We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.
Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli
If you’re in a relationship when you leave high school, let her go, man. Seriously. If you don’t, you’re just gonna do it when one of you’s at Connecticut College and the other is at NYU. You should’ve learned this in biology. We’re not meant to settle down when we’re so young. Seriously, give your loved one one last kiss. If it’s meant to be, you’ll come back together with your own money in your checking account and a lot of more experience under your belt. Nothing’s more attractive than confidence. Why am I telling you this? Because it’s time to work. It’s time to figure out what you want to do. It’s time to hustle. You can’t hustle if you’re sneaking off every 2 hours to talk to your boo. I know, my advice sucks, right? It’s cool, you’ll get it. You’re young. You got your whole 20s ahead of you. Go your separate ways. Relationships only work when as an individual, you feel your life is up to par. When you feel like it’s all it can be without someone else to complement it.
Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast, is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece — by thought, choice, courage, and determination.
Source: creatingaquietmind
‘And now I’m looking at you,’ he said, ‘and you’re asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before, but since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely.’
Cassandra Clare (via quotewhore)
Source: quotewhore
I have never studied the art of paying compliments to women, but I must say that if all that has been said by orators and poets since the creation of the world in praise of women were applied to the women of America, it would not do them justice. God bless the women of America.
Abraham Lincoln
One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be negotiated with. To feel physically comfortable with someone else’s body is not a decision you can make. It has very little to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not. When it isn’t there (as I have learned in the past, with heartbreaking clarity) you can no more force it to exist than a surgeon can force a patient’s body to accept a kidney from the wrong donor. My friend Annie says it all comes down to one simple question: ‘Do you want your belly pressed against this person’s belly forever —or not?’
It is so rare in this world to meet a trustworthy person who truly wants to help you, and finding such a person can make you feel warm and safe, even if you are in the middle of a windy valley high up in the mountains.
Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid
In running, it doesn’t matter whether you come in first, in the middle of the pack, or last. You can say, ‘I have finished.’ There is a lot of satisfaction in that.
Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder
Did you ever walk through a room that’s packed with people, and feel so lonely you can hardly take the next step?
Jodi Picoult, Second Glance
You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Emote. It’s okay. It shows you are thinking and feeling.
Ellen DeGeneres, Seriously… I’m Kidding
I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.
Woodrow Wilson
…nothing momentous comes in this world unless it comes on the shoulders of kindness.
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna
After a certain point, a heart with so many stress fractures can never be anything but broken.
Jodi Picoult, Salem Falls
If I’m gonna jump off a cliff, and you’re going to get pushed off a cliff, why don’t we hold hands on the way down?
Timothy Busfield, The West Wing
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lines, lyrics and literary fragments that call for a pause