World Without Me Quotes & Sayings

Most guys I know are assholes. I have some great asshole friends, but that's not the point. Friendship has got nothing to do with that. It's 'can you hang, can you talk about this without any feeling of distance between you?' Friendship is the diminishing of distance between people. That's what friendship is, and to me it's one of the most important things in the world. — Keith Richards

I could have done even better, miss, and I'd know a lot more, if it wasn't for my destiny ever since childhood. I'd have killed a man in a duel with a pistol for calling me low-born, because I came from Stinking Lizaveta without a father, and they were shoving that in my face in Moscow. It spread there thanks to Grigory Vasilievich. Grigory Vasilievich reproaches me for rebelling against my nativity: 'You opened her matrix,' he says. I don't know about her matrix, but I'd have let them kill me in the womb, so as not to come out into the world at all, miss. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Whence all this passion towards conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you will have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive towards colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. — Ralph Ellison

I have always wanted to give you the world, so I started giving you pieces of the oceans that kept us apart. — Karen Quan

Congratulations, Christy. You just met one of the weird things in the world that don't fit neatly into the fae or werewolf category."
"Weird like you," said Christy.
"Well, yes," I agreed. "I thought that went without saying. Weird things like me. — Patricia Briggs

Every instance in my life, I've felt like the exact opposite of Superman. Except this time, this moment right now. I don't care. I don't feel like a weak, insipid sissy. Because right now I know I would save the girl. I know that I would rather risk the planet than let harm befall Eliza Wishart. I would save her in a second. Because I can imagine her and me huddled safe together while the earth falls under evil designs, but I can't imagine the world without her in it. — Craig Silvey

Growing up in that fashion is a breeding ground for insecurity and doubt; it also leaves you questioning motives. It took me a long time to see the world as I want it without constantly looking for approval. I still fall, but I'm better suited for survival. — Damon Runyon

Jo Wood was sound, sound as a bell. Solid, cynical, amused and occasionally amusing, he did not appear to be very intelligent, and unlike Richard Fawcett and me, seemed uninterested in words, ideas and the world. But one day he said to me:
'I've got it now. It's reading isn't it?'
'I'm sorry?'
'You read a lot, don't you? That's where it all comes from. Reading. Yeah, reading.'
The next time I saw him he had a Herman Hesse novel in his hands. I never saw him again without a book somewhere on his person. When I heard, some years later, that he had got into Cambridge I thought to myself, I know how that happened. He decided one day to read. — Stephen Fry

And even my sense of identity was wrapped in a namelessness often hard to penetrate, as we have just seen I think ... Yes, even then, when already all was fading, waves and particles, there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names. I say that now, but after all what do I know now about then, now when the icy words hail down upon me, the icy meanings, and the world dies too, foully named. All I know is what the words know, and the dead things, and that makes a handsome little sum, with a beginning, a middle and an end as in the well-built phrase and the long sonata of the dead. And truly it little matters what I say, this or that or any other thing. Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept. To hell with it anyway. — Samuel Beckett

But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him. — John Green

Ultimately, I hoped the tiny-house guy was similar to me: a sane person without a big agenda, who simply wanted a way to make sense of the world, to create a new map with a big X in the middle labeled "Home," even if that meant shrinking his world down to the size of an area rug. — Dee Williams

Generally, I've observed, we seek changes that fall into the "Essential Seven." People - including me - most want to foster the habits that will allow them to: 1. Eat and drink more healthfully (give up sugar, eat more vegetables, drink less alcohol) 2. Exercise regularly 3. Save, spend, and earn wisely (save regularly, pay down debt, donate to worthy causes, stick to a budget) 4. Rest, relax, and enjoy (stop watching TV in bed, turn off a cell phone, spend time in nature, cultivate silence, get enough sleep, spend less time in the car) 5. Accomplish more, stop procrastinating (practice an instrument, work without interruption, learn a language, maintain a blog) 6. Simplify, clear, clean, and organize (make the bed, file regularly, put keys away in the same place, recycle) 7. Engage more deeply in relationships - with other people, with God, with the world (call friends, volunteer, have more sex, spend more time with family, attend religious services) — Gretchen Rubin

You are so special and important and elegant and smart and kind and worthwhile, and you are so much better than me and everyone else I've ever known in every single way, and you are the only truth I have ever found in this lying world, and I love you to the floor of me, and it breaks me to imagine a future without you in it, and I just want you to know all that, just because. — Seth King

Girl : do you hear me?
cause although it seemed to be the end of the world to me -
it wasn't.

There was a lot more world : cause roads that look set to take you in one direction will sometimes twist back on themselves without ever seeming anything other than straight, ... many things get forgiven in the course of a life : nothing is finished or unchangeable except death and even death will bend a little if what you tell of it is told right. — Ali Smith

Though she was intrigued by someone like Claude, the love affairs of a real lesbian like Petit were a matter of complete indifference to Mickey. It seemed to me that our indifference, the indifference of the 'normal' world, made the life of such women even more tragic. For they suffered from their loves, like any other woman, but without the balm of sympathy and understanding. — Tereska Torres

I find it quite intriguing that the one observing me as different, immediately assumes that there's something wrong with me, but never, not even for one instant, questions the possibility of the opposite. It's truly amazing that the ones with more certainties, the most arrogant and the most selfish, are indeed the most stupid inside society. They are so dumb and ignorant that they can't see a writer in front of their nose. And the more the writer types, talks and thinks, the more they think that this separation, this difference, grants them some form of superiority. Indeed, the light pushes demons into hell. The brighter your light, the faster you differentiate others. The way of the light was never meant for the weak, which are a majority. And this majority will always ignore the light, as demons fearing and hating angels. And so, it's interesting that without artists God would not have a way to reach the world. And yet, without the ignorant, Satan wouldn't have a way to stop God. — Robin Sacredfire

I do have hope. Nature is enormously resilient, humans are vastly intelligent, the energy and enthusiasm that can be kindled among young people seems without limit, and he human spirit is indomitable. But if we want life, we will have to stop depending on someone else to save the world. It is up to us-you and me, all of us. Myself, I have placed my faith in the children. — Jane Goodall

For me the whole world is like a gigantic theater in which I am the only spectator without opera glasses. The orchestra plays the prelude to the third act, the stage is far away as in a dream, my heart swells with delight - and you want to blind me with a pair of half-ruble spectacles? — Isaac Babel

The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all of his perfection, creating imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell. — Armand Salacrou

Lord, you call me to live in the world without embracing the ways of the world. Help me to live in a way that preserves my freedom to follow you wherever and however you lead. If I should leave behind a monument, may it be a reminder to others of faith and not foolishness. — Ann Spangler

Do you know anyone who would be willing to die to save those five-thousand serial killers?"
"No. Everyone I know is too smart for that!"
"Yet Someone did die to save all of the serial killers, and all of the old women, and all of the soldiers, and all of the babies that the world has ever known. That one is Jesus Christ. He died for you and for me. He died for everyone, because in this world our sin has condemned us to death, and the only way that we can be saved was for someone who was Himself without sin to be willing to die in our place."
Molly was silent. Her bright smile had faded, and she felt tears well up in her eyes. — Joyce Swann

The Christian world, I discovered, was like the captain and crew of a vessel on the ocean without a compass, and tossed to and fro whithersoever the wind listed to blow them. When the light came to me, I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness — Brigham Young

As a child, what captivated me was reading the poems myself and realizing that there was a world without material substance which was nevertheless as alive as any other. — Mary Oliver

Oh my gosh, is that an iPhone?!" Laurel asked, her voice unconsciously rising in pitch and volume.
Tamani looked up at her, his expression blank."Yeah?"
"He has an iPhone," Laurel said to David. "My faerie sentry who generally lives without running water has an iPhone. That's. Just. Great. Everyone in the whole world has a cell phone except me. That's awesome. — Aprilynne Pike

Plants were bound for good or ill to their places. They expressed not only beauty but also the thoughts of God's world, with an intent of their own and without deviation. Trees in particular were mysterious and seemed to me direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of life. For that reason, the woods were the places where I felt closest to its deepest meaning and to its awe-inspiring workings. — Carl Jung

I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple. — Mary Oliver

Carson leaned back in his chair. "You're still gorgeous, if you don't mind me saying. I like this natural look. I didn't know what to expect when you agreed to meet. I've only seen you at the club, so I had no idea what you'd wear outside in the real world, but I like it. I don't know about the baseball team itself, but the cap is good. And you're even more stunning without all the makeup." He gave her a once-over, allowing his eyes to roam before he stopped at her eyes and gave her another wink. — Rachel Blaufeld

Hunger is a deep concern of mine, and I feel that no one should go without food in this world as long as there are caring people to lend a hand. I've had to struggle in my past and I know what it's like to go without, so I try to do as much as I can to help bring awareness to an issue that hits very close to home for me. — Nick Cannon

If I had married a woman intelligent enough to guide me, to rule me without my feeling that I was ruled, I should have taken good care of my money, I should have had children, and I should not be, as now I am, alone in the world and possessing nothing. — Giacomo Casanova

O ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to the right and left of you; you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves until ye become humble and joyful as children. Then will ye find Me, and having found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds, and looking out from the great world within to the little world without, you will bless everything that is, and find all is well with time and with you. KRISHNA. — Leo Tolstoy

Without compunction, pity or shame,
they've built towering walls around me.
Desperate, I sit and think one thing:
alone here this fate confounds me.
For there were many things I'd hoped to do out there.
With all the construction, how was I not aware?
Yet the crack and clang of hammers I never once heard.
Imperceptibly they've confined me from the outside world.
("Walls") — Constantine P. Cavafy

The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. — Chris Kyle

For me, spirituality includes the belief in things larger than ourselves, an appreciation of nature and beauty, a sensitivity to the world, a feeling of shared connection with other living things, a desire to help people less fortunate than ourselves. All of these things can occur with or without God. I do not believe in the existence of God, but I consider myself a spiritual person in the manner I have just described. I call myself a spiritual atheist. I would imagine that many people are spiritual atheists. — Alan Lightman

Troy sighed with frustration. "Let me get this straight. We're stuck in the story of Romeo and Juliet and we can't get home without a magic charm from Shakespeare's quill, which doesn't exist in this world. However, we might be able to get home when the story ends, but if Romeo and Juliet don't meet, then we don't have a story. More important, we don't have an ending."
Friar Laurence tsk tsked. He placed his speckled hand on Troy's forehead. "Bless you, my son, but a fever has muddled your mind. — Suzanne Selfors

I left the apartment without even bothering to close the door behind me. Once outside, I faced a world of buildings and faces that seemed strange and distant. I started to walk aimlessly, oblivious to the cold and the rain-filled wind that was starting to lash the town with the breath of a curse. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I became aware that there was no barrier between what was inside and what was outside. My body was illuminated by a bright light. I heard with my eyes and saw with my ears. I used my nose as mouth and my mouth as nose. I experienced the world with the totality of my senses as my spirit gathered and my form dissolved. There was no distinction between muscles and bones. My body stopped being heavy and I felt like a floating leaf. Without knowing it, I was being carried by the wind. Drifting here and there, I did not know whether I rode on the wind or the wind rode on me. — Liezi

I-I didn't ... " Derek began.
He scrambled from under Liam. The werewolf's body fell, limp, to the side, his head twisted, neck broken.
Derek swallowed. The sound echoed in the silence.
"I didn't
I just
I was trying to stop him."
"You didn't mean it," I said softly. "But he did."
He looked at me, eyes refusing to focus.
"He would have killed you," I said."Killed both of us, if it came down to it. You might not have meant to do it, but ... "
I didn't finish. I could have said the world was better off without Liam, but we both knew the point wasn't whether Liam deserved to die, but whether Derek deserved the guilt of killing someone. He didn't. — Kelley Armstrong

At times she's so basic, at others so wise it frightens me that I got so far in this world without the benefit of such knowledge. — Diane Keaton

I couldn't have been a novelist without being a mother. It gives you a unique witness point of the growth of a personality. It was a kind of biological component for me that had to come first. My children gave this other window on the world. — Carol Shields

Allow me to introduce myself,
the name is Brown, Jane Brown,
and I am the greatest detective the world
has ever seen. I'm known to solve multiple cases,
on any given day, without even breaking a sweat.
In fact, I am working on one now. — A.J. DeJong

I'm interested in things which suggest the world rather than express the personality ... The most conventional thing, the most ordinary - it seems to me that those things can be dealt with without having to judge them; they seem to me to exist as clear facts, not involving aesthetic hierarchy. — Jasper Johns

I got real acting experience, which I'd never had partly because I still wasn't so sure that I wanted to be an actress. But maybe it was something I could do without a high school diploma or accredited skills of any kind whatsoever - a job that would pay me enough of a wage to let me go out into the world and start what I would laughingly come to call my own actual life. — Carrie Fisher

He was my favourite possession, and I didn't feel right if I couldn't get hold of him. He was warm, hard to do without, and I wanted to drag him around with me everywhere I went. The most comfortable blanket in the world, right next to my skin, that was Bogey. — Rika Yokomori

If love were enough, I'd tell St Peter to close his gates; I'd block out the stars, and cover the moon with a fist. I'd find a place where time stands still, where no world would exist, except one where we could stand together arm in arm. Except, my darling, here's the secret you should know: where you are, so am I. No there exists or here. No place exists where I would not come when you need me, for you will always exist in a place where my love is without end. — Lily Graham

Whenever she wasn't with me, there was an emptiness inside me, a feeling that something was missing, which I had never experienced before - as if, once she had entered my life, the world could no longer turn properly without her. — Joel Dicker

I don't need my heart anymore, you can have it. Cut it out, put it in a box, bury it in the hard ground, next to you. My eyes are useless too. They only show me a world without you. Color blind, color absent, colorless. And my mind screams, Not fair! Not right. Not what I was promised on the swing set as you pushed me toward the sun. None of the stories you read me schooled me for this. I didn't learn this lesson in the moon, or on the train, or as a thing to be curious about. So I don't need my heart anymore, you can have it. Let it be buried, in the hard ground, next to you. — Catherine McKenzie

I read more of Treasure Island to him, and it pleased him a great deal. It seems to me that there are so many lonely people in this world, and so little of life is kind and good. In a way, I am thankful for this flood, since without it, I might never have talked to him much, and Mason is a nice fellow. — Nancy E. Turner

Nothing will ever replace the feeling I got when Jesse Orosco
struck out Marty Barrett
to end the game (Game 7 of the 1986 World Series) and I got the opportunity to run out into his arms. To me, that was the greatest accomplishment. Without a doubt, that was my biggest thrill. — Gary Carter

Instead I dreamt of walking out of the world, of spending all my time inside with no one to talk to, and no one to talk to me. All I wanted was a routine, a series of sterile acts that I could perform without dedication or effort, a life where everything was constantly the same, where every day passed exactly like the one before. — Edwidge Danticat

We could have made it to the Arizona border in a few more hours if we hadn't been distracting each other with stupid little arguments. Don't get me wrong; I liked J.Lo fine. I've made that bed. But I'm not sure there's a person in the world I could be with twenty-four hours a day for three weeks without getting a little snippy. If I ever meet such a person, I'm marrying them. — Adam Rex

How did Ixtel become real for me? The world is full of Ixtels who I can help without hurting my father. Why this one? How was it her suffering that touched me? Father. I feel connected to her through my father's actions. I feel an obligation to right my father's wrong. But why? Shouldn't my father's welfare come first? His welfare is my welfare. How does one weigh love for a parent against the urge to help someone in need? I feel like what is right should be done no matter what. This lack of doubt makes me feel inhuman. But it is not a question of my head for once. I hear the right note. I recognize the wrong note. Maybe the right action is a lake like this one, green and quiet and deep. — Francisco X Stork

He's as tall as the door, and I'm standing here without remembering the walk across the shadowed parking lot. When he turns to face me the world grinds into slow motion. Even my heartbeat draws out interminably. — Poppet

For all the pain I saw at Paterson, it is nothing compared to the pain that people inflict upon each other in the real world. All I can think of now is that it is not right for me to be unaware of that pain, including the pain that I inflict on others. Only how is it possible to live without being either numb to it or overwhelmed by it? — Francisco X Stork

The essence of the evening was captured by a question from the audience. Someone asked: "What would it take to change your worldview?" My answer was simple: Any single piece of evidence. If we found a fossilized animal trying to swim between the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon, if we found a process by which a new huge fraction of a radioactive material's neutrons could become protons in some heretofore fantastically short period of time, if we found a way to create eleven species a day, if there were some way for starlight to get here without going the speed of light, that would force me and every other scientist to look at the world in a new way. However, no such contradictory evidence has ever been found - not any, not ever. — Bill Nye

I'm not perfect. I think more highly of snow and ice than love. It's easier for me to be interested in mathematics than to have affection for my fellow human beings. But I am anchored to something in life that is constant. You can call it a sense of orientation; you can call it woman's intuition; you can call it whatever you like. I'm standing on a foundation and have no farther to fall. It could be that I haven't managed to organize my life very well. But I always have a grip - with at least one finger at a time - on Absolute Space. That's why there's a limit to how far the world can twist out of joint, and to how badly things can go before I find out. I now know, without a shadow of a doubt, that something is wrong. I — Peter Hoeg

I realize I'm trying to work out the boundaries. How to love her without interfering. How to step back and let her have her private world and yet still be an intimate part of it. When she talks about her feelings, I have to consciously tell myself she wants me to receive them, not fix them. — Sue Monk Kidd

MARIA: But unluckily that iron gate, that Ha, Ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. I cannot get out, as the starling said.
HENRY: And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited. — Jane Austen

Now let me ask my countrymen, Have you ever granted a moment's thought to this very vital problem in the building of our nation ? Have you devised any practical remedies to combat this evil ? Will you, my countrymen, go on without making any intelligent effort to lay the axe at the root of this weaknss and misery ? Will you allow the noted chivalry and the noble hardihood of the Indian to sink into oblivion ? Will you make it a thing entirely of the past ? I implore you, I beseech you, I exhort you my brethren in the name of all that is dearest to you to shake off the lethargy, to show to this world that you were sleeping the sleep of lions only, to rise again with redoubled energy and courage to take the work of rebuilding your nation in right earnest. — Kodi Rammurthy Naidu

America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-war day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion.
You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that's all it would manage to do.
You said that to get things right one of us would have to take a leap of faith. I think I've discovered the canyon that must be leaped, and I hope to find you waiting for me on the other side.
I love you, America.
Yours forever,
Maxon — Kiera Cass

I don't know what will happen to me without you. Only you. Only you love me. Out of everyone in the world. — Tony Kushner

Catelyn had not eaten today. Perhaps that had been unwise. She told herself that there had been no time, but the truth was that food had lost its savor in a world without Ned. 'When they took his head off, they killed me too. — George R R Martin

Let me be cursed, let me be base and vile, but let me also kiss the hem of that garment in which my God is clothed; let me be following the devil at the same time, but still I am also your son, Lord, and I love you, and I feel a joy without which the world cannot stand and be. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

A life without pain: it was the very thing I had dreamed of for years, but now that I had it, I couldn't find a place for myself within it. A clear gap separated me from it, and this caused me great confusion. I felt as if I were not anchored to this world - this world that I had hated so passionately until then; this world that I had continued to revile for its unfairness and injustice; this world where at least I knew who I was. Now the world ceased to be the world, and I had ceased to be me. — Haruki Murakami

The Turk and the devils break through without any trouble and lay everything waste, because God does not want His people to trust in anything else but Himself. This is the reason why men have acknowledged this confidence in the Creator through the Son, through whom He has received us into favor and made a covenant with us, and this covenant is to have the confidence that our life depends on God alone, against all the snares and might of Satan and the world. If He wants me destroyed, He has no need to send soldiers, but if not, defiance to all the Turks, death, and the devil in hell! Therefore — Martin Luther

Brother,you who have the light, tell me mine.
I am like a blind man. I go without direction and fumble along.
I go under tempests and storms,
blind with fantasy and crazy with harmony.
That is my malady. Dreaming. Poetry
is the iron jacket with a thousand bloody points
I wear upon my soul. The bloodstained thorns
spill the drops of my melancholy.
And so I go, blind and crazy, through this bitter world;
at times it seems to me that the path is very long,
and at times that it's very short ...
And in this back-and-forth between eagerness and agony,
I am full of woes I can hardly bear.
Don't you hear the drops of my melancholy falling? — Ruben Dario

I believed that I was approaching the end of my days without having tasted to the full any of the pleasures for which my heart thirsted ... without having ever tasted that passion which, through lack of an object, was always suppressed ... The impossibility of attaining the real persons precipitated me into the land of chimeras; and seeing nothing that existed worthy of my exalted feelings, I fostered them in an ideal world which my creative imagination soon peopled with beings after my own heart. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Writing is both my expression to the world and my way to hide from it - you get who I am without actually seeing me. — Paige

And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world. — Jean-Paul Sartre

I started to realise that it wasn't for me. Perhaps I didn't have to give my Hamlet before I died, that the world might be an OK place without my Hamlet, in fact. — Eric McCormack

Let me say it openly: we are surrounded by an enterprise of degradation, cruelty, and killing which rivals anything that the Third Reich was capable of, indeed dwarfs it, in that ours is an enterprise without end, self-regenerating, bringing rabbits, rats, poultry, livestock ceaselessly into the world for the purpose of killing them. — J.M. Coetzee

Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the
sane; thank You for letting me know what this is
like. Thank You for letting me look at your frightening
blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without
terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly
lost
with this love — Franz Wright

God help me, how Tolstoy sweats over drying up people's sources of life, of wild and joyful life, drying them up and making the world fat with the love of God and everyman ... But the man is old, after all, his fountains of life run dry, without a trace remaining of human affections ... Only someone who has become slow and watertight with old age, satiated and hardened with pleasure, will go to youth and say, Renounce! ... And yet the youth renounces nothing, but sins royally for forty years. Such is the course of nature! — Knut Hamsun

Everything just feels so empty without her. She was more a parent to me than my birth parents were. She took me in, fed, dressed me, but most importantly, she treated me with respect. She taught me that my abilities were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing I should try so hard to deny. She convinced me that what I had was a gift-not a curse- and that I shouldn't let other people's narrow minds and fears determine how I love, what I do, or how I perceive myself in the world. She actually made me believe that in no way, shape, or form did their uninformed opinions make me a freak. — Alyson Noel

When we were first together, when you first brought me here to this beautiful place, you used to say you were glad you found a napoletana, remember? You said the northerners were sane and orderly and hardworking and maybe more honest, but that without the south, Italy would have too many brains and not enough heart. It would be like Europe having only Germany and Austria - no Spain, no France, no Italy. It would be a world of scientists without singers. I thought it was romantic. What happened to the man who said those things? — Roland Merullo

Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable. — Meghan O'Rourke

One of the things that made me suffer no regret when I was called away from the cramped intellectual jail of atheism into a wider and more wonderful world, was my growing conviction that my fellow atheists were shallow, men without insight into real human nature. — John C. Wright

Arjuna asked Sri Krishna, "In this chaotic condition of my mind, what is my duty? I surrender myself to you, great Master. Please tell me."
The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna is, "You understand nothing. You draw conclusions without proper understanding of the structure of life and your relationship to people or things in general. It is a very sorry state. How can you draw conclusions without proper premises? If you draw a conclusion based on a wrong premise, the conclusion is also wrong. Therefore, all that you have been told up to this time is without any foundation because you do not know either yourself or the world. — Swami Krishnananda

You can see right away,' the old man said, 'that he hates us but hides his hatred under a layer of sycophancy. They all hate us. How could they not? If I were them I'd hate us too. In fact, I'd hate us even without being them. Take it from me, Rachel, if you just look at us you can see that we deserve nothing but hatred and contempt. And maybe a bit of pity. But that pity cannot come from the Arabs. They themselves need all the pity in the world. — Amos Oz

Maybe there are just some men like that in the world, I thought. Men who have to be in charge, who have to punish those who awaken feelings in them which they cannot control. Men who will lure you with tenderness till you believe that you are safe then slap you down. Men whom it is impossible for anyone to love without losing their dignity. Men who have to damage those who love them most. But, then, I had fallen on love with one, so what did that make me? — Helen Fielding

Sometimes I forget this insoluble mess and dream: he'll save me, we'll travel; we'll hunt in the deserts, we'll sleep on the pavements of strange cities, carelessly, without his guilt, without my pain. Or else I'm going to wake up and all the human laws and customs of this world will have changed - thanks to some magical power - or this world, without changing, will let me feel desire and be happy and carefree.
What did I want from him who hurt me more than I thought it was possible for two people to hurt each other? I wanted the adventures found in kids' books. He couldn't give me these because he wasn't able to. Whatever did he want from me? I never understood. He told me he was just average: average regrets, average hopes. What do I care about all that average shit that has nothing to do with adventure? — Kathy Acker

I find no peace, and all my war is done,
I fear and hope; I burn and freeze like ice;
I fly above the wind yet can I not arise;
And naught I have and all the world I seize on.
That looseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison,
And holdeth me not, yet can I scape nowise;
Nor letteth me live nor die at my devise,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain;
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health;
I love another, and thus I hate myself;
I feed me in sorrow, and laugh in all my pain.
Likewise displeaseth me both death and life
And my delight is causer of this strife. — Thomas Wyatt

It was a story to tell myself, a promise. Saying out loud, "You're never going to touch me again" - that was a piece of magic, magic in the belly, the domed kingdom of sex, the terror place inside where rage and power live. Whiskey rush without whiskey, bravado and determination, this place where for the first time I knew no confusion, only outrage and pride. In the worst moments of my life, I have told myself that story, the story about a girl who stood up to a monster. Doing that, I make a piece of magic inside myself, magic to use against the meanness of the world. — Dorothy Allison

Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you? — Jim Jarmusch

I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. — Herman Melville

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

The world outside of me has no meaning independent of my thinking it. (pauses to look) I look out of the window. A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: chair. So she is sitting. I think: book. So she is reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. But how can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my sensory experience, which has the form of a woman reading- in a universe which is in fact empty! But Immanuel Kant says- no! Because what I perceive as reality includes concepts which I cannot experience through the senses. Time and space. Cause and effect. Relations between things. Without me there is something wrong with this picture. The trees, the grass, the woman are merely- oh, she's coming! (nervously)- she's coming in here-! I say, don't leave!-where are you going? — Tom Stoppard

There is no greater paradox in the cosmos," the deceased had written, "than the apparent contradiction of our helplessness ('without me, you can do nothing') alongside God's 'helplessness.' Oh, I know, God is all-powerful, and so on; but he cannot undo what he has done, and what he once did was to make men free. This means that he 'needs' us in order to get us to Heaven as his lovers, and in order to do his will in the world. All we have to do in order to frustrate those wishes - to render God 'helpless' - is to say No. But God is not helpless, really, because he has mercy - himself. And what mercy does is convert, change our hearts. Which God never stops trying to do until we are dead. This means continued suffering for him, which is what Christ is all about." Young — William F. Buckley Jr.

I'm a moth to his flame and it frightens me how willingly I'd burn my wings off for him. Destroy the world. Follow him to Hell. It's scary to feel like you can't breathe without someone. — Karen Marie Moning

Don't you see, Ren? That's exactly why I have to go. You need to know that you can survive without me. That's there's more to life than just me. You need to see this world that's opened up to you and know that you have choices. I refuse to be your cage- Kelsey, pg. 401 — Colleen Houck

I've never sung anywhere without giving the people listening to me a chance to join in - as a kid, as a lefty, as a man touring the U.S.A. and the world, as an oldster. I guess it's kind of a religion with me. Participation. That's what's going to save the human race. — Pete Seeger

I think there must be probably different types of suicides. I'm not one of the self-hating ones. The type of like "I'm shit and the world'd be better off without poor me" type that says that but also imagines what everybody'll say at their funeral. I've met types like that on wards. Poor-me-I-hate-me-punish-me-come-to-my-funeral. Then they show you a 20 X 25 glossy of their dead cat. It's all self-pity bullshit. It's bullshit. I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types. Hurt themselves. I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all. I wanted to just stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock I would have done that. Instead. — David Foster Wallace

Meditate but one hour upon the self's nonexistence and you will feel yourself to be another man, said a priest of the Japanese Kusha sect to a Western visitor.
Without having frequented the Buddhist monasteries, how many times have I not lingered over the world's unreality, and hence my own? I have not become another man for that, no, but there certainly has remained with me the feeling that my identity is entirely illusory, and that by losing it I have lost nothing, except something, except everything. — Emil Cioran

You invented me. There is no such earthly being,
Such an earthly being there could never be.
A doctor cannot cure, a poet cannot comfort-
A shadowy apparition haunts you night and day.
We met in an unbelievable year,
When the world's strength was at an ebb,
Everything withered by adversity,
And only the graves were fresh.
Without streetlights, the Neva's waves were black as pitch,
Thick night enclosed me like a wall ...
That's when my voice called out to you!
Why it did-I still don't understand.
And you came to me, as if guided by a star
That tragic autumn, stepping
Into that irrevocably ruined house,
From whence had flown a flock of burnt verse. — Anna Akhmatova

JAMIE'S SONG 'Bright Blue Dream':

I watch the world go round and round.
And see the sun go up and down.
I think I've heard most every sound
Except your voice.

I feel the river by my feet.
And let the tears dry indiscrete.
Seems the horizon's incomplete
Without your face.

The world is a colder place,
Shadows everywhere you used to be.
Darker than the darkest nights I've seen.

And I try go back to that
Bright blue dream.
When there was nothing, there was nothing, but you and me.
Clear blue sky.
Yes there was something, there was something, I could not see. — Neha Yazmin

If you will take me for your wife, Walter, I will love you dearly. If you will let me go with you, Walter, I will go to the world's end without fear. I can give up nothing for you - I have nothing to resign, and no one to forsake; but all my love and life shall be devoted to you, and with my last breath I will breathe your name to God if I have sense and memory left. — Charles Dickens

My first thought, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy. — John Updike

The next day I was driven down to New York City to take the physical. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever seen. Several hundred young men, maybe even a thousand, in their skivvies, walking around an enormous room, all of us lost, dazed, and confused.
Some of these guys had dodged the draft and were there under the watchful eyes of dozens of federal marshals lined up against one of the walls. After eight hours of being poked, prodded, stuck, and poked again, I was given a large red envelope. I had been rejected. I had the respiratory problems of an old man, high blood pressure, partial loss of hearing, very bad teeth, very flat, very wide feet and I tested positive for tuberculosis.
"Frankly," the doctor said, "I don't know how the hell you're even standing up," and that was when the sergeant told me that if they bottled everything that was wrong with me "we could take over the world without a shot. — John William Tuohy

It's like saying to a drowning man: What a pity, what a pity! If you had only let me teach you how to swim! Everybody wants to right the world, nobody wants help his neighbor. They want to make a man of you without taking your body into consideration. It's all cockeyed. — Henry Miller

Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books. (p. 5) — Rabih Alameddine

One thing is for sure: a World Cup without me is nothing to watch. — Zlatan Ibrahimovic