
"Daaaaadd, stop eavesdropping!" Matt jumps to his feet and grabs his keys from the nightstand. "That's it, I'm taking you home. We'll never find any peace around here."
I can't stop laughing. — Miranda Kenneally

So, we've all seen Buffy, right? I mean, you didn't pick this up because the shop was out of Jane Austen and this looked like the next best thing. It's just that this story will go a whole lot faster if I don't have to spend too much time convincing you of the whole 'they walk among us' scenario, and we can all just accept it and move on. — Tracey Sinclair

Hereditary monarchy offers numerous advantages for America. It is the only form of government able to unify a heterogeneous people. Thanks to centuries of dynastic marriage, the family tree of every royal house is an ethnic grab bag with something for everybody. We need this badly; America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home. We can't go on much longer depending upon disasters like Pearl Harbor and the Iranian hostage-taking to bring us together. — Florence King

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

After everything happened with you and me, I tried to heal. I knew that I needed to forget you and move on. I hurt so much; everyday felt like a death sentence. I mourned you like you were dead and then, I met Leah. We were set up on a blind date and I remember feeling hope that day. It was the first day in a year that I felt hope. We took our time getting to know each other, I bought her a ring." He shot me a look to see if I remembered the iceberg.
"And then, all of a sudden I missed you again. I mean, I never stopped missing you, but this time it hit me hard. I couldn't go to sleep for a single night without seeing you in my dreams. I compared everything Leah did to everything I remembered about you. It was like the old wound opened itself up again and I was bleeding out my feelings for you." I close my eyes at his words. Words that I want to hear badly but that are making my heart ache so terribly I can barely breathe. — Tarryn Fisher

As people, other people, living in a house who ... borrow things?"
Mrs. May laid down her work. "What do you think?" she asked.
"I don't know," Kate said, pulling hard at her shoe button. "There can't be. And yet"-she raised her head-"and yet sometimes I think there must be."
"Why do you think there must be?" asked Mrs. May.
"Because of all the things that disappear. Safety pins, for instance. Factories go on making safety pins, and every day people go on buying safety pins and yet, somehow, there never is a safety pin just when you want one. Where are they all? Now, at this minute? Where do they go to? Take needles," she went on. "All the needles my mother ever bought-there must be hundreds-can't just be lying about this house."
"Not lying about the house, no," agreed Mrs. May.
"And all the other things we keep on buying. Again and again and again. Like pencils and match boxes and sealing-wax and hairpins and drawing pins and thimbles- — Mary Norton

Solidarity is something much more than mercy: usually when you appease your conscience (donate money to starving children in Africa, to use the usual Starbucks example), you can go on with your daily life as if nothing really happened. However, once you are enacting solidarity you can even abstain from charity or mercy: even if you don't give a dollar to every beggar, you can't go on with your daily life as if nothing really happened. Why? Because you carry him in your life; you live with him not like with some "integrated reject" (as we live with immigrants or refugees today), but he is a part and even a presupposition for your very action: he can never be fully integrated, because injustice can't be integrated in acts of love. This is why solidarity already contains love. — Srecko Horvat

Left to their own devices, most people don't want to fail. But Andrew Stanton isn't most people. As I've mentioned, he's known around Pixar for repeating the phrases "fail early and fail fast" and "be wrong as fast as you can." He thinks of failure like learning to ride a bike; it isn't conceivable that you would learn to do this without making mistakes - without toppling over a few times. "Get a bike that's as low to the ground as you can find, put on elbow and knee pads so you're not afraid of falling, and go," he says. If you apply this mindset to everything new you attempt, you can begin to subvert the negative connotation associated with making mistakes. Says Andrew: "You wouldn't say to somebody who is first learning to play the guitar, 'You better think really hard about where you put your fingers on the guitar neck before you strum, because you only get to strum once, and that's it. And if you get that wrong, we're going to move on.' That's no way to learn, is it? — Ed Catmull

People will tell you it was Vietnam brought this country to its knees. But I never believed that. It was already in bad shape. Vietnam was just the icin on the cake. We didn't have nothin to give to em to take over there. If we'd sent em without rifles I dont know as they'd of been all that much worse off. You can't go to war like that. You cant go to war without God. I dont know what is goin to happen when the next one comes. I surely dont. — Cormac McCarthy

So you don't think I'm crazy because I see patterns all around me?" Airiana asked, drawing her knees up to rest her chin on top of them.
"No, I think you're perfectly sane," Blythe said. "A little mixed up, but that's to be expected given what you've been through."
"Let's not go that far," Lissa teased. "She's got it in her head that we're all going to find ourselves with a Prakenskii man in our laps."
Lexi nearly spewed her tea across the room. "Don't say that. Good grief, Lissa. This is Sea Haven. You can't put something like that out into the universe and not expect repercussions."
"It wasn't me," Lissa denied, holding up both hands. "Airiana said it first, and I told her the exact same thing."

-Airiana, Blythe, Lissa, & Lexi — Christine Feehan

I'm pretty strong," he says. "I could cart you around on my back all day long. Hey, I could even teach you to swim."
'Tisn't true," she replies haughtily. "How could you do that?"
I know how--with floats, to keep your feet up."
She shakes her head. He puffs out his cheeks and whistles soundlessly. "I go fishing with my father on Sundays. I can bring you back a hake big as this!" He spreads his arms to show a fish about the size of a whale. "You like hake?"
She shakes her head.
Bass?"
Same response.
Crab claws? We got a lot of them, in the nets."
She turns her chair around and pushes the wheels along--now she's the one who goes away.
Snobby Parisienne!" he yells after her. "And to think I almost fell for you! I smell too fishy is that it? — Sebastien Japrisot

The tax incentives are things the music business can emulate. If I own Yesterday by the Beatles and I go to a bank and try to borrow $10,000 and use that song as collateral, they wouldn't know what to do. They would run me out of the bank. Whereas if we get specialized people who know how to appraise the value of intellectual property like songs, catalogs and master recordings, they know how to put some type of value on it. They have this in Nashville and Los Angeles. New Orleans is just starting to get it. — Chris Thomas King

Maybe we should go by tube', he said.
A taxi'll come', she said. 'I'm in no hurry'.
She remembered something a woman in Paris had told her once. A woman in her forties, much married, elegant, a little world-weary. There is nothing easier in this world, this woman had claimed, than getting a man to kiss you. Oh really? Eva had said, so how do you do that? Just stand close to a man, the woman has said, very close, as close as you can without touching - he will kiss you in one minute or two. It's inevitable. For them it's like an instinct - they can't resist. Infaillible.
So Eva stood close to Romer in the doorway of the shop on Frith Street as he shooted and waved at the passing cars moving down the dark street, hoping one of them might be a taxi.
We're out of luck', he said, turning, to find Eva standing very close to him, her face lifted.
I'm in no hurry', she said.
He reached for her and kissed her. — William Boyd

My lady," says Aladdin, extending an arm toward the sun, "I give you gold as a token of my love."
"All I want is you," I reply. I turn and kiss him, pulling him against me, feeling the warmth of the dawn in my hair. Then I rest my head on his shoulder, simply feeling his arms around me, his heart beating against me.
"Are you cold?" asks Aladdin. "You're shivering."
"A little."
"I'll go get a blanket. And breakfast. If I can find the kitchen."
"Galley, love. It's called a galley."
"Right. Galley. Got it. I'll ask the captain. What was his name?"
"Sinbad, I think?"
"I'll be right back."
But I catch his hand. "I'm all right. Don't go yet."
He stays with me, and together we watch the sun stain the sea and sky a thousand and one shades of gold. My thumb rubs the ring on my finger, its dents and contours as familiar to me now as my hand.
So this is what it feels like to have all your wishes come true. — Jessica Khoury

From now on, don't do this, even for me. We don't have an employer-employee relationship right now. I'm a person and you're a person. Why does it have to be so one-sided? Why do only women ... Why only you, Yoo Kyeong, have to do things like that? 'So, I'll try to look good, in any way that I can.' Let go of such thoughts. When you're on TV, you look wonderful, full of confident. You shine. — Lee Se-joo