Am I Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Am I. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
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Marilyn Monroe
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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
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Oscar Wilde (The Happy Prince and Other Stories)
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I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
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I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
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Albert Einstein
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Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are.
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Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
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So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
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Marilyn Monroe
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I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
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W.C. Fields
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I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough..
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus," I said. "I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
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Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
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Oscar Wilde (The Critic As Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything (Green Integer))
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I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
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Emily BrontΓ« (Wuthering Heights)
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I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.
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Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
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There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!
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Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility)
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I am not young enough to know everything.
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Oscar Wilde
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How lucky I am to have known somebody and something that saying goodbye to is so damned awful.
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Evans G. Valens (The Other Side of the Mountain: The Story of Jill Kinmont)
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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
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Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
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I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
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Albert Einstein
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I am a man" he told her, "and men do not consume pink beverages. Get thee gone woman, and bring me something brown.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.
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Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)
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Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known.
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Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)
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Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world.
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Marilyn Monroe
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Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
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My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.
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Winston S. Churchill
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It's strange because sometimes, I read a book, and I think I am the people in the book.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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I am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass.
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Cassandra Clare
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I am haunted by humans.
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Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
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You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.
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Sarah Dessen (This Lullaby)
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Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.
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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
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I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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I was smiling yesterday,I am smiling today and I will smile tomorrow.Simply because life is too short to cry for anything.
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Santosh Kalwar (Quote Me Everyday)
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I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.
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Jorge Luis Borges
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It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.
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John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
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I am a cage, in search of a bird.
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Franz Kafka
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I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
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Augusten Burroughs
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I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather He will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?
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Mother Teresa
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When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.
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Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
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One of the Silent Brothers is here to see you. Hodge sent me to wake you up. Actually he offered to wake you himself, but since it's 5 a.m., I figured you'd be less cranky if you had something nice to look at." "Meaning you?" "What else?
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.
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Γ‰mile Zola
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When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you're not here, I can't go to sleep. Praise God for those two insomnias! And the difference between them.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
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Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
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Walt Whitman (Leaves of Grass)
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I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.
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Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
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I am made of memories.
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Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
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I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.
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Jorge Luis Borges
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I am selfish. I am brave.
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Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
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Can I help you with something?" Clary turned instant traitor against her gender. "Those girls on the other side of the car are staring at you." Jace assumed an air of mellow gratification. "Of course they are," he said, "I am stunningly attractive.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of.
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Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
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I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.
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Louisa May Alcott (Little Women)
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It is thanks to my evening reading alone that I am still more or less sane.
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W.G. Sebald (Vertigo)
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I am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me.
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David Levithan (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
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I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.
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J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
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There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.
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Kazuo Ishiguro
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When I had nothing to lose, I had everything. When I stopped being who I am, I found myself.
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Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
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Then I realize what it is. It's him. Something about him makes me feel like I am about to fall. Or turn to liquid. Or burst into flames.
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Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
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Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?
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Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
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I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.
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Edna St. Vincent Millay
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I am free and that is why I am lost.
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Franz Kafka
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I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
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Oscar Wilde
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I am different, not less.
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Temple Grandin
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I'm saying that I'm a moody, insecure, narrow-minded, jealous, borderline homicidal bitch, and I want you to promise me that you're okay with that, because it's who I am, and you're what I need.
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Jeaniene Frost (Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1))
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I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
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E.E. Cummings
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I am always saying "Glad to've met you" to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though.
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J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
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The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.
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Charlotte BrontΓ«
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I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
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Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
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I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself
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Simone de Beauvoir
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For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
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Charles Bukowski
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I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.
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Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
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I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else's muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story.
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Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & The Six)
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I am only responsible for my own heart, you offered yours up for the smashing my darling. Only a fool would give out such a vital organ
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AnaΓ―s Nin
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You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It wont happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, β€˜I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.
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Joel Osteen (Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential)
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I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don't know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. In reality those who satisfy me are those who simply allow me to live with my ''idea of them.
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AnaΓ―s Nin
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Yes, I was infatuated with you: I am still. No one has ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in me. I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those.
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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That's why when major badasses greet each other in movies, they don't say anything, they just nod. The nod means, 'I' am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass,' but they don't say anything because they're Wolverine and Magneto and it would mess up their vibe to explain.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
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I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take itβ€”I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.
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Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
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You see, cuckoos are parasites. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the egg hatches, the baby cuckoo pushes the other baby birds out of the nest. The poor parent birds work themselves to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places." "Enormous?" said Jace. "Did you just call me fat?" "It was an analogy." "I am not fat.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
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Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
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I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
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AnaΓ―s Nin
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I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.
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C. JoyBell C.
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Do you think I am an automaton? β€” a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! β€” I have as much soul as you β€” and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal β€” as we are!
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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He accused me of being Dumbledore's man through and through." "How very rude of him." "I told him I was." Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Fawkes the phoenix let out a low, soft, musical cry. To Harry's intense embarrassment, he suddenly realized that Dumbledore's bright blue eyes looked rather watery, and stared hastily at his own knee. When Dumbledore spoke, however, his voice was quite steady. "I am very touched, Harry.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
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I am looking for friends. What does that mean -- tame?" "It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties." "To establish ties?" "Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....
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Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
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Tess, Tess, Tessa. Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy. Why have I written these words in this book? Because of you. You taught me to love this book where I had scorned it. When I read it for the second time, with an open mind and heart, I felt the most complete despair and envy of Sydney Carton. Yes, Sydney, for even if he had no hope that the woman he loved would love him, at least he could tell her of his love. At least he could do something to prove his passion, even if that thing was to die. I would have chosen death for a chance to tell you the truth, Tessa, if I could have been assured that death would be my own. And that is why I envied Sydney, for he was free. And now at last I am free, and I can finally tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart. You are not the last dream of my soul. You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime’s worth. With hope at least, Will Herondale
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
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Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
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Shawn Slovo (Captain Corelli's Mandolin filmscript)
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I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic β€” on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg β€” or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
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You think my first instinct is to protect you. Because you're small, or a girl, or a Stiff. But you're wrong." He leans his face close to mine and wraps his fingers around my chin. His hand smells like metal. When was the last time he held a gun, or a knife? My skin tingles at the point of contact, like he's transmitting electricity through his skin. "My first instinct is to push you until you break, just to see how hard I have to press." he says, his fingers squeezing at the word break. My body tenses at the edge in his voice, so I am coiled as tight as a spring, and I forget to breathe. His dark eyes lifting to mine, he adds, "But I resist it." "Why..." I swallow hard. "Why is that your first instinct?" "Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. I've seen it. It's fascinating." He releases me but doesn't pull away, his hand grazing my jaw, my neck. "Sometimes I just want to see it again. Want to see you awake.
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Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
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I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W. I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.
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Jane Austen (Persuasion)
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It's much easier to not know things sometimes. Things change and friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and than make the choice to share it with other people. You can't just sit their and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: β€œI like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because β€œI like strong women” is code for β€œI hate strong women.”)
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Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl)
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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother. So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
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Hermann Hesse (BΓ€ume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte)