Attraction Hurts Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Attraction Hurts. Here they are! All 200 of them:

Hey Nana, If Cinderella's glass slipper fits so perfectly, I wonder why it fell off along the way? I can't help but think that it was on purpose, to attract the prince's affections. No matter what I do, I'll still have the fate of a girl who just keeps getting hurt, wondering if she can be happy in this pointless, one man show?
Ai Yazawa
I start to walk out of the room, but I hear him start to panic and his breathing gets labored. He reaches out to me. “Don’t go. Please.” I sit next to him on the bed, wondering if he’s afraid of being abandoned. He slings his arm around my thigh and rests his forehead against my knee. “I have to protect you,” he says softly. “From who?” “El Diablo.” “El Diablo? Who’s that?” I ask. “It’s complicated.” What does that mean? “Try to rest,” I tell him. “I can’t. My entire body hurts.” “I know.” I gently rub the arm that’s slung around me until his breathing slows. “I wish I could help you,” I whisper. “You are,” he murmurs against my knee. “Just don’t leave me, okay? Everyone leaves me.
Simone Elkeles (Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry, #2))
Interesting' meant that you attracted the notice of men who would hurt you to possess whatever they found 'interesting' about you.
Christina Henry (Alice (The Chronicles of Alice, #1))
Get out there and expose yourself. Open yourself up and find what makes you happy. Yes, that will mean you’ll probably get hurt. But so what? The best things in life don’t come easily.
Mark Manson (Models: Attract Women Through Honesty)
It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing "How High the Moon" on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could ever improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished. It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about. And we are all on our own when it comes to keeping those lines open to ourselves: your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.
Joan Didion (Slouching Towards Bethlehem)
Beati bellicosi. Blessed are the warriors.” “Good organization,” said Magnus. “I knew the man who founded it, back in the 1800s. Woolsey Scott. Respectable old werewolf family.” Alec made an ugly sound in the back of his throat. “Did you sleep with him, too?” Magnus’s cat eyes widened. “Alexander!” “Well, I don’t know anything about your past, do I?” Alec demanded. “You won’t tell me anything; you just say it doesn’t matter.” Magnus’s face was expressionless, but there was a dark tinge of anger to his voice. “Does this mean every time I mention anyone I’ve ever met, you’re going to ask me if I had an affair with them?” Alec’s expression was stubborn, but Simon couldn’t help having a flash of sympathy; the hurt behind his blue eyes was clear. “Maybe.” “I met Napoleon once,” said Magnus. “We didn’t have an affair, though. He was shockingly prudish for a Frenchman.” “You met Napoleon?” Jordan, who appeared to be missing most of the conversation, looked impressed. “So it’s true what they said about warlocks, then?” Alec gave him a very unpleasant look. “What’s true?” “Alexander,” said Magnus coldly, and Clary met Simon’s eyes across the table. Hers were wide, green, and full of an expression that said Uh-oh. “You can’t be rude to everyone who talks to me.” Alec made a wide, sweeping gesture. “And why not? Cramping your style, am I? I mean, maybe you were hoping to flirt with werewolf boy here. He’s pretty attractive, if you like the messy-haired, broad-shouldered, chiseled-good looks type.” “Hey, now,” said Jordan mildly. Magnus put his head in his hands. “Or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways. Is there anything you aren’t into?” “Mermaids,” said Magnus into his fingers. “They always smell like seaweed.” “It’s not funny,” Alec said savagely, and kicking back his chair, he got up from the table and stalked off into the crowd.
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
I see how it is,” I snapped. “You were all in favor of me breaking the tattoo and thinking on my own—but that’s only okay if it’s convenient for you, huh? Just like your ‘loving from afar’ only works if you don’t have an opportunity to get your hands all over me. And your lips. And . . . stuff.” Adrian rarely got mad, and I wouldn’t quite say he was now. But he was definitely exasperated. “Are you seriously in this much self-denial, Sydney? Like do you actually believe yourself when you say you don’t feel anything? Especially after what’s been happening between us?” “Nothing’s happening between us,” I said automatically. “Physical attraction isn’t the same as love. You of all people should know that.” “Ouch,” he said. His expression hadn’t changed, but I saw hurt in his eyes. I’d wounded him. “Is that what bothers you? My past? That maybe I’m an expert in an area you aren’t?” “One I’m sure you’d just love to educate me in. One more girl to add to your list of conquests.” He was speechless for a few moments and then held up one finger. “First, I don’t have a list.” Another finger, “Second, if I did have a list, I could find someone a hell of lot less frustrating to add to it.” For the third finger, he leaned toward me. “And finally, I know that you know you’re no conquest, so don’t act like you seriously think that. You and I have been through too much together. We’re too close, too connected. I wasn’t that crazy on spirit when I said you’re my flame in the dark. We chase away the shadows around each other. Our backgrounds don’t matter. What we have is bigger than that. I love you, and beneath all that logic, calculation, and superstition, I know you love me too. Running away and fleeing all your problems isn’t going to change that. You’re just going to end up scared and confused.” “I already feel that way,” I said quietly. Adrian moved back and leaned into his seat, looking tired. “Well, that’s the most accurate thing you’ve said so far.” I grabbed the basket and jerked open the car door. Without another word, I stormed off, refusing to look back in case he saw the tears that had inexplicably appeared in my eyes. Only, I wasn’t sure exactly which part of our conversation I was most upset about.
Richelle Mead (The Indigo Spell (Bloodlines, #3))
The essence of true love is mutual recognition-two individuals seeing each other as they really are. We all know that the usual approach is to meet someone we like and put our best self forward, or even at times a false self, one we believe will be more appealing to the person we want to attract. When our real self appears in its entirety, when the good behavior becomes too much to maintain or the masks are taken away, disappointment comes. All too often individuals feel, after the fact-when feelings are hurt and hearts are broken-that it was a case of mistaken identity, that the loved one is a stranger. They saw what they wanted to see rather than what was really there.
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
Love feeds on deception.
Erol Ozan
Most of us need some support in asking for what we want. When we are involved in making agreements, we need to feel sure that the needs we reveal will not be held against us. Most of us feel pretty vulnerable in and around our emotional limits, so it’s important to recognize that these limits are valid: “I need to feel loved,” “I need to feel that I’m important to you,” “I need to know that you find me attractive,” “I need you to listen and care about me when I feel hurt.
Dossie Easton (The Ethical Slut : A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures)
We are perpetually attracted to what hurts us, physically and mentally. But the problem is that we are perfectly aware of this.
Christiane V. Felscherinow
13 NOTES She hesitated. For two years she had kept as far away from Mikael Blomkvist as she could. And yet he kept sticking to her life like gum on the sole of her shoe, either on the Net or in real life. On the Net it was O.K. There he was no more than electrons and words. In real life, standing on her doorstep, he was still fucking attractive. And he knew her secrets just as she knew all of his. She looked at him for a moment and realized that she now had no feelings for him. At least not those kinds of feelings. He had in fact been a good friend to her over the past year. She trusted him. Maybe. It was troubling that one of the few people she trusted was a man she spent so much time avoiding. Then she made up her mind. It was absurd to pretend that he did not exist. It no longer hurt her to see him. She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.
Stieg Larsson (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (Millennium, #3))
Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
I'm really not looking to date anyone." I know people often say that when secretly looking for a romantic partner, but I mean it. I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn't much suit my talents. Like, parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1. Kissing; 2. Having to say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3. Saying more wrong things while trying to apologize; 4. Being at a movie theater together and feeling obligated to hold hands even after your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; 5. The part where they say, "What are you thinking about?" And they want you to be, like, "I'm thinking about you, darling," but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and how that means that cows do not exist as independent life-forms, but that's not really something you can say out loud, so you're ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird.
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
I have always enjoyed kissing the girls I've kissed in the past but only because I was attracted to them. It didn't really have anything to do with them in particular. When I kissed all the other girls, I felt pleasure. That's why people enjoy kissing, because it feels good. But when you like to kiss someone because of who she is, the difference isn't found in the pleasure. The difference is found in the pain you feel when you're not kissing her. It doesn't hurt when I'm not kissing any of the other girls I've kissed. It only hurts when I'm not kissing Rachel. Maybe this explains why falling in love is so damn painful. I like kissing you, Rachel.
Colleen Hoover (Ugly Love)
The way to get through normal life is to pretend it isn't getting to you. If you let on that you're hurt, the other animals will turn on you and tear you to pieces. Don't attract the attention of predators.
Emma Bull (The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest)
I don't know about you, but this connection we have, this attraction, it doesn't come along everyday. It's been years...years since I felt this way. Honestly, I never thought I'd feel it again. Does it scare me? Hell yes. Can I predict the future? Nope. But know this, I would never, ever in a million years, hurt you. I'd be in it one hundred percent. At some point in your life, you have to trust someone.
Kim Holden (Bright Side (Bright Side, #1))
There is no excuse good enough to ever be out of alignment with love. You’re going to get hurt, and you will feel pain. Yet your purpose is to keep loving, anyway. Keep moving forward with an open heart. Love is a Divine gift given to humanity. Wasting it is no longer an option. Love is what brings light to a dark place. Love is what transforms a dying world into a thriving planet.
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
The Flies And The Honey-Pot A NUMBER of Flies were attracted to a jar of honey which had been overturned in a housekeeper's room, and placing their feet in it, ate greedily. Their feet, however, became so smeared with the honey that they could not use their wings, nor release themselves, and were suffocated. Just as they were expiring, they exclaimed, "O foolish creatures that we are, for the sake of a little pleasure we have destroyed ourselves." Pleasure bought with pains, hurts.
Aesop (Aesop's Fables)
…So, how did you figure out that you were attracted to each other?” “Oh,” Dan laughed suddenly, a single dry sound, “that was easy. Vadim just shot me in the shoulder.” Duncan’s expression turned almost comical. “I think we give the saying ‘love hurts’ a completely new dimension,” said Vadim, laughing.
Aleksandr Voinov (Special Forces - Mercenaries Part II (Special Forces, #2 part 2))
J_Doe032692 wrote: I am not a thin person. However this does not give people the right to taunt me, calling me ugly and worthless, telling me to kill myself because no one will ever want me, or to make up songs about why I am so fat and how much food I eat. NO ONE, I repeat, NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO HURT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING THIS BADLY. My throat constricts. The neck brace feels as if it's shrinking and cutting off my esophagus. I reach up and cover the words with my hand and the web site dissolves. I want to go. Now.
Julie Anne Peters (By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead)
The greater the pain associated with love, the more likely a person is to be attracted to others who will inflict this pain…for isn’t this what love is? Hurt people tend to hurt other people.
David Walton Earle
By erasing any nuance and complexity about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn't seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there's no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives.
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
But there was a part of her that wondered what would happen if she let them all in on the secretthat some mornings, it was hard to get out of bed and put on someone else’s smile; that she was standing on air, a fake who laughed at all the right jokes and whispered all the right gossip and attracted the right guy, a fake who had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real…and who, when you got right down to it, didn’t want to remember, because it hurt even more than this.
Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)
Feeling guilt dims our light. Instead of dimming our light to make others feel more comfortable, we could just continue to shine and foster the rise of the vibrations of those around us. Being Happy and Feeling Good does not mean you have no compassion for the misery of those around you. It simply means you won’t dim your light to make them feel comfortable – instead, you’re going to help light the way. At first, your light may be a bit too bright for others and it may hurt their eyes, yet it’s far better to shine rather than to hide your light. When you hide your light for too long, it extinguishes and you slip right back into darkness…unable to find your way until someone ‘shiny’ comes along to light your way and help you to find the light you still possess within, your Soul’s Magnificence.
Alaric Hutchinson (Living Peace: Essential Teachings For Enriching Life)
Love?! When a piece of broke heart hits you.
Ljupka Cvetanova (The New Land)
The room was filled with a strange vibe of awkwardness that I was sure could only be dissolved by kissing him again or running away.
E.M. Denning (Boomerang)
There will be a time when love is beautiful and passionate and nothing else will exist but you and the person you love, and a time when love hurts so badly that you will wish you wouldn't wake up. I say this. Always, always, always approach love with the heart of the angel you were born with.
Julieanne O'Connor (Spelling It Out for Your Man)
At first, you were just a problem that would hurt Nan. I thought you’d cause her more pain. The trouble was that you fascinated me. I’ll admit I was immediately drawn to you because you’re gorgeous. Breathtaking. I hated you because of it. I didn’t want to be attracted to you. But I was. I wanted you badly that very first night. Just to be near you, God, I made up reasons to find you. Then . . . then I got to know you. I was hypnotized by your laugh. It was the most amazing sound I’d ever heard. You were so honest and determined. You didn’t whine or complain. You took what life handed you and worked with it. I wasn’t used to that. Every time I watched you, every time I was near you, I fell a little more.
Abbi Glines (Fallen Too Far (Rosemary Beach, #1; Too Far, #1))
He was this huge mystery I wanted to take time solving. He had danger written all over him and there was a risk of getting burned, but I wanted to play in the fire
Ashlynn Mills (A Different Kind of Chemistry (Nerds and Tattoos #1))
You owe it to yourself to forgive and forget. Holding grudges is like punishing yourself for others' actions and rewarding them for hurting you.
Majid Kazmi (The First Dancer: How to be the first among equals and attract unlimited opportunities)
The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don’t. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes “beauty” hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. “Natural” and “unnatural” are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
If we succumb to fear, we start holding back, and do that all-to-common dance of getting close, then pulling away. When we remember that our safe harbor depends on our awareness and honesty, we're less likely to make internal compromises, put on masks, or act like a chameleon to attract a partner or keep a hurtful relationship together. If we live by truth, we may have pain, but we will always rest securely in ourselves.
Charlotte Kasl (If the Buddha Dated: A Handbook for Finding Love on a Spiritual Path)
Another abstinence book claims, "A woman is far more attracted by a man's personality, while a man is stimulated by sight. A man is usually less discriminating about those to whom he is physically attracted.
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
It Hurts To Be Alive and Obsolete: Often when men are attracted to me, they feel ashamed and conceal it. They act as if it were ridiculous. If they do become involved, they are still ashamed and may refuse to appear publicly with me. Their fear of mockery is enormous. There is no prestige attached to having sex with me. Since we are all far more various sexually than we are supposed to be, often, in fact, younger men become aware of me sexually. Their response is similar to what it is when they find themselves feeling attracted to a homosexual: they turn those feelings into hostility and put me down. Listen to me! Think what it is like to have most of your life ahead and be told you are obsolete! Think what it is like to feel attraction, desire, affection towards others, to want to tell them about yourself, to feel that assumption on which self-respect is based, that you are worth something, and that if you like someone, surely he will be pleased to know that. To be, in other words, still a living woman, and to be told that every day that you are not a woman but a tired object that should disappear. That you are not a person but a joke. Well, I am a bitter joke. I am bitter and frustrated and wasted, but don’t you pretend for a minute as you look at me, forty-three, fat, and looking exactly my age, that I am not as alive as you are and that I do not suffer from the category into which you are forcing me.
Zoe Moss (Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement)
Attraction isn't wrong. People can’t help who they are drawn to and they certainly can’t control affinity, as uncommon as it is. What is wrong is acting on inclination if it hurts someone else, namely a significant other.
Donna Lynn Hope
If someone is badly hurt at some point in life—traumatized—the dominance counter can transform in a manner that makes additional hurt more rather than less likely. This often happens in the case of people, now adults, who were viciously bullied during childhood or adolescence. They become anxious and easily upset. They shield themselves with a defensive crouch, and avoid the direct eye contact interpretable as a dominance challenge. This means that the damage caused by the bullying (the lowering of status and confidence) can continue, even after the bullying has ended.25 In the simplest of cases, the formerly lowly persons have matured and moved to new and more successful places in their lives. But they don’t fully notice. Their now-counterproductive physiological adaptations to earlier reality remain, and they are more stressed and uncertain than is necessary. In more complex cases, a habitual assumption of subordination renders the person more stressed and uncertain than necessary, and their habitually submissive posturing continues to attract genuine negative attention from one or more of the fewer and generally less successful bullies still extant in the adult world. In such situations, the psychological consequence of the previous bullying increases the likelihood of continued bullying in the present (even though, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t have to, because of maturation, or geographical relocation, or continued education, or improvement in objective status).
Jordan B. Peterson (12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos)
You wouldn’t do anything to make me hurt you,” he prompted, and she shook her head quickly. “No,” she whispered. “Good.” He let his arm drape out the open window, breathing in the air. The night was approaching its dewpoint, tinging the breeze with the smell of dust and wet wool. “I’ve started to look forward to our nights together. I’d hate for you to disappoint me now.
Nenia Campbell (Rent Girl)
What the hell is it about brooding guys that’s attractive to women, anyway? I’ve become one since Dori’s call three weeks ago, and it’s made me more of a chick magnet. I shouldn’t be surprised—being a dick never hurt my appeal before.
Tammara Webber (Good For You (Between the Lines, #3))
..and she follows you to the light at the door and says..."Hello"... and never has a second hurt and ruptured, blistered so harshly because the music's too loud and you can't hear, don't even notice, and you take her hand instead and you are both leaving.
Bret Easton Ellis (The Rules of Attraction)
Alice felt she hated that word. “Interesting” meant that you attracted the notice of men who would hurt you to possess whatever they found “interesting” about you.
Christina Henry (Alice (The Chronicles of Alice, #1))
I've watched a never-ending line of relationships crumple around me, with each sordid detail publicized to the world. I couldn't stand to hurt you that way.
Eden Summers (Blind Attraction (Reckless Beat, #1))
A heavy naughtiness pricked through my veins, irritating and attractive as the hurt of a loose tooth.
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
A woman who is willing to hurt someone she doesn’t even know may be less attractive than you think,
Jean M. Auel (The Shelters of Stone (Earth's Children, #5))
Why do I think these particular books have been popular? Two reasons. First, I think it is because they involve no harsh, garish violence at all. They involve game playing, really. No one is burned or cut or hurt. Certainly no one is killed. Indeed the whole sadomasochistic predicament is presented as a glorified game played out in luxurious rooms and with very attractive people, and involving very attractive slaves. There are endless motifs offered for dominance and submission, for surrender and love. It’s like a theme park of dominance and submission, a place to go to enjoy the fantasy of being overpowered by a beautiful man or woman and delightfully compelled to surrender and feel keening pleasure, without the slightest serious harm. I think it’s authentic to the way many who share this kind of fantasy really feel. I think what makes it work for people is the combination of the very graphic and unsparing sexual details mixed with the elegant fairy-tale world. Unfortunately a lot of hackwork pornography is written by those who don’t share the fantasy, and they slip into hideous violence and ugliness, thinking the market wants all that, when the market never really did. Second, this is shamelessly erotic. It pulls no punches at being what it is. It’s excessive and it is erotica. Before these books, a lot of women read what were called “women’s romances” where they had to mark the few “hot pages” in the book. I said, well, look, try this. Maybe this is what you really want, and you don’t have to mark the hot pages because every page is hot. Every page is about sexual fulfillment. Every page is meant to give you pleasure. There are no boring parts. Yet it’s very “romantic.” And well, I think this worked.
A.N. Roquelaure (The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty)
Individuals blind to the sexual opposite within them, be they men or women, never realise that the partner they choose is chosen because he or she bears some resemblance to the anima or animus. The anger and hurt felt at the 'true discovery' of the partner's failings is really anger and hurt directed at oneself; and this would become apparent, were one to see the dark figure within one's own unconscious impelling one into a particular relationship. Like always attracts like; rather than railing at the partner, one should take a long, close look at one's own psychic makeup. But it is easier to complain bitterly --- to analysts, marriage counsellors, and also astrologers --- that yet another relationship has collapsed and yet another partner has proved to be a bad choice. It is also fashionable to blame this on the failures of the parent of the opposite sex; but the past continues to live within a person not only because in some way it is part of his own substance, but also because he permits it to do so. When a disastrous relationship occurs once, we may fool ourselves into believing it is chance; when it occurs twice, it has become a pattern, and a pattern is an unmistakable indication that the anima or animus is at work in the unconscious, propelling the helpless ego into relationships or situations which are baffling, painful, and frighteningly repetitive. Again, it is much wiser to look within oneself for the source of the pattern, rather than at the inherent failure of the opposite sex. For these destructive patterns are the psyche's way of making itself known, although great effort is often required to fulfil its demand for transformation. And great sacrifices also are required - of such precious commodities as one's pride, one's self-image, one's self-righteousness.
Liz Greene (Relating: An Astrological Guide to Living With Others on a Small Planet)
When you take care of your appearance and do exercise, you feel more attractive and this boosts your self-steam and confidence. You feel amazing and enjoy your single life because you can flirt and have fun while feeling noticed and admired.
Linda Alfiori (The Art of Loving Intelligently:Discover the Five Love Myths Hurting Women in America)
But nobody yet had been able to dig down to what was most captivating about her: this was the mysterious ability of her soul to apprehend in life only that which had once attracted and tormented her in childhood, the time when the soul's instinct is infallible; to seek out the amusing and the touching: to feel constantly an intolerable, tender pity for the creature whose life is helpless and unhappy; to feel across hundreds of miles that somewhere in Sicily a thin-legged little donkey with a shaggy belly is being brutally beaten. Whenever she did come across a creature that was being hurt, she experienced a kind of legendary eclipse — when inexplicable night comes down and ash flies and blood appears on the walls — and it seemed that if at once, at once, she did not help, did not cut short another's torture (the existence of which it was absolutely impossible to explain in a world so conducive to happiness), her heart would not stand it, and she would die.
Vladimir Nabokov (The Luzhin Defense)
I smack into him as if shoved from behind. He doesn't budge, not an inch. Just holds my shoulders and waits. Maybe he's waiting for me to find my balance. Maybe he's waiting for me to gather my pride. I hope he's got all day. I hear people passing on the boardwalk and imagine them staring. Best-case scenario, they think I know this guy, that we're hugging. Worst-case scenario, they saw me totter like an intoxicated walrus into this complete stranger because I was looking down for a place to park our beach stuff. Either way, he knows what happened. He knows why my cheek is plastered to his bare chest. And there is definite humiliation waiting when I get around to looking up at him. Options skim through my head like a flip book. Option One: Run away as fast as my dollar-store flip flops can take me. Thing is, tripping over them is partly responsible for my current dilemma. In fact, one of them is missing, probably caught in a crack of the boardwalk. I'm getting Cinderella didn't feel this foolish, but then again, Cinderella wasn't as clumsy as an intoxicated walrus. Option two: Pretend I've fainted. Go limp and everything. Drool, even. But I know this won't work because my eyes flutter too much to fake it, and besides, people don't blush while unconscious. Option Three: Pray for a lightning bolt. A deadly one that you feel in advance because the air gets all atingle and your skin crawls-or so the science books say. It might kill us both, but really, he should have been paying more attention to me when he saw that I wasn't paying attention at all. For a shaved second, I think my prayers are answered because I go get tingly all over; goose bumps sprout everywhere, and my pulse feels like electricity. Then I realize, it's coming from my shoulders. From his hands. Option Last: For the love of God, peel my cheek off his chest and apologize for the casual assault. Then hobble away on my one flip-flop before I faint. With my luck, the lightning would only maim me, and he would feel obligated to carry me somewhere anyway. Also, do it now. I ease away from him and peer up. The fire on my cheeks has nothing to do with the fact that it's sweaty-eight degrees in the Florida sun and everything to do with the fact that I just tripped into the most attractive guy on the planet. Fan-flipping-tastic. "Are-are you all right?" he says, incredulous. I think I can see the shape of my cheek indented on his chest. I nod. "I'm fine. I'm used to it. Sorry." I shrug off his hands when he doesn't let go. The tingling stays behind, as if he left some of himself on me. "Jeez, Emma, are you okay?" Chloe calls from behind. The calm fwopping of my best friend's sandals suggests she's not as concerned as she sounds. Track star that she is, she would already be at my side if she thought I was hurt. I groan and face her, not surprised that she's grinning wide as the equator. She holds out my flip-flop, which I try not to snatch from her hand. "I'm fine. Everybody's fine," I say. I turn back to the guy, who seems to get more gorgeous by the second. "You're fine, right? No broken bones or anything?" He blinks, gives a slight nod. Chloe setts her surfboard against the rail of the boardwalk and extends her hand to him. He accepts it without taking his eyes off me. "I'm Chloe and this is Emma," she says. "We usually bring her helmet with us, but we left it back in the hotel room this time.
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
I don't like kissing." "I suppose it is a matter of taste."[...]"I wondered, did anyone ever," shrug, "you know, hurt you so you don't like kissing? love?" "Nope."[...] "I thought maybe someone had been bad to you in the past, and that was why you don't like people touching or holding you." "Ah damn it to hell," she bangs the lamp down on the desk and the flame jumps wildly. "I said no. I haven't been raped or jilted or abused in any fashion. There is nothing in my background to explain the way I am." She steadies her voice, taking the impatience out of it. "I'm the odd one out, the peculiarity in my family, because they are all normal and demonstrative physically. But ever since I can remember, I've disliked close contact...charge contact, emotional contact, as well as any overtly sexual contact. I veer away from it, because it always feels like the other person is draining something out of me. I know that's irrational, but that's the way I feel." She touches the lamp and the flaring light stills. "I spent a considerable amount of time when I was, o, adolescent, wondering why I was different, whether there were other people like me. Why, when everyone else was facinated by their developing sexual nature, I couldn't give a damn. I've never been attracted to men. Or women. Or anything else. It's difficult to explain, and nobody has ever believed it when I have tried to explain, but while I have an apparently normal female body, I don't have any sexual urge or appetite. I think I am a neuter.
Keri Hulme (The Bone People)
Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honoured by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
There was something almost tasty and almost sexy in letting the annoying boy be punished by her husband. In standing blamelessly aside while the boy suffered for having hurt her. What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive.
Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)
My second crush, don't know, who you are, by thinking of you, my day pass. The things, the things, the things changed, forgot the first, second begins. The second crush, my second crush, don't know who you are, but, by thinking of you, my day pass. Who you are, i don't know, but seeing you shed tears. My feelings drop, water stops, in my eyes. The things, the things, the things changed. I fall in love, are you goddess or what. As i came near you, my heart beat rise. Want to stop my legs, but they attracts. Like your tears attract the sand, when they are falling on land. My heart, my heart, my heart beat rise, you came, you came, you are closer to my eyes. I see tears fallen on the ground, my love rotating around you round and round. Now, you are the first, you are the last, that i told you my sweet heart. When i see you first time, it was my last time, to fall in love, my dear valentine. The second crush, my second crush, don't know who you are, but, by thinking of you, my day pass. The things, the things, the things changed. Now, crush end, time spend, love start, now, you are my life part.:-)
Abhishek Singh Sikarwar
He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
His wounds, incidentally, must have healed up by now, he felt no handicap anymore, which was astonishing; for, as recalled, after he had nicked his finger with a knife over a month ago, the injury had still been hurting the day before yesterday. "Am I less sensitive now?" he wondered, greedily sucking at the cheese, which had promptly exerted a more emphatic attraction on him than any of the other food. His eyes watered with contentment as he gulped down the cheese, the vegetables, and the sauce in rapid succession. By contrast, he did not relish the fresh foods, he could not even stand their smells, and he actually dragged the things he wanted to eat a short distance away.
Franz Kafka (The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka)
Claude believed that only smart, attractive people had the right to fuck, and it sincerely hurt him when he discovered evidence to the contrary.
Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)
If you want to attract the right man or woman in your life, you must heal first any issues from the past.
Linda Alfiori (The Art of Loving Intelligently: Discover the Five Love Myths Hurting Women Worldwide and the Reality about Them)
I didn't know it was possible to be this attracted to someone. It...hurts. Is it supposed to hurt?
19 (Psychomotor Agitation: A Vivisection)
If you want to become more attractive, change your energy, dance, jog, rollerblade, lift free weights. Whatever pleases you, and tones your body in a beautiful way.
Linda Alfiori (The Art of Loving Intelligently:Discover the Five Love Myths Hurting Women in America)
And, by the way, we all consider sleeping with the bad man – we want to fix his hurt, or we want him to hurt us – one way or another, we are all attracted to the shadow.
Anne Enright (Actress)
law of attraction don’t look for healing in the same place you were hurt in the first place
Alyssa Karr (For When You Feel Like Giving Up)
Certain death still held attraction. Uncertain death, less so. He hurt enough already.
Lois McMaster Bujold (Penric and the Shaman (Penric and Desdemona, #2))
You can’t win an argument. If you lose it, you lose it; if you win it, you also lose it. Why? Because you have made the other party look inferior and might even have hurt their dignity.
Marc Reklau (How to Become a People Magnet: 62 Life-Changing Tips to Attract Everyone You Meet)
For the first time in almost a decade, who he was and what he wanted took precedence over how he looked. The man inside, who’d hidden from the world in hurt and anger, was almost completely gone now, and in his place sat Asher Lee—confident and uncertain, fierce and tender, protective, wistful, loyal, vulnerable, attractive, and complicated—made whole again by the love of Savannah Carmichael.
Katy Regnery (The Vixen and the Vet (A Modern Fairytale, #1))
Number 23 had plenty of redeeming qualities that made falling for him a justifiable accident. But our connection had nothing to do with our similarities, our differences, our aesthetic attractions, or our emotional and physical needs. When we spoke, he was truly with me. Our egos, our personas, expected social cues, the facades that everyone builds around them that are supposed to sculpt the way the world sees us, were stripped with Number 23 and I. He was immediately my best friend, familiar and safe - an epiphany that I had been spending my life alone in crowded rooms. Our souls were naked. We initially curled into the warmth of that connection. But once we knew how real it was, we felt exposed, vulnerable, and raw. While his defense was his fearful recoil, mine was dictation.
Maggie Georgiana Young (Just Another Number)
The first school shooting that attracted the attention of a horrified nation occurred on March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Two boys opened fire on a schoolyard full of girls, killing four and one female teacher. In the wake of what came to be called the Jonesboro massacre, violence experts in media and academia sought to explain what others called “inexplicable.” For example, in a front-page Boston Globe story three days after the tragedy, David Kennedy from Harvard University was quoted as saying that these were “peculiar, horrible acts that can’t easily be explained.” Perhaps not. But there is a framework of explanation that goes much further than most of those routinely offered. It does not involve some incomprehensible, mysterious force. It is so straightforward that some might (incorrectly) dismiss it as unworthy of mention. Even after a string of school shootings by (mostly white) boys over the past decade, few Americans seem willing to face the fact that interpersonal violence—whether the victims are female or male—is a deeply gendered phenomenon. Obviously both sexes are victimized. But one sex is the perpetrator in the overwhelming majority of cases. So while the mainstream media provided us with tortured explanations for the Jonesboro tragedy that ranged from supernatural “evil” to the presence of guns in the southern tradition, arguably the most important story was overlooked. The Jonesboro massacre was in fact a gender crime. The shooters were boys, the victims girls. With the exception of a handful of op-ed pieces and a smattering of quotes from feminist academics in mainstream publications, most of the coverage of Jonesboro omitted in-depth discussion of one of the crucial facts of the tragedy. The older of the two boys reportedly acknowledged that the killings were an act of revenge he had dreamed up after having been rejected by a girl. This is the prototypical reason why adult men murder their wives. If a woman is going to be murdered by her male partner, the time she is most vulnerable is after she leaves him. Why wasn’t all of this widely discussed on television and in print in the days and weeks after the horrific shooting? The gender crime aspect of the Jonesboro tragedy was discussed in feminist publications and on the Internet, but was largely absent from mainstream media conversation. If it had been part of the discussion, average Americans might have been forced to acknowledge what people in the battered women’s movement have known for years—that our high rates of domestic and sexual violence are caused not by something in the water (or the gene pool), but by some of the contradictory and dysfunctional ways our culture defines “manhood.” For decades, battered women’s advocates and people who work with men who batter have warned us about the alarming number of boys who continue to use controlling and abusive behaviors in their relations with girls and women. Jonesboro was not so much a radical deviation from the norm—although the shooters were very young—as it was melodramatic evidence of the depth of the problem. It was not something about being kids in today’s society that caused a couple of young teenagers to put on camouflage outfits, go into the woods with loaded .22 rifles, pull a fire alarm, and then open fire on a crowd of helpless girls (and a few boys) who came running out into the playground. This was an act of premeditated mass murder. Kids didn’t do it. Boys did.
Jackson Katz (The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help (How to End Domestic Violence, Mental and Emotional Abuse, and Sexual Harassment))
Men and even women stared at us and laughed, and heckled us. I realized what a burden a hijra's daily life is. Do people harass those who are men and women when they go outwith their families? Why, a crippled person, a blind person -- even they attract pity and people help them. If someone has experienced physical hurt, they are cared for both by the family and by outsiders who come to know of it. But we -- we are not considered human.
A. Revathi (Truth About Me: A Hijra Life Story)
If it were just a blinding attraction, I’d fuck you right here in this elevator.” And now my nipples were hard. “But it isn’t. I have real feelings for you. So I can’t do the casual thing. I’d just be asking to get hurt.
Samantha Young (The Love Plot)
God is attracted to weakness. He cannot resist when we humbly and honestly admit how desperately we need Him. When we are empty vessels, He longs to fill us with His grace, love and goodness. This is God’s law of attraction.
Jentezen Franklin (Love Like You've Never Been Hurt: Hope, Healing and the Power of an Open Heart)
Because you’re safe, Teia. He would never dream of actually breaking his Blackguard vows, and he knows you wouldn’t, either. So your rejections don’t hurt, or not as much. It’s fun to flirt with someone you find attractive anyway.
Brent Weeks (The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer, #4))
He took up another long strip of towel in his right hand. He had to lean in to loop it behind her. He was so close now. His mind took in the shell of her ear, the hair tucked behind it, that rapid pulse fluttering in her throat. Alive, alive, alive. It isn’t easy for me either. He looped the bandage around again. The barest touches. Unavoidable. Shoulder, clavicle, once her knee. The water rose around him. He secured the knot. Step back. He did not step back. He stood there, hearing his own breath, hers, the rhythm of them alone in this room. The sickness was there, the need to run, the need for something else too. Kaz thought he knew the language of pain intimately, but this ache was new. It hurt to stand here like this, so close to the circle of her arms. It isn’t easy for me either. After all she’d endured, he was the weak one. But she would never know what it was like for him to see Nina pull her close, watch Jesper loop his arm through hers, what it was to stand in doorways and against walls and know he could never draw nearer. But I’m here now, he thought wildly. He had carried her, fought beside her, spent whole nights next to her, both of them on their bellies, peering through a long glass, watching some warehouse or merch’s mansion. This was nothing like that. He was sick and frightened, his body slick with sweat, but he was here. He watched that pulse, the evidence of her heart, matching his own beat for anxious beat. He saw the damp curve of her neck, the gleam of her brown skin. He wanted to … He wanted. Before he even knew what he intended, he lowered his head. She drew in a sharp breath. His lips hovered just above the warm juncture between her shoulder and the column of her neck. He waited. Tell me to stop. Push me away. She exhaled. “Go on,” she repeated. Finish the story. The barest movement and his lips brushed her skin—warm, smooth, beaded with moisture. Desire coursed through him, a thousand images he’d hoarded, barely let himself imagine—the fall of her dark hair freed from its braid, his hand fitted to the lithe curve of her waist, her lips parted, whispering his name.
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
It is more likely that a man and a woman develop romantic feelings for each other when they start dating after they have been friends for some time and feel already attracted to each other, than when they are total strangers trying to make it happen.
Linda Alfiori (The Art of Loving Intelligently:Discover the Five Love Myths Hurting Women in America)
And I hear my grandma's voice in my head 'Birds of a feather' and Mr. Mattson's voice 'Like attracts like,' and I wonder what kind of bird what kind of element am I, where the kinds of things I attract are the friends the people who want to hurt me.
Olivia A. Cole (Dear Medusa (A Novel in Verse))
I contemplated how I was going to get through the rest of the day and felt the onset of a terror I thought I had outgrown. I hated it when these clusters started to form. One unwelcome subject sought out its counterparts—farewells, people leaving and never coming back, ambulances.... And then those counterparts attracted similar old hurts and horrors until you were trapped in the nucleus of the cluster. This cluster, I knew, was labeled LOSS in big black letters. I knew this much, thanks to therapy and training, but simply knowing it didn't protect you from reacting to it over and over again. Until one day you resolved to sit down in the middle of the nucleus, fold your arms, and invite the cluster to do its worst. And if you survived that, you could look around and see what was left in its absence.
Gail Godwin (Grief Cottage)
There was something almost tasty and almost sexy in letting the annoying boy be punished by her husband. In standing blamelessly aside while the boy suffered for having hurt her. What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn’t always agreeable or attractive.
Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections)
We’ve all encountered those people who when we look them in the eye, when they’re right in front of us, in broad daylight, appear astoundingly attractive, even god or goddess like: the way they move, the way the light hits them, invokes reverence and awe, the definition. And then the closer we look. Waw. We take flight. Good from close, better close up. Some people get more attractive, have a greater impression on us the more we see them. The closer we look in that light at that time in the way we see them. When our hopes are highest and our wish fulfillment is fully let in. They will always look better the more clearly we see them. The definition, the close-up. Some relationships are better in a close up. More impressive with more definition. Like the woman whose photograph doesn’t turn you on but in real life she does. Like our children. Like our spouse. Like our best friend. Like God. Like ourselves when we’re authentic and true. They’re better up close with more frequency, with more intimacy. Sometimes we need to be near. It’s love. It’s literal. Closeness is the quiet moments together. The pain shared. The beauty seen. The honesty. It’s authentic. It’s reality. The constant relationship because we can see it. We’re sure about it. We know it. It’s making love. It’s attachment. It’s togetherness. It’s private. It cost us. It hurts. We own it. And we like it that way. Because sometimes it’s better with the lights on.
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
Suppressing feelings is never a good thing...if you feel angry, sad, happy, etc...FEEL IT! Go somewhere & scream, sit in silence, cry, laugh til your stomach hurts! Just don't let it linger...what you suppress you also subconsciously attract! Not attracting what you want out of life? What are you suppressing?
Sanjo Jendayi
Antipater, in a letter written upon the death of Aristotle, the philosopher, observes, "Amongst his other gifts he had that of persuasiveness"; and the absence of this in the character of Marcius made all his great actions and noble qualities unacceptable to those whom they benifited: pride, and self-will, the consort, as Plato calls it, of solitude, made him insufferable. With the skill which Alcibiades, on the contrary, possessed to treat every one in the way most agreeable to him, we cannot wonder that all his successes were attended with the most exuberant favour and honour; his very errors, at time, being accompanied by something of grace and felicity. And so in spite of great and frequent hurt that he had done the city, he was repeatedly appointed to office and command; while Coriolanus stood in vain for a place which his great services had made his due. The one, in spite of the harm he occasioned, could not make himself hated, nor the other, with all the admiration he attracted, succeed in being beloved by his countrymen.
Plutarch (The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Vol 1)
You’re beautiful,” he says. “Stunning actually. I get lost in your eyes when I shouldn’t because they’re so unique and I want to know more about the brown ring around your pupil and why it fades into this ocean blue that I can’t quite figure out. I’ve caught myself catching glimpses of your lips, wondering why they look so soft when I never see you put lip balm on. When you speak, there is hurt in your voice, like someone took a piece of your soul and hasn’t returned it, yet it makes you who you are—makes you that much more interesting. There have been times when I’ve wanted to touch your hair, push it behind your ear, just feel it because it’s so silky. You’re unlike any woman I’ve ever met before—complex yet simple. Insecure but also very confident. And I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t attracted to you. And I’m not saying this to hit on you. I’m not saying this to try to get you to tear your shirt off. I’m saying this because you deserve to hear it. You deserve the truth. You are beautiful, Scottie.” My heart is hammering against my rib cage.
Meghan Quinn (Till Summer Do Us Part)
Any mode of thought that lays out complete and final answers to great existential questions is liable to dogmatism. A great attraction of care ethics, I think, is its refusal to encode or construct a catalog of principles and rules. One who cares must meet the cared-for just as he or she is, as a whole human being with individual needs and interests. [...] At most, it directs us to attend, to listen, and to respond as positively as possible. [...] it recognizes that virtually all human beings desire not to be hurt, and this gives us something close to an absolute: We should not inflict deliberate hurt or pain. Even when we must fight to save our children, we must not inflict unnecessary or deliberate pain.
Nel Noddings (Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War)
Jay insisted on carrying her up the back steps and into the kitchen, and this time Violet didn’t complain when he lifted her. He set her down gently on the kitchen counter, and then he rummaged through the cupboard while Violet told him where the Band-Aids were. He came with bandages, gauze, cotton balls, antibacterial wash, and two tubes of ointment. It seemed like overkill to Violet, but she didn’t say anything. She wanted to see what he planned to do. “Okay, this is probably gonna sting,” he warned as he leaned over and began cleaning her wounds. It did sting, more than Violet let on, and she had to bite her lip as the tears came back all over again. But she let him keep working without even flinching, which was no small feat as he stripped away the layers of dirt from her skin. The wounds were big, and round, and raw. She thought she looked like a little kid with the giant scrapes on her knees, and she imagined that they were going to scab over and possibly even scar. She felt like such an idiot for falling over her own two clumsy feet. But Jay was gentle, and he took his time, being careful not to hurt her. She admired his patience and took perverse pleasure in his touch. He didn’t look up to see how she was doing; he just kept working until he was satisfied that her scrapes were cleaned out. And then he picked up the antibacterial wash and some cotton balls. Violet sucked in her breath when he brushed the soaked cotton ball against the angry red abrasions. Jay looked up at her but didn’t stop dabbing at them. Instead he blew on her knees as he labored over them, just like her mother used to do when Violet was a little girl. She thought it was sweet, and she swore that she was even more attracted to him than ever in that tender moment. When he finished with the wash, he gingerly patted an antibiotic ointment on her knees before covering them with bandages. “There,” he said, admiring his own handiwork. “Good as new.” Violent glanced at the ridiculously huge Band-Aids on her knees and looking at him doubtfully. “You really think so? ‘Good as new’?” He smiled. “I think I did pretty good. It’s not my fault you can’t walk.
Kimberly Derting (The Body Finder (The Body Finder, #1))
There are times when the best medication and therapist simply can’t help a soldier suffering from this new generation of peacekeeping injury. The anger, the rage, the hurt, and the cold loneliness that separates you from your family, friends, and society’s normal daily routine are so powerful that the option of destroying yourself is both real and attractive.
Samantha Power (A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide)
My hands come down to rest on top of corded forearms, my fingers tracing along the veins as my eyes slowly open, glancing down at the inked-up skin that’s wrapped around me. I’ve never been a big tattoo girl, but on him they’re so attractive they hurt to look at. The drawings are intricate, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe they’re his own. A way for his soul to shine through his skin.
Emily McIntire (Be Still My Heart)
Lock this slave up. Her words, uttered the day she’d fought a duel for his sake, still hurt. What had followed: the clench of helplessness. Being outnumbered by her father’s private guard. The first blow. The way she hadn’t looked back as she’d let the door shut behind her. Humiliation. A sort of appalled admiration. Indebtedness. Later: her, injured and limping across the villa’s lawn. It had changed him. Exposed something running inside him like a vein of soft gold. A slow attraction. Growing, despite himself, into care…and more. That incident last autumn when she’d tricked him, had him locked in a cell while she rode to the duel, loomed in his mind as a little story that told the larger one of how she’d been broken, and he’d been kept safe, and how his safety and her brokenness had broken him.
Marie Rutkoski (The Winner's Kiss (The Winner's Trilogy, #3))
The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don't. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes 'beauty' hurt.
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
Have you ever been lost hope in what you believed so far in life as no meaning? And when started adapting to the life what you got and moving forward, suddenly something comes up and glitters a shine on the hope you lost belief. Your brain is never believed the glitter, but heart attracts to the stuff which you may get hurt. Why I am always been the victim of the life’s crisis. Hope makes the life a life, in the meantime it is the source of all pains.
Vivek Thangaswamy
I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn't much suit my talents. Like, parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1. Kissing; 2. Having to say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3. Saying more wrong things while trying to apologize; 4. Being at a movie theater and feeling obligated to hold hands even after your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; and 5. The part where they say, "What are you thinking about?" And they want you to be, like, "I'm thinking about you, darling," but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and how that sort of means that cows do not exist as independent life-forms, but that's not really something you can say out loud, so you're ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird.
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
Do you have any memories at all that are making you think this? Did anything weird happen to you?” I ask through stiff breaths. Like, I don’t know, an uncle sneaking into your room? “No,” she says pointedly. “But that’s what I mean—just because I can’t remember anything doesn’t mean nothing ever happened. When I was younger, I was very attractive and very naive. I didn’t even know there were mean people in the world. Someone could have taken advantage of that.” WHAT I WANT TO SAY: “Nobody took advantage of you, nobody molested you, and you don’t have any repressed memories of your childhood. I’m the child who was hurt, not you. You didn’t believe me, but now I’m supposed to believe that you’re worried something ‘might’ have happened to you, even though you don’t have any reason to think that whatsoever? Why are you trying to diminish the horrible thing that happened to me and make it about you?” WHAT I ACTUALLY SAY: Exactly that.
Akemi Dawn Bowman (Starfish)
But there was a part of her that wondered what would happen if she let them all in on the secret - that some mornings, it was hard to get out of bed and put on someone else's smile; that she was standing on air, a fake who laughed at all the right jokes and whispered all the right gossip and attracted the right guy, a fake who nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real... and who, when you got right down to it, didn't want to remember, because it hurt even more than this.
Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes)
It's no coincidence that people who had angry parents often end up choosing angry partners, that those with alcoholic parents are frequently drawn to partners who drink quite a bit, or that those who had withdrawn or critical parents find themselves married to spouses who are withdrawn or critical. Why people do this to themselves? Because we pull towards that feeling of "home" makes what they want as adults hard to disentangle from what they experienced as children. They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parents who in some way hurt them. In the beginning, these characteristics will be barely perceptible, but the unconscious has a finely tuned radar system inaccessible to the conscious mind. It's not that people want to get hurt again. It's that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children. Freud called this "repetition compulsion." Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago by engaging with somebody familiar - but new. The only problem is, by choosing familiar partners, people guarantee the opposite result: they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
In light of all this, imagine you are a congressperson. You hear many cries for help. These cries for help only come in the form of spending requests. No one ever asks you not to spend. It is easy to believe you hurt no one by spending. The victims of overspending are unseen. So, contrary to the stereotype, libertarians do not believe all politicians are selfish. Libertarians often think that politicians are inept, counterproductive do-gooders. Still, the stereotype is partly right. Libertarians do believe government tends to attract bad people. Libertarians believe that in politics, the worst often get on top.
Jason Brennan (Libertarianism: What Everyone Needs to Know®)
You said not to fall for you. Did you change your mind?' 'Absolutely not.' His jaw tenses. 'Right.' I don't expect that to hurt as much as it does, which is part of the problem. I'm already too emotionally involved to separate out the sex, no matter how phenomenal it is. 'Here's the thing. I don't think I can separate sex from emotion when it comes to you.' Well, shit, now I've said it. 'We're already too close for that, and if we hook up again, I'm going to eventually fall for you.' My heart pounds at the rushed confession, waiting for his response. 'You won't.' Something akin to panic flares in his eyes, and he crosses his arms. I swear I can actually see the man building his defenses against his own feelings. 'You don't really know me. Not at my core.' And whose fault is that? 'I know enough,' I argue softly. 'And we'd have all the time in the world to figure it out if you'd stop acting like such an emotional chickenshit and just admit that you're going to fall for me, too, if we keep this up.' There's no way he would have designed that saddle, spent all that time training me to fight and fly, if he didn't feel something. He's going to have to fight for this, too, or it will never work. 'I have absolutely no intention of falling for you, Sorrengail.' His eyes narrow and he enunciates every word, like I could possibly take that any other way. Fuck. That. He let me in. He told me about his scars. He had an arsenal crafted for me. He cares. He's just as wrapped up in this as I am, even if he's shitty at showing it. 'Ouch,' I wince. 'Well, it's apparent that you're not ready to admit where this is going. So yeah, I think it's best we agree that this was just a onetime thing.' I force my shoulders to shrug. 'We both needed to blow off some steam, and we did, right?' 'Right,' he agrees, apprehension lining his forehead.
Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1))
You know it’s true.” “Even if it is,” I cried, “what does it matter? You could sleep with anybody, Wesley. So what if I walk away? So what if I have feelings for you? I was just a screw to you! You would never actually commit to me. You could never commit to anyone, but especially not to Duffy. You don’t even find me attractive.” “Bullshit,” he growled, his eyes on my face as he moved closer to me again. He was so close. My back was pressed to the wall, and Wesley stood only inches away. It had only been a week, but it felt like ages since we’d been in this kind of proximity. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the way his hands felt on me. The way he’d always made me feel wanted, even if he had called me the Duff. Did he? Did he find me attractive despite the nickname? How? Why? “Then why would you call me that?” I whispered. “Do you know how much it hurts? Every time you call me Duffy, do you know how shitty it makes me feel?” Wesley looked surprised. “What?” “Every time you call me that,” I said, “you’re telling me how little you think of me. How ugly I am. God, how can you possibly find me attractive when you put me down all the time.” I hissed the last words through gritted teeth. “I didn’t-” His eyes fell, staring at his shoes for a moment. I could tell he felt guilty. “Bianca, I’m sorry.” He looked into my eyes again. “I didn’t mean-” His hand reached out to touch me. “Don’t,” I snapped, shrugging away from him. I slid to the side and stepped away from the wall. I wasn’t going to be cornered. I wasn’t going to let him have the power here. “Just stop, Wesley.” It didn’t matter if some part of him found me attractive. That didn’t change things. I was just another girl he’d slept with. One among many. “I didn’t mean anything to you,” I told him. “Then why am I here?” he demanded, turning to face me again. “Why the hell am I here, Bianca?
Kody Keplinger (The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend (Hamilton High, #1))
Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
You thought I was bringing you flowers?” I was incredulous at his fancy. He looked from me suddenly, and I perceived that my words and tone shamed him. Head bowed, he walked slowly toward his bedchamber. He made no reply to my words and I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. As my friend, I loved him. I could not change my feelings about his unnatural desires, but I had no wish to see him shamed or hurt. So of course I made it worse as I blundered in with “Fool, why do you not let your desires go where they would be welcome? Garetha is a fairly attractive woman. Perhaps, if you gladly received her attention—” He rounded on me suddenly, and the true anger that flared up in his eyes lit them to a deep gold. His face flushed darker with emotion as he demanded caustically, “Then? Then what? Then I could be like you, sate myself with whoever was available merely because it was offered to me? That, I would find ‘distasteful’. I would never use Garetha or any person that way. Unlike some we both know.” He weighted those last two words for me. He took two more steps toward his room, then rounded on me again. A terrible, bitter smile was on his face. “Wait. I see. You imagine that I have never known intimacy of that sort. That I have been ‘saving myself’ for you.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “Don’t flatter yourself, FitzChivalry. I doubt you would have been worth the wait.
Robin Hobb (Golden Fool (Tawny Man, #2))
Did you know that reclaiming something that was stolen from you can help with trauma?” he asks. “Yes,” I murmur. “And if something hurt you before, giving it a new meaning can help.” His eyes lift, focusing on me intently. “Do you want me to show you a new meaning to this knife?” I hesitate but then nod my head. A different kind of fear is seizing my body—the kind that I’ve always been attracted to. And I’ve missed it so much. “Pull up your dress,” he demands roughly, his voice deep and raspy. Quickly, I do as he says, bunching the material up just high enough to bare the apex of my thighs. His nostrils flare, and he clenches his jaw briefly before ordering, “Now wrap your hand around mine.
H.D. Carlton (Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2))
13. If the goal is to build up one's sexual energy, what's the harm of sleeping with a lot of different women (or men) to increase your ching chi? Chia: The goal is not to build up one's sexual energy—it is to transform raw sexual energy into a refined subtle energy. Sex is only one means of doing that. Promiscuity can easily lower your energy if you choose partners with moral or physical weakness. If you lie with degenerates, it may hurt you, in that you can temporarily acquire your partner's vileness. By exchanging subtle energy, you actually absorb the other's substance. You become the other person and assume new karmic burdens. This is why old couples resemble each other so closely: they have exchanged so much energy that they are made of the same life-stuff. This practice accelerates this union, but elevates it to a higher level of spiritual experience. So the best advice I can give is to never compromise your integrity of body, mind and spirit. In choosing a lover you are choosing your destiny, so make sure you love the woman with whom you have sex. Then you will be in harmony with what flows from the exchange and your actions will be proper. If you think you can love two women at once, be ready to spend double the chi to transform and balance their energy. I doubt if many men can really do that and feel deep serenity. For the sake of simplicity, limit yourself to one woman at a time. It takes a lot of time and energy to cultivate the subtle energies to a deep level. It is impossible to define love precisely. You have to consult your inner voice. But cultivating your chi energy sensitizes you to your conscience. What was a distant whisper before may become a very loud voice. For your own sake, do not abandon your integrity for the sake of physical pleasure or the pretense that you are doing deep spiritual exercises. If you sleep with one whom you don't love, your subtle energies will not be in balance and psychic warfare can begin. This will take its toll no matter how far apart you are physically until you sever or heal the psychic connection. It's better to be honest in the beginning. For the same reason make love only when you feel true tenderness within yourself. Your power to love will thus grow stronger. Selfish or manipulative use of sex even with someone with whom you are in love can cause great disharmony. If you feel unable to use your sexual power lovingly, then do not use it at all! Sex is a gleaming, sharp, two-edged sword, a healing tool that can quickly become a weapon. If used for base purposes, it cuts you mercilessly. If you haven't found a partner with whom you can be truly gentle, then simply touch no one. Go back to building your internal energy and when it gets high you will either attract a quality lover or learn a deeper level within yourself.
Mantak Chia (Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy)
Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high into the air. They were off. “And the Quaffle is taken immediately by Angelina Johnson of Gryffindor — what an excellent Chaser that girl is, and rather attractive, too —” “JORDAN!” “Sorry, Professor.” The Weasley twins’ friend, Lee Jordan, was doing the commentary for the match, closely watched by Professor McGonagall. “And she’s really belting along up there, a neat pass to Alicia Spinnet, a good find of Oliver Wood’s, last year only a reserve — back to Johnson and — no, the Slytherins have taken the Quaffle, Slytherin Captain Marcus Flint gains the Quaffle and off he goes — Flint flying like an eagle up there — he’s going to sc– no, stopped by an excellent move by Gryffindor Keeper Wood and the Gryffindors take the Quaffle — that’s Chaser Katie Bell of Gryffindor there, nice dive around Flint, off up the field and — OUCH — that must have hurt, hit in the back of the head by a Bludger — Quaffle taken by the Slytherins — that’s Adrian Pucey speeding off toward the goalposts, but he’s blocked by a second Bludger — sent his way by Fred or George Weasley, can’t tell which — nice play by the Gryffindor Beater, anyway, and Johnson back in possession of the Quaffle, a clear field ahead and off she goes — she’s really flying — dodges a speeding Bludger — the goalposts are ahead — come on, now, Angelina — Keeper Bletchley dives — misses — GRYFFINDOR SCORE!” Gryffindor
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1))
He smiled, and some of the knots in my stomach loosened. He would keep my secret. Devon hesitated, then reached over and put his hand on top of mine. His skin was warm, as though the sun had soaked into his body. I breathed in, and the crisp, clean scent of him filled my nose, the one that made me want to bury my face in his neck and inhale the essence of him over and over again. But I forced myself to exhale and step back, putting some distance between us, even though our hands were still touching. “Look,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “You’re a nice guy, a great guy. But I’m going to . . . be here for a while. You’re an important member of the Family, and I’m your bodyguard, so it’s my job to protect you, and we’re going to have to work together. But I don’t think there should be anything . . . else.” “Because of your mom, right?” he asked in a low voice. “Because you blame me for her death?” I sucked in a breath, so rattled that I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about. First, my magic, and now this. Somehow, Devon knew all my secrets. “How do you know about my mom?” I croaked out. “I remember everything about that day in the park,” he said. “Including the girl with the blue eyes who helped save me.” I didn’t say anything. I could barely even hear him over the roar of my own heartbeat in my ears. “It took me a while to figure out why you seemed so familiar. When I realized you reminded me of the girl in the park, I knew it had to be you. Mom would never have brought you here otherwise. Plus, there are several photos of your mother in the library. You look just like her. I know what happened to her. I’m sorry that she died because of me—so sorry.” His green gaze locked with mine, that old, familiar guilt flaring to life in his eyes and punching me in the gut. And once again, I found myself wanting to comfort him. “I don’t blame you for her death,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault. It was all the Draconis.” “Do you really mean that?” he whispered. “I do.” Devon closed the distance between us and stared down at me. I let myself look into his eyes for another heartbeat. Then I pulled my hand out from under his and stepped away. Hurt flashed in his gaze before he could hide it. I wanted to stop. I wanted to tell him that I felt this thing, this attraction, this heat between us just as much as he did. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck, pull his lips down to mine, and lose myself in him. But I couldn’t. Not when I was planning on leaving the mansion, the Family, and him, the second I thought it was safe. I already cared about Devon way too much. And Felix and Oscar and even Claudia. I didn’t need to fall any farther down that rabbit hole, especially where Devon was concerned, because I knew exactly where I would end up—with my heart broken.
Jennifer Estep (Cold Burn of Magic (Black Blade, #1))
The mated males are biased. They want more females here for their own females. Many of the single males will likely have an issue, since it is tradition.” “Well if the single males want more females here, that’s the only way to do it. They’re only hurting themselves.” His fingers flexed slightly against hers. “Why do you think females would come here, anyway?” “Why wouldn’t they? I knew nothing about this sector and even after my tour I still don’t know much about it. Maybe if there was an attraction here— other than the males— it would bring more females.” He straightened and pushed up so that his hands caged her against the headboard. “This facility puts out the best warriors and we do some of the most intense and covert off-world missions. We will not have attractions here like a… carnival.” She blinked, realizing he’d misunderstood her. Unable to stop herself, a giggle escaped. She cupped the side of his face. Midnight black stubble already covered his jaw. She shivered, remembering the feel of it against her inner thighs not too long ago. “I didn’t mean that kind of attraction. I mean, give the females an incentive, like luxury housing or the chance to run a business here. There are so many business opportunities here for women. So far I’ve only seen one clothing shop and one bakery run by females.” He was silent a long moment as he watched her. “I think I might be biased too.” “How so?” “Because I want to change the law simply to please you.” The way he said it was almost grudging.
Savannah Stuart (Claimed by the Warrior (Lumineta, #3))
Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Check Your Heart When you hear that someone bought a new house, a car, got promoted, expanded their business, made more money, or was blessed with a child, pause for a moment and notice what happens inside you. If you feel happy for them, your heart is healthy. But if you feel a little low, uneasy, or something quietly hurts, it’s time to check your heart. That feeling isn’t about them, it’s about something inside you that needs healing. You should be able to smile at someone else’s win, wish them more, and genuinely mean it. Because the moment you can celebrate others without comparing, life starts to change for you too. Jealousy blocks blessings. Gratitude attracts them. What’s written for you will come, in its time, in its way, and when it does, it’ll feel just right.
Abdul Wahid Sarguroh
The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don't. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes "beauty" hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. "Natural" and "unnatural" are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn't hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn't friendship as good as a relationship? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual decision to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
The date rape drug he’d intended to give me has knocked him out so hard he’s barely even flinched, despite being dragged to the top of a twelve-storey building, stripped naked and bound to a post. His head lolls towards his chest. I stand back to admire him, taking in his slumped frame as he wilts against the pressure of his rope bindings. He looks Christ-like, vulnerable. His skin is grey in the murky moonlight. His body is incredible. Hardly surprising, since he seems to spend half his life at the gym. His stomach is taut, rippled with abs. His pecs are straight from a swimwear ad, his broad shoulders and ripped arms are built like a boxer’s. His biceps are strong, lined with veins that will soon cease to pump blood. He has the kind of arms that could pin you down so tightly you wouldn’t be able to move a muscle. His hands are large – the least attractive part of him: dry, thick, stubby. They’re the type of hands that could grip your wrists and stifle screams. Hands that could have killed me tonight. Hands that would have hurt me. Hands that would have held me in place while he raped me. I let my eyes wander down to his cock, which would probably have been pounding away inside me around now if things had gone his way. I could tell pretty early into our date that he was a predator. Perhaps it takes one to know one, but I could see it in his dark eyes and sly glances, the hungry way he took in my body, the type of questions he asked, his eagerness to buy me drinks. He probably didn’t think I had it in me to notice. Of course he didn’t. He just saw my shiny, sweeping hair, my lashes, my clothes, my smile. He saw what everybody else sees: my mask.
Zoe Rosi (Pretty Evil)
When you talk to a woman you want, you should make it clear that you are interested in a romantic or sexual relationship, not friendship. You do this best by creating sexual tension that is not found between friends, by letting her know your intentions while keeping her desires in mind: You have to convey that you are interested in the woman sexually, that you are sexually attracted to her, and why you are, while also keeping in mind what is important to her. However, you still need to let her get to know you somewhat by opening up and expressing your thoughts and feelings freely so that she trusts you enough to know you will not hurt her once the two of you are alone. But keep the extent of your getting-to-know-you conversation to just becoming comfortable enough to be alone and naked with each other, not to become best friends.
W. Anton (The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them)
Too few are asking us the questions to get to the depths of black queer boys' traumas. What is it that you desire but have been denied? What is that you need to feel safe? How do you actually feel about the person you had sex with? What is it about him you desire? What are the sources of your pain? Who hurt you? Who first told you that your sexual desires and attractions were wrong? Does it feel better when you use a condom? Do you feel more connected when you don't use a condom at all? What is it about that particular connection that fulfills you? To ask those questions would mean black boys and men would have to be seen, first, as bleeding, crying, vulnerable and sometimes resilient human persons. We are breakable...Black same-sex love is revolutionary because we must first convince ourselves we are deserving of receiving and giving what has been denied us for so long.
Darnell L. Moore (No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America)
Because the pull toward that feeling of “home” makes what they want as adults hard to disentangle from what they experienced as children. They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parent who in some way hurt them. In the beginning of a relationship, these characteristics will be barely perceptible, but the unconscious has a finely tuned radar system inaccessible to the conscious mind. It’s not that people want to get hurt again. It’s that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children. Freud called this “repetition compulsion.” Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago by engaging with somebody familiar—but new. The only problem is, by choosing familiar partners, people guarantee the opposite result: they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only a few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with other sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn't do these things, the other matrons talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all your little girlhood learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered her training at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, se knew it had been thorough and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules to be followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts. With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye. With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite, flirtatious, so that the old fools' vanities would be tickled. It made them feel devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you were a minx. And, of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then tell their sons that you were fast. With young girls and young married women, you slopped over with sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a day. And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks or their babies indiscriminately and teased about beaux and complimented husbands and giggled modestly and denied you had any charms at all compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought. Other women's husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were. If you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own. But with young bachelors-ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let them kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective). Then you cried and declared you didn't know what had come over you and that he couldn't ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just how much he did respect you. And there were-Oh, there were so many things to do to bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work-except with Ashley.
Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
Why would people do this to themselves? Because the pull toward that feeling of “home” makes what they want as adults hard to disentangle from what they experienced as children. They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parent who in some way hurt them. In the beginning of a relationship, these characteristics will be barely perceptible, but the unconscious has a finely tuned radar system inaccessible to the conscious mind. It's not that people want to get hurt again. It's that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children. Freud called this "repetition compulsion." Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago by engaging with somebody familiar — but new. The only problem is, by choosing familiar partners, people guarantee the opposite result: they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn't hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn't friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Today you are young.your beauty attract every man But the day when you will feel older yourself when you will feel magic of body vanish On that day time will remind you,that man who fall in love with your soul but you will not find him,because you killed him in All The day when you will feel wrinkles on your skin and will understand,no one want to touch it,not soft any more On that day time will remind that man who die for aroma of your skin,for him its always remain best fragrance But you will not find him, because you killed him by your ignorance The day you will feel,you are now not able to feed sex hunger and you will understand men around you but not with you On that day time will remind you that man who never hungry for your body,who just feed love and emotions to your soul and to your heart But you will not find him,because, you killed him by put your betrayed knife in his heart maybe it will not happen,maybe your life will full of love maybe you will never remember past.maybe you will forget All But on the day when you will die,and your loving people will bury you inside your grave,when you will realize, all that who loves you,all that with you spend days & nights all that for whom you cooked you serve,all that whose bed you warm all that who impress by your beauty,all that who claim to love you they all buried you here alone and gone in that your loneliness,time will remind you,that man who just dream to lay with you inside your grave, who dream to bury together in one grave But you will not find him That day will realize you,whom you killed That day will realize you,you killed a man who don't wanted to be just partner of you life but to partner of your death who don't wanted to be just partner of your bed but to partner of your grave Then you will realize you betrayed killed,partner of your grave Partner Of Your Grave,
Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
the following prayer by Dr. Jane Goodall, who was named a UN Messenger of Peace for her continued world efforts, she seems to touch on most aspects of world conflict as we know them today and as they pertain to all living things. Prayer for World Peace We pray to the great Spiritual Power in which we live and move and have our being. We pray that we may at all times keep our minds open to new ideas and shun dogma; that we may grow in our understanding of the nature of all living beings and our connectedness with the natural world; that we may become ever more filled with generosity of spirit and true compassion and love for all life; that we may strive to heal the hurts that we have inflicted on nature and control our greed for material things, knowing that our actions are harming our natural world and the future of our children; that we may value each and every human being for who he is, for who she is, reaching to the spirit that is within,knowing the power of each individual to change the world. We pray for social justice, for the alleviation of the crippling poverty that condemns millions of people around the world to lives of misery—hungry, sick, and utterly without hope. We pray for the children who are starving,who are condemned to homelessness, slave labor, and prostitution, and especially for those forced to fight, to kill and torture even members of their own family. We pray for the victims of violence and war, for those wounded in body and for those wounded in mind. We pray for the multitudes of refugees, forced from their homes to alien places through war or through the utter destruction of their environment. We pray for suffering animals everywhere, for an end to the pain caused by scientific experimentation, intensive farming, fur farming, shooting, trapping, training for entertainment, abusive pet owners, and all other forms of exploitation such as overloading and overworking pack animals, bull fighting, badger baiting, dog and cock fighting and so many more. We pray for an end to cruelty, whether to humans or other animals, for an end to bullying, and torture in all its forms. We pray that we may learn the peace that comes with forgiving and the strength we gain in loving; that we may learn to take nothing for granted in this life; that we may learn to see and understand with our hearts; that we may learn to rejoice in our being. We pray for these things with humility; We pray because of the hope that is within us, and because of a faith in the ultimate triumph of the human spirit; We pray because of our love for Creation, and because of our trust in God. We pray, above all, for peace throughout the world. I love this beautiful and magnanimous prayer. Each request is spelled out clearly and specifically, and it asks that love, peace, and kindness be shown to all of earth’s creatures, not just its human occupants.
Joe Vitale (The Secret Prayer: The Three-Step Formula for Attracting Miracles)
well it's going to be very long and boring i guess so , i am sorry in advance. Now i won't waste anymore time ...so here i go ..... ummm so you saw him/her for the first time and felt something different was that feeling is called love ? was that love at first sight? If you think so you are absolutely whom it was just some sort of attraction the first step towards love /? naah ...it was first step towards infatuation . confused? Let me explain it is the same feeling as love people get so mad that they start saying that they can't live without the person they love , they just give remote of their life to them so that they can do whatever they want to do with you , and if you like that person just because of their looks then its not love. when they talk to someone else or ignore you you get hurt and then depressed and start ruining your life. but you need to know forever is a wrong concept , people change and you need to understand depression won't help you . You need to forget that person and move on , but you say its impossible but do you why you feel like this because you dont ant to forget that person you still hope that they will come back , you need to end that hope for your own good it was their fault not yours, you just think you will never fall in love again with someone else again but this is wrong you can fall in love as many time you want to . don't fall in infatuation fall in love this world is a selfish place no one is going to die for you so why should you ? love only happens to some lucky people and they can't explain how it feels like it can be only felt by heart and in love there is nothing like like jelousy nothing like selfishness there is only love and those who love's you will never show that they have hurted you you just give them love without asking for something in return so don't think that infatuation is love ... so first ask yourself is this really love or just a tempory feeling ..! And never take someone for granted .
Rohit Kumar Singh
She held the moth to the light. It was nearer brown than yellow,and she remembered having seen some like it in the boxes that afternoon.It was not the one needed to complete the collection,but Elnora might want it,so Mrs. Comstock held on. Then the Almighty was kind,or nature was sufficient,as you look at it,for following the law of its being when disturbed,the moth again threw the spray by which some suppose it attracts its kind,and liberally sprinkled Mrs. Comstock's dress front and arms. From that instant,she became the best moth bait ever invented. Every Polyphemus in range hastened to her,and other fluttering creatures of night followed. The influx came her way. She snatched wildly here and there until she had one in each hand and no place to put them. She could see more coming,and her aching heart,swollen with the strain of long excitement,hurt pitifully.She prayed in broken exclamations that did not always sound reverent,but never was a human soul more intense earnest.
Gene Stratton-Porter (A Girl of the Limberlost (Limberlost, #2))
He lavished on me a friendliness which was as far above that of Saint-Loup as that was above the affability of a mere tradesman. Compared with that of a great artist, the friendliness of a great gentleman, charming as it may be, has the effect of an actor’s playing a part, of being feigned. Saint-Loup sought to please; Elstir loved to give, to give himself. Everything that he possessed, ideas, work, and the rest which he counted for far less, he would have given gladly to anyone who could understand him. But, failing society that was endurable, he lived in an isolation, with a savagery which fashionable people called pose and ill-breeding, public authorities a recalcitrant spirit, his neighbours madness, his family selfishness and pride. And no doubt at first he had thought, even in his solitude, with enjoyment that, thanks to his work, he was addressing, in spite of distance, he was giving a loftier idea of himself, to those who had misunderstood or hurt him. Perhaps, in those days, he lived alone not from indifference but from love of his fellows, and, just as I had renounced Gilberte to appear to her again one day in more attractive colours, dedicated his work to certain people as a way of approaching them again, by which without actually seeing him they would be made to love him, admire him, talk about him; a renunciation is not always complete from the start, when we decide upon it in our original frame of mind and before it has reacted upon us, whether it be the renunciation of an invalid, a monk, an artist or a hero. But if he had wished to produce with certain people in his mind, in producing he had lived for himself, remote from the society to which he had become indifferent; the practice of solitude had given him a love for it, as happens with every big thing which we have begun by fearing, because we knew it to be incompatible with smaller things to which we clung, and of which it does not so much deprive us as it detaches us from them. Before we experience it, our whole preoccupation is to know to what extent we can reconcile it with certain pleasures which cease to be pleasures as soon as we have experienced it.
Marcel Proust (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower)
I’m really not looking to date anyone.” I know people often say that when secretly looking for ‎a romantic partner, but I meant it. I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the ‎idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn’t much suit my talents. Like, ‎parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1. Kissing; 2. Having to ‎say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3. Saying more wrong things while trying to ‎apologize; 4. Being at a movie theater together and feeling obligated to hold hands even after ‎your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; and 5. The part where they ‎say, “What are you thinking about?” And they want you to be, like, “I’m thinking about you, ‎darling,” but you’re actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren’t for ‎the bacteria in their guts, and how that sort of means that cows do not exist as independent ‎life-forms, but that’s not really something you can say out loud, so you’re ultimately forced to ‎choose between lying and seeming weird
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
I have made all manner of acquaintance but have yet to meet with any society. I do not know what it is that attracts people to me; so many like me and attach themselves to me, and then it hurts me to find that we are travelling the same stretch for only a short way. If you ask how the people are here I have to answer: just as they are everywhere! The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it. What a thing our human destiny is! But the folk are of a very fine kind! When at times I forget myself and, together with them, enjoy the pleasures that are still available to mankind, such as sitting round a crowded table joking in innocent, open-hearted warmth, or taking a ride or dancing when one feels like it, or such things, it has a very good effect on me; but then I must be certain not to think of those many other powers lying dormant in me, mouldering in disuse, which I must needs keep carefully concealed. Ah, it trammels the whole heart so. - And still! to be misunderstood is my fate.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
This might baffle you, but despite not being a physician, I do have some pride. Although most certainly not enough to withstand the kind of beating you're capable of dealing it. The kind of beating you've repeatedly dealt it from the first time we've met. You're right, I value honesty, so I'll tell you that I make it a practice not to find women who insult me at every opportunity attractive." Color flooded her cheeks and traveled down her neck. Finally, she stepped away from him, too, and found the back of a chair to clutch. She looked entirely devastated. Had no one ever denied her anything? He hated the hurt in her eyes. But it was done now. "How is telling you I'm attracted to you an insult?" He pressed the back of his hand into his forehead. It made him feel like a drama queen in some sort of musical farce. Which this had to be. "Telling me how unworthy I am of your attraction, that's the insulting part. And, no, that's not all it is. Even if you hadn't told me at every opportunity how inferior to you I am... all I do is cook... every assumption you've made about me is insulting. Culinary school is definitely college. And Le Cordon Bleu is one of the most competitive institutions in the world. The fact that that's so wholly incomprehensible to you... that's the insulting part. And it wasn't thrown in my overly privileged lap either. I had to work my bottom off to make it in." Ammaji had sold her dowry jewels to pay for his application, something her family would have thrown her out on the street for had they found out. Trisha squared her shoulders, the devastation draining fast from her face, leaving behind the self-possession he was so much more used to. And the speed with which she gathered herself shook something inside him. "I might not do what you see as important work, but I work hard at being a decent human being, and I would need anyone I'm with to be that first and foremost. Even if I didn't find snobbery in general incredibly unattractive, I would never go anywhere near a person as self-absorbed and arrogant as you, Dr. Raje. I would have to be insane to subject myself to your view of me and the world." "Wow." She was panting, or maybe it was him. He couldn't be sure. "You wanted honesty. I'm sorry if I hurt you." She cleared her throat. "I'm surprised you think someone as... as... self-absorbed and arrogant as me is even capable of being hurt.
Sonali Dev (Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (The Rajes, #1))
He got in beside her and impatiently reached for her seat belt, snapping it in place. “You always forget,” he murmured, meeting her eyes. Her breath came uneasily through her lips as she met that level stare and responded helplessly to it. He was handsome and sexy and she loved him more than her own life. She had for years. But it was a hopeless, unreturned adoration that left her unfulfilled. He’d never touched her, not even in the most innocent way. He only looked. “I should close my door to you,” she said huskily. “Refuse to speak to you, refuse to see you, and get on with my life. You’re a constant torment.” Unexpectedly he reached out and touched her soft cheek with just his fingertips. They smoothed down to her full, soft mouth and teased the lower lip away from the upper one. “I’m Lakota,” he said quietly. “You’re white.” “There is,” she said unsteadily, “such a thing as birth control.” His face was very solemn and his eyes were narrow and intent on hers. “And sex is all you want from me, Cecily?” he asked mockingly. “No kids, ever?” It was the most serious conversation they’d ever had. She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes. She wanted him. But she wanted children, too, eventually. Her expression told him so. “No, Cecily,” he continued gently. “Sex isn’t what you want at all. And what you really want, I can’t give you. We have no future together. If I marry one day, it’s important to me that I marry a woman with the same background as my own. And I don’t want to live with a young, and all too innocent, white woman.” “I wouldn’t be innocent if you’d cooperate for an hour,” she muttered outrageously. His dark eyes twinkled. “Under different circumstances, I would,” he said, and there was suddenly something hot and dangerous in the way he looked at her as the smile faded from his chiseled lips, something that made her heart race even faster. “I’d love to strip you and throw you onto a bed and bend you like a willow twig under y body.” “Stop!” she whispered theatrically. “I’ll swoon!” And it wasn’t all acting. His hand slid behind her nape and contracted, dragging her rapt face just under his, so close that she could smell the coffee that clung to his clean breath, so close that her breasts almost touched his jacket. “You’ll tempt me once too often,” he bit off. “This teasing is more dangerous than you realize.” She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She was throbbing, aroused, sick with desire. In all her life, there had been only this man who made her feel alive, who made her feel passion. Despite the traumatic experience of her teens, she had a fierce physical attraction to Tate that she was incapable of feeling with any other man. She touched his lean cheek with cold fingertips, slid them back, around his neck into the thick mane of long hair that he kept tightly bound-like his own passions. “You could kiss me,” she whispered unsteadily, “just to see how it feels.” He tensed. His mouth poised just above her parted lips. The silence in the car was pregnant, tense, alive with possibilities and anticipation. He looked into her wide, pale, eager green eyes and saw the heat she couldn’t disguise. His own body felt the pressure and warmth of hers and began to swell, against his will. “Tate,” she breathed, pushing upward, toward his mouth, his chiseled, beautiful mouth that promised heaven, promised satisfaction, promised paradise. His dark fingers corded in her hair. They hurt, and she didn’t care. Her whole body ached. “Cecily, you little fool,” he ground out. Her lips parted even more. He was weak. This once, he was weak. She could tempt him. It could happen. She could feel his mouth, taste it, breathe it. She felt him waver. She felt the sharp explosion of his breath against her lips as he let his control slip. His mouth parted and his head bent. She wanted it. Oh, God, she wanted it, wanted it, wanted it…
Diana Palmer (Paper Rose (Hutton & Co. #2))
We walk around inside that house like everything is okay, but it’s not, Quinn. We’ve been broken for years and I have no idea how to fix us. I find solutions. It’s what I do. It’s what I’m good at. But I have no idea how to solve me and you. Every day I come home, hoping things will be better. But you can’t even stand to be in the same room with me. You hate it when I touch you. You hate it when I talk to you. I pretend not to notice the things you don’t want me to notice because I don’t want you to hurt more than you already do.” He releases a rush of air. “I am not blaming you for what I did. It’s my fault. I did that. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up because I was attracted to her. I fucked up because I miss you. Every day, I miss you. When I’m at work, I miss you. When I’m home, I miss you. When you’re next to me in bed, I miss you. When I’m inside you, I miss you.” Graham presses his mouth to mine. I can taste his tears. Or maybe they’re my tears. He pulls back and presses his forehead to mine. “I miss you, Quinn. So much. You’re right here, but you aren’t. I don’t know where you went or when you left, but I have no idea how to bring you back. I am so alone. We live together. We eat together. We sleep together. But I have never felt more alone in my entire life.” Graham releases me and falls back against his seat. He rests his elbow against the window, covering his face as he tries to compose himself. He’s more broken than I’ve ever seen him in all the years I’ve known him. And I’m the one slowly tearing him down. I’m making him unrecognizable. I’ve strung him along by allowing him to believe there’s hope that I’ll eventually change. That I’ll miraculously turn back into the woman he fell in love with. But I can’t change. We are who our circumstances turn us into. “Graham.” I wipe at my face with my shirt. He’s quiet, but he eventually looks at me with his sad, heartbroken eyes. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here this whole time. But you can’t see me because you’re still searching for someone I used to be. I’m sorry I’m no longer who I was back then. Maybe I’ll get better. Maybe I won’t. But a good husband loves his wife through the good and the bad times. A good husband stands at his wife’s side through sickness and health, Graham. A good husband- a husband who truly loves his wife - wouldn’t cheat on her and then blame his infidelity on the fact that he’s lonely.” Graham’s expression doesn’t change. He’s as still as a statue. The only thing that moves is his jaw as he works it back and forth. And then his eyes narrow and he tilts his head. “You don’t think I love you, Quinn?” “I know you used to. But I don’t think you love the person I’ve become.” Graham sits up straight. He leans forward, looking me hard in the eye. His words are clipped as he speaks. “I have loved you every single second of every day since the moment I laid eyes on you. I love you more now than I did the day I married you. I love you, Quinn. I fucking love you!” He opens his car door, gets out and then slams it shut with all his strength. The whole car shakes. He walks toward the house, but before he makes it to the front door, he spins around and points at me angrily. “I love you, Quinn!” He’s shouting the words. He’s angry. So angry. He walks toward his car and kicks at the front bumper with his bare foot. He kicks and he kicks and he kicks and then pauses to scream it at me again. “I love you!” He slams his fist against the top of his car, over and over, until he finally collapses against the hood, his head buried in his arms. He remains in this position for an entire minute, the only thing moving is the subtle shaking of his shoulders. I don’t move. I don’t even think I breathe. Graham finally pushes off the hood and uses his shirt to wipe at his eyes. He looks at me, completely defeated. “I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.
Colleen Hoover (All Your Perfects (Hopeless, #3))
Spies come in many shapes. Some are motivated by ideology, politics or patriotism. A surprising number act out of avarice, for the financial rewards, can be alluring. Others find themselves drawn into espionage by sex, blackmail, arrogance, revenge, disappointment, or the peculiar oneupmanship and comradeship that secrecy confers. Some are principled and brave. Some are grasping and cowardly. Pavel Sudoplatov, one of Stalin's spymasters, had this advice for his officers seeking to recruit spies in western countries: 'search for people who are hurt by fate or nature - the ugly, those suffering from an inferiority complex, craving power and influence but defeated by unfavourable circumstances... in cooperation with us, all these find a particular compensation. The sense of belonging to an influential and powerful origination will give them a feeling of superiority over the handsome and prosperous people around them.'... Espionage attracts more than its share of the damaged, the lonely and the plain weird. But all spies crave undetected influence, that secret compensation: the ruthless exercise of private power. A degree of intellectual snobbery is common to most, the secret sense of knowing important things unknown to the person standing next to you at the bus stop. In part, spying is an act of the imagination.
Ben Macintyre (The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War)
George Clooney spent his first years in Hollywood getting rejected at auditions. He wanted the producers and directors to like him, but they didn’t and it hurt and he blamed the system for not seeing how good he was. This perspective should sound familiar. It’s the dominant viewpoint for the rest of us on job interviews, when we pitch clients, or try to connect with an attractive stranger in a coffee shop. We subconsciously submit to what Seth Godin, author and entrepreneur, refers to as the “tyranny of being picked.” Everything changed for Clooney when he tried a new perspective. He realized that casting is an obstacle for producers, too—they need to find somebody, and they’re all hoping that the next person to walk in the room is the right somebody. Auditions were a chance to solve their problem, not his. From Clooney’s new perspective, he was that solution. He wasn’t going to be someone groveling for a shot. He was someone with something special to offer. He was the answer to their prayers, not the other way around. That was what he began projecting in his auditions—not exclusively his acting skills but that he was the man for the job. That he understood what the casting director and producers were looking for in a specific role and that he would deliver it in each and every situation, in preproduction, on camera, and during promotion. The
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Adversity to Advantage)
George Clooney spent his first years in Hollywood getting rejected at auditions. He wanted the producers and directors to like him, but they didn’t and it hurt and he blamed the system for not seeing how good he was. This perspective should sound familiar. It’s the dominant viewpoint for the rest of us on job interviews, when we pitch clients, or try to connect with an attractive stranger in a coffee shop. We subconsciously submit to what Seth Godin, author and entrepreneur, refers to as the “tyranny of being picked.” Everything changed for Clooney when he tried a new perspective. He realized that casting is an obstacle for producers, too—they need to find somebody, and they’re all hoping that the next person to walk in the room is the right somebody. Auditions were a chance to solve their problem, not his. From Clooney’s new perspective, he was that solution. He wasn’t going to be someone groveling for a shot. He was someone with something special to offer. He was the answer to their prayers, not the other way around. That was what he began projecting in his auditions—not exclusively his acting skills but that he was the man for the job. That he understood what the casting director and producers were looking for in a specific role and that he would deliver it in each and every situation, in preproduction, on camera, and during promotion. The difference between the right and the wrong perspective is everything.
Ryan Holiday (The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph)
A long time ago Ian had told her he was half in love with her, yet now that they were betrothed he’d never spoken a word of it, had not even pretended. She wasn’t certain of his motives or his feelings; she wasn’t certain of her own, either. All she really knew was that the sight of his hard, handsome face with its chiseled features, and hold amber eyes never failed to make her entire being feel tense and alive. She knew he liked to kis her, and that she very much liked being kissed by him. Added to his other attractions was something else that drew her inexorably to him: From their very first meeting, Elizabeth had sensed that beneath his bland sophistication and rugged virility Ian Thornton had a depth that most people lacked. “It’s so hard to know,” she whispered, “how I ought to feel or what I ought to think. And I have the worst feeling it’s not going to matter what I know or what I think,” she added almost sadly, “because I am going to love him.” She opened her eyes and looked at Alex. “It’s happening, and I cannot stop it. It was happening two years ago, and I couldn’t stop it then, either. So you see,” she added with a sad little smile, “it would be so much nicer for me if you could love him just a little, too.” Alex reached across the table and took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “If you love him, then he must be the very best of men. I shall henceforth make it a point to see all his best qualities!” Alex hesitated, and then she hazarded the question: “Elizabeth, does he love you?” Elizabeth shook her head. “He wants me, he says, and he wants children.” Alex swallowed embarrassed laughter. “He what?” “He wants me, and he wants children.” A funny, knowing smile tugged at Alexandra’s lips. “You didn’t tell me he said the first part. I am much encouraged,” she teased while a rosy blush stole over her cheeks. “I think I am, too,” Elizabeth admitted, drawing a swift, searching look from Alex. “Elizabeth, this is scarcely the time to discuss this-in fact,” Alex added, her flush deepening. “I don’t think there is a really good time to discuss it-but has Lucinda explained to you how children are conceived?” “Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said without hesitation. “Good, because I would have been the logical one otherwise, and I still remember my reaction when I found out. It was not a pretty sight,” she laughed. “On the other hand, you were always much the wiser girl than I.” “I don’t think so at all,” Elizabeth said, but she couldn’t imagine what there was, really, to blush about. Children, Lucinda had told her when she’d asked, were conceived when a husband kissed his wife in be. And it hurt the first time. Ian’s kisses were sometimes almost bruising, but they never actually hurt, and she enjoyed them terribly. As if speaking her feelings aloud to Alexandra had somehow relieved her of the burden of trying to deal with them, Elizabeth was so joyously relaxed that she suspected Ian noticed it at once when the men joined them in the drawing room. Ian did notice it; in fact, as they sat down to play a game of cards in accordance with Elizabeth’s cheery suggestion, he noticed there was a subtle but distinct softening in the attitudes of both ladies toward him.
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
The Laundry List Characteristics of an Adult Child 1) We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures. 2) We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process. 3) We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism. 4) We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs. 5) We live life from the viewpoint of victims, and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships. 6) We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc. 7) We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others. 8) We became addicted to excitement. 9) We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.” 10) We “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial). 11) We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem. 12) We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us. 13) Alcoholism is a family disease; we became para-alcoholics (codependents)† and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink. 14) Para-alcoholics (codependents) are reactors rather than actors.
Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization (Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families)
You don’t have to decide anything now. If you will allow me to be near you for a time, then we can see.” He rested his head back, and they looked at each other, their faces inches apart. He always was so good at looking at her. And it occurred to her just then that she herself was more Darcy than Erstwhile, sitting there admiring his fine eyes, feeling dangerously close to falling in love against her will. “Just be near…” she repeated. He nodded. “And if I don’t make you feel like the most beautiful woman in the world every day of your life, then I don’t deserve to be near you.” Jane breathed in, taking those words inside her. She thought she might like to keep them for a while. She considered never giving them up. “Okay, I lied a little bit.” He rubbed his head with even more force. “I need to admit up front that I don’t know how to have a fling. I’m not good at playing around and then saying good-bye. I’m throwing myself at your feet because I’m hoping for a shot at forever. You don’t have to say anything now, no promises required. I just thought you should know.” He forced himself to lean back again, his face turned slightly away, as if he didn’t care to see her expression just then. It was probably for the best. She was staring straight ahead with wide, panicked eyes, then a grin slowly took over her face. In her mind was running the conversation she was going to have with Molly. “I didn’t think it was possible, but I found a man as crazy intense as I was.” The plane was moving, that scatty slow motion that seemed to go both forward and backward at once. Jane kept looking back and forth between the window and the man next to her, checking to see if he was really there. Was this a better ending than tallyho? “So,” he said, “is New York City our final destination?” “That’s home.” “Good. There’s bound to be work for an attractive British actor, wouldn’t you think?” “There are thousands of restaurants, and those waiter jobs have high turnover.” “Right.” “Loads of theaters, too. I think you’d be wonderful in a comedy.” “Because I’m laughable.” “It doesn’t hurt.
Shannon Hale (Austenland (Austenland, #1))
Moreland sired some decent sons,” Rothgreb remarked. “And that’s a pretty filly they have for a sister. Not as brainless as the younger girls, either.” “Lady Sophia is very pretty.” Also kind, intelligent, sweet, and capable of enough passion to burn a man’s reason to cinders. “She’s mighty attached to the lad, though.” His uncle shot him a look unreadable in the gloom of the chilly hallways. “Women take on over babies.” “He’s a charming little fellow, but he’s a foundling. I believe she intends to foster him. Watch your step.” He took his uncle’s bony elbow at the stairs, only to have his hand shaken off. “For God’s sake, boy. I can navigate my own home unaided. So if you’re attracted to the lady, why don’t you provide for the boy? You can spare the blunt.” Vim paused at the first landing and held the candle a little closer to his uncle’s face. “What makes you say I’m attracted to Lady Sophia? And how would providing for the child endear me to her?” “Women set store by orphans, especially wee lads still in swaddling clothes. Never hurts to put yourself in a good light when you want to impress a lady.” His uncle went up the steps, leaning heavily on the banister railing. “And why would I want to impress Lady Sophia?” “You ogle her,” Rothgreb said, pausing halfway up the second flight. “I do not ogle a guest under our roof.” “You watch her, then, when you don’t think anybody’s looking. In my day, we called that ogling. You fret over her, which I can tell you as a man married for more than fifty years, is a sure sign a fellow is more than infatuated with his lady.” Vim remained silent, because he did, indeed, fret over Sophie Windham. “And you have those great, strapping brothers of hers falling all over themselves to put the two of you together.” Rothgreb paused again at the top of the steps. Vim paused too, considering his uncle’s words. “They aren’t any more strapping than I am.” Except St. Just was more muscular. Lord Val was probably quicker with his fists than Vim, and Westhaven had a calculating, scientific quality to him that suggested each of his blows would count. “They were all but dancing with each other to see that you sat next to their sister.
Grace Burrowes (Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (The Duke's Daughters, #1; Windham, #4))
In Western culture today, you decide to get married because you feel an attraction to the other person. You think he or she is wonderful. But a year or two later—or, just as often, a month or two—three things usually happen. First, you begin to find out how selfish this wonderful person is. Second, you discover that the wonderful person has been going through a similar experience and he or she begins to tell you how selfish you are. And third, though you acknowledge it in part, you conclude that your spouse’s selfishness is more problematic than your own. This is especially true if you feel that you’ve had a hard life and have experienced a lot of hurt. You say silently, “OK, I shouldn’t do that—but you don’t understand me.” The woundedness makes us minimize our own selfishness. And that’s the point at which many married couples arrive after a relatively brief period of time. So what do you do then? There are at least two paths to take. First, you could decide that your woundedness is more fundamental than your self-centeredness and determine that unless your spouse sees the problems you have and takes care of you, it’s not going to work out. Of course, your spouse will probably not do this—especially if he or she is thinking almost the exact same thing about you! And so what follows is the development of emotional distance and, perhaps, a slowly negotiated kind of détente or ceasefire. There is an unspoken agreement not to talk about some things. There are some things your spouse does that you hate, but you stop talking about them as long as he or she stops bothering you about certain other things. No one changes for the other; there is only tit-for-tat bargaining. Couples who settle for this kind of relationship may look happily married after forty years, but when it’s time for the anniversary photo op, the kiss will be forced. The alternative to this truce-marriage is to determine to see your own selfishness as a fundamental problem and to treat it more seriously than you do your spouse’s. Why? Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have complete responsibility for it. So each spouse should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to “give yourself up.” You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it’s revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing. If two spouses each say, “I’m going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage,” you have the prospect of a truly great marriage. It Only Takes One to Begin
Timothy J. Keller (The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God)
Don’t look so grim. When you get home, I’m sure Randall will buy you all the rings you want. One for every day of the week,” Oscar said, thick with sarcasm, as they walked back toward the harbor. “I don’t care about the ring!” Camille shouted. She stopped walking and turned to Oscar. “I’m sorry, it’s just that…” Oscar patiently waited for her to finish her sentence. Camille looked away, embarrassed. She had scraped Randall’s skin with the ring, too. It had been one of their rare moments alone. He’d run his fingers down her back, nibbled on her neck, and she’d waited for her legs to turn to warm butter. She’d waited to feel the desire to kiss him. But the feelings hadn’t come. Camille had swept her hand up to stop him, and the ring had left a puffy red scratch on his arm. Oscar watched her fumble for words, his expression one of concern. “Never mind,” she said quickly and stepped up onto a raised sidewalk, out of the mud. “Never mind what?” “It’s private.” He continued walking in the street, his head level with hers. “Private between who?” “Between me and Randall. You wouldn’t understand,” she said and lifted her skirt as she descended back down into the muddy street where the sidewalk ran out. “And why is that?” he asked, sounding put off. Daphne’s place came into view. The air smelled of bitter salt water and of wood smoke curling up from the kitchen chimney. “Oh, Oscar, you’re a man of the sea. What could you possibly know about relationships?” He’d never courted a woman as far as Camille knew. She slowed her pace. Or had he? Oscar stopped in the middle of the cobblestoned walkway leading to Daphne’s front door. His eyes blazed with hurt and resentment. “I do apologize, Miss Rowen, I forgot mere sailors aren’t worthy of marriage. Isn’t that what your father always said?” Camille’s cheeks seared with heat. It was a stance her father had never parted from, but she hadn’t known he’d also impressed it upon Oscar. She fidgeted with her hands and fumbled for an apology. “No, that’s not what I meant. You’re a bachelor, that’s all.” Oscar shook his head, unable to meet her eyes. She’d sounded so patronizing. Oscar was handsome, young, and single, and for a man of his class, he made a decent living. Enough to attract an equally decent amount of attention from women, she supposed. Why hadn’t she ever thought of that? He retreated to the street. “I’m going for a walk.” “Oscar, wait-“ He pivoted on his heel. “You know, you’re wrong, Camille. And your father was wrong, too.” Oscar turned and disappeared behind the boxwood hedges. Camille clenched two fistfuls of her skirt and stomped up the steps, aggravated over her careless words. She’d been pompous and arrogant, and she hated that she’d hurt him. She cringed at the wounded way he’d looked at her.
Angie Frazier (Everlasting (Everlasting, #1))
Um…” The marching band in my bloodstream was now doing double-time maneuvers. “Well, I walked into the throne room one day, and Venus was studying this hologram of you, and I asked—just completely casually, mind you—‘Who’s that?’ And she told me your…your fate, I guess. The thing about healing your heart. Then she just…tore into me. She forbade me to approach you. She said if I ever tried to woo you, she would curse me forever. It was totally unnecessary. And also embarrassing.” Reyna’s expression remained as smooth and hard as marble. “Woo? Is that even a thing anymore? Do people still woo?” “I—I don’t know. But I stayed away from you. You’ll notice I stayed away. Not that I would’ve done otherwise without the warning. I didn’t even know who you were.” She stepped over a fallen log and offered me a hand, which I declined. I didn’t like the way her greyhounds were grinning at me. “So, in other words,” she said, “what? You’re worried Venus will strike you dead because you’re invading my personal space? I really wouldn’t worry about that, Lester. You’re not a god anymore. You’re obviously not trying to woo me. We’re comrades on a quest.” She had to hit me where it hurt—right in the truth. “Yes,” I said. “But I was thinking….” Why was this so hard? I had spoken of love to women before. And men. And gods. And nymphs. And the occasional attractive statue before I realized it was a statue. Why, then, were the veins in my neck threatening to explode? “I thought if—if it would help,” I continued, “perhaps it was destiny that…Well, you see, I’m not a god anymore, as you said. And Venus was quite specific that I shouldn’t stick my godly face anywhere near you. But Venus…I mean, her plans are always twisting and turning. She may have been practicing reverse psychology, so to speak. If we were meant to…Um, I could help you.” Reyna stopped. Her dogs tilted their metal heads toward her, perhaps trying to gauge their master’s mood. Then they regarded me, their jeweled eyes cold and accusatory. “Lester.” Reyna sighed. “What in Tartarus are you saying? I’m not in the mood for riddles.” “That maybe I’m the answer,” I blurted. “To healing your heart. I could…you know, be your boyfriend. As Lester. If you wanted. You and me. You know, like…yeah.” I was absolutely certain that up on Mount Olympus, the other Olympians all had their phones out and were filming me to post on Euterpe-Tube.
Rick Riordan (The Tyrant's Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4))
Colin Ward’s character Rigsley is King Malcolm’s evil advisor. Part of what makes him such a douchebag is the way he acts like he has the best intentions at heart while in reality, he knows precisely how hurtful he’s being. The problem with Colin Ward playing him is that no one is supposed is supposed to find Rigsley even remotely attractive. I abhor Rigsley. I wrote him to be abhorred. And yet I guarantee you now, thanks to whoever decided to cast Colin Ward, fans are going to start fawning over Rigsley and writing trashy romance fanfiction about him. And that’s just... ugh. Gross.
Jacqueline E. Smith (Trashy Romance Novel)
Emotional Deprivation is the belief that your need for love will never be met adequately by other people. You feel that no one truly cares for you or understands how you feel. You find yourself attracted to cold and ungiving people, or you are cold and ungiving yourself, leading you to form relationships that inevitably prove unsatisfying. You feel cheated, and you alternate between being angry about it and feeling hurt and alone. Ironically, your anger just drives people further away, ensuring your continued deprivation.
Jeffrey E. Young (Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again)
Beauty is nothing but a concept, nothing but a belief, but you can believe in that concept of beauty, and base all your power on that beauty. Time passes, and you see you are getting old. Perhaps you are not as beautiful as you were from your point of view, and a younger woman comes along who is now the one who is beautiful. Time for plastic surgery, to try to keep the power because we believe that our beauty is our power. Our own aging starts to hurt us. “Oh my god, my beauty is going away. Will my man still love me if I am not as attractive? Now he can see other women who are more attractive than me.” We resist aging; we believe that because someone is old, it means she is not beautiful. This belief is completely wrong. If you see a newborn baby, it is beautiful. Well, an old person is also beautiful. The problem is the emotion we have in our eyes to perceive what is and what is not beautiful.
Miguel Ruiz (The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship)
She had a sense of humor and a perpetual grin, but nothing about her seemed happy or carefree. Which is exactly why I liked her. My darkness was attracted to hers, and it seems I learned the hard way just how dangerous it is.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
In my life, I had no one to disappoint or to let down. Spectres did not haunt me. I very ably created my own prissy set of standards: hesitant, over-polite, submissive. I only became attractive (to myself) when I broke out of that and had bursts of rip-roaring, disgusting behaviour. It was funny and hurt no one.
Gordon Roddick
she looks up at me, and those perfect green eyes of hers burn into my soul. And she’s just as magnetic as the first time I met her. It’s not meant to be like this. I shouldn’t be attracted to her and want to hurt her in the same breath.
S. Massery (Devious Obsession)
When you deny emotional pain, everything you do or think as well as your relationships become contaminated with it. You broadcast it, so to speak, as the energy you emanate, and others will pick it up subliminally. If they are unconscious, they may even feel compelled to attack or hurt you in some way, or you may hurt them in an unconscious projection of your pain. You attract and manifest whatever corresponds to your inner state.
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parent who in some way hurt them.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
At that time, Wake Forest was trying to ease away from religious control in order to attract scholars unwilling to teach under the rubric of religious fundamentalism. Someone got the idea of asking me to come to Wake Forest and speak to their middle class, white student body on the issue of race relations and the rising claims of blacks on the society. For the most part, these students liked things as they were. My job that day was to show them how racial discrimination hurt everyone.
Samuel DeWitt Proctor (Substance of Things Hoped for: A Memoir of African-American Faith)
Lord Lucifer, the name she had chosen to represent Lord Leigh. She could not help the smile that tugged at the corner of her lips as she read the attributes beneath his name. Arrogant and entitled, he exuded wickedness. The whispers she had heard told the story of a man who overindulged himself in sensory pleasure- women, cards, and drink (possibly more). He owned a club with the Duke of Rothschild where all manner of illicit things happed. But it wasn't't only hedonism that she discerned in him. No, there was a danger about him that she couldn't quite understand. As someone who believed herself capable of assessing the character of a person within a matter of minutes, that alone made him very intriguing. It didn't hurt that he was also devilishly handsome. With thick dark hair, pale gray eyes, and cheekbones that could cut glass, she imagined that Lucifer himself would take his form should he deign to set foot upon the earth.
Harper St. George (The Devil and the Heiress (The Gilded Age Heiresses, #2))
Self-love in complete perspective, serves its own invincible purpose of ecstasy. Supreme bliss simulating opposition is its balance. It suffers no hurt, neither does it labour. Is it not self-attracting and independent? Assuredly we cannot call it balance.
Austin Osman Spare (The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy)
What do I know? I know that one person can make a difference. I know that thoughts and words can kill, and a gentle touch can heal. I know that if you expect disaster, it will find you. I know that love is rare. And, if you lose it, there's a good chance you'll never find it again. I know that weakness manifests itself in fear and selfishness, which is why many people are unhappy and will remain unhappy. I know that the truth hurts. But what do I know?
Wayne Gerard Trotman
If someone is badly hurt at some point in life - traumatized - the dominance counter can transform in a manner that makes additional hurt more rather than less likely ... [they continue] to attract genuine negative attention from one or more of the fewer and generally less successful bullies still extant in the adult world.
Jordan Peterson
The males in the family are subjected to an intense attraction to a female relative. If they don't act on it, the feelings only get stronger. If it goes on for too long, the men become so aggressive they can end up hurting or killing the object of their desire.
Rory Ireland (Brothers' Brat)
Ethical sluts do not make promises they can't keep. If you are attracted to someone who is looking for a life partnership and what you want is a lighthearted affair (or vice versa), you need to be honest about that, even if it means saying "No, thank you" to sex until your feelings for each other are more on a par. Mistakes can easily be made - sometimes accidentally, and sometimes when we should have predicted that someone would get hurt.
Janet W. Hardy (The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love)
And then I picture the way he mostly ignores me when we’re both at the practice facility together. The heavy secret of his attraction. The dark secret of my conflict of interest. It’s too much tonight. Too complicated. More pain than gain. More hurt than love.
Sarina Bowen (The New Guy (Hockey Guys, #1))
He had been a true friend to her then. And that’s why his betrayal hurt so much. And she couldn’t help but wonder: was there truly something broken about her that attracted people who were deceptive?
A.G. Riddle (Antarctica Station)
I go back to staring out the window and wondering why his bad attitude hurts my feelings. It’s not like I like him or anything. Yeah, he’s attractive. Yeah, he’s brooding and mysterious. Yeah, I might have a problem.
Lauren Biel (Driving My Obsession (Ride or Die Romances))
They seem so different, Jane and Celeste, but I feel like they’re also sort of similar. I can’t quite work out how.” Ed put down his own book. “I can tell you how they’re similar.” “Can you now?” “They’re both damaged,” said Ed. “Damaged?” said Madeline. “How are they damaged?” “Don’t know,” said Ed. “I just recognize damaged girls. I used to date them. I can spot a crazy chick a mile off.” “So was I damaged too?” asked Madeline. “Is that what attracted you?” “Nope,” said Ed. He picked up his book again. “You weren’t damaged.” “Yes I was!” protested Madeline. She wanted to be interesting and damaged too. “I was heartbroken when you met me.” “There’s a difference between heartbroken and damaged,” said Ed. “You were sad and hurt. Maybe your heart was broken, but you weren’t broken. Now, be quiet, because I think I’m falling for a red herring here, and I’m not falling for it, Ms. Cornwell, no I’m not.
Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies)
No one really knows why damaged people find each other. But they do. There’s an attraction of pain to pain, a magnetism of hurt, a mutual recognition that creates a haven of understanding. With that person, you don’t have to explain why you’re down, you don’t have to hear “suck it up,” you don’t have to pretend to be happy.
Don Winslow (City of Dreams)
No one really knows why damaged people find each other. But they do. There’s an attraction of pain to pain, a magnetism of hurt, a mutual recognition that creates a haven of understanding. With that person, you don’t have to explain why you’re down, you don’t have to hear “suck it up,” you don’t have to pretend to be happy. The other damaged being just understands.
Don Winslow (City of Dreams)
Fraud doesn’t benefit anyone except the individual who is involved, but it hurts many innocent souls and leaves them devastated for a lifetime.
Mwanandeke Kindembo (Destiny of Liberty)
I've never shot anyone in the ass before. Does it hurt?" His brow lifted. "I don't feel anything." "How apropos." Was that the ghost of a smile she saw on his lips? Or the start of another frown? She had never seen him smile, she realized. It was probably a good thing. He was already far too attractive. A smile might force her to overlook his prickly personality and lure him into her bed.
Sara Desai (The Singles Table (Marriage Game, #3))
It’s an inherent problem we women have. We’re all attracted to the bad boy…the lone wolf…the one who can’t be tamed. We think we can tame him and all we do is get hurt in the process.
Martha Sweeney
It follows from experience that love is of the laws of attraction, but it is ultimately a decision. – On Love
Lamine Pearlheart (Awakening)
It’s no coincidence that people who had angry parents often end up choosing angry partners, that those with alcoholic parents are frequently drawn to partners who drink quite a bit, or that those who had withdrawn or critical parents find themselves married to spouses who are withdrawn or critical. Why would people do this to themselves? Because the pull toward that feeling of “home” makes what they want as adults hard to disentangle from what they experienced as children. They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parent who in some way hurt them. In the beginning of a relationship, these characteristics will be barely perceptible, but the unconscious has a finely tuned radar system inaccessible to the conscious mind. It’s not that people want to get hurt again. It’s that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children. Freud called this “repetition compulsion.” Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago by engaging with somebody familiar—but new. The only problem is, by choosing familiar partners, people guarantee the opposite result: they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
What most people mean by type is a sense of attraction—a type of physical appearance or a type of personality turns them on. But what underlies a person’s type, in fact, is a sense of familiarity. It’s no coincidence that people who had angry parents often end up choosing angry partners, that those with alcoholic parents are frequently drawn to partners who drink quite a bit, or that those who had withdrawn or critical parents find themselves married to spouses who are withdrawn or critical. Why would people do this to themselves? Because the pull toward that feeling of “home” makes what they want as adults hard to disentangle from what they experienced as children. They have an uncanny attraction to people who share the characteristics of a parent who in some way hurt them. In the beginning of a relationship, these characteristics will be barely perceptible, but the unconscious has a finely tuned radar system inaccessible to the conscious mind. It’s not that people want to get hurt again. It’s that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children. Freud called this “repetition compulsion.” Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago by engaging with somebody familiar—but new. The only problem is, by choosing familiar partners, people guarantee the opposite result: they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable.
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
Try as I might to deny it, I have an attraction to doing the wrong thing.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
While my bravery is forced, the way my body reacts to him is anything but. There’s a constant battle of fighting my attraction to him and convincing myself that any man could make my knees weaken with a single look. And ridding myself of that internal war feels like wearing a tight costume for too long and finally taking it off to breathe. There are no pretenses, no denying the way my clit pulses beneath his stare, and the wetness that coats my inner thighs when he gets close enough. There are no shutters over my eyes, hiding the truth from him as often as I hide it from myself.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
What was the dream, bella?” he asks again, his tone dropping wickedly. And just like a goddamn wizard, I’m opening my mouth to tell him exactly that. “You know what? Whatever. When a man and a woman are attracted to each other, they have coitus. That was about to take place in my dream, and you fucking ruined it. Happy? Get off me now.” “It was about me,” he states plainly. “What was I doing to you?” “N-nothing,” I stutter. “You woke me up, remember?” “That’s another lie, Sawyer. I can smell your pussy from here. That’s not nothing.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
His head is turned, and his eyes are locked onto my ass. Thank God it’s not flat. It’s not big by any means, but plenty plump and round to attract the male gaze. Though these days, that’s not entirely hard to do anyway.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
Do you know what attracts a predator to its prey, amore mio?” “What?” I whisper. “When it’s hurt,” he murmurs, placing a featherlight kiss on my jaw. “I love it when you’re hurt, baby, but only when it’s me who inflicts the pain.” A whimper escapes as his teeth graze where his lips once were. “You will heal, Sawyer. And as long as you are with me, you will never have to cause pain again. But when you are between my teeth, I will make you bleed. I will make you hurt instead.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
He’s just so… frustrating. Always thinks he’s right. A fucking know-it-all, too. And he’s always looking at me like he can’t tell if he wants to mutate into a shark and eat me or not. And I can’t tell if that’s attractive or not.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
She’s so fucking beautiful it hurts. Oh, man, I’m not supposed to be this attracted to her. Why do I love to make myself miserable?
Hannah Grace (Wildfire (Maple Hills, #2))
She had a sense of humor and a perpetual grin, but nothing about her seemed happy or carefree. Which is exactly why I liked her. My darkness was attracted to hers, and it seems I learned the hard way just how dangerous she is.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
A hoarse scream came from somewhere in front of them, and Billy stopped. Lee froze. The scream came again and again, the short repetition of it mad and desperate. She whispered as softly as she could. "Billy, is someone hurt?" But he didn't respond or turn around. She cautiously joined him and Kimmie at the front, and she saw a bobcat in Billy's lamp light, staring them down as a humanlike wail came from the cat's mouth. Billy moved slowly toward the animal with his arm outstretched as Lee pleaded for him to come back. When he reached it and offered his hand up to smell, the animal froze with its teeth bared. Lee imagined it mauling him and then moving on to her. But then the animal rubbed its cheek against his palm like a housecoat, and Lee heard a low rumbling. The creature was purring. He gave it love for a few minutes until the cat got tired of it and loped out of sight. He let out a breath and chuckled low to himself. "She was just lonely.
Alli Dyer (Strange Folk)
You haven’t thought about me in the last five years? You haven’t wanted to see me again?” “No,” I blurt out immediately, because it’s the truth. Most of it, anyhow. I’ve tried not to think about her because I’m still ashamed I took advantage of her when she was weak. I haven’t allowed myself to think about her, because it felt wrong. The brightness in her eyes fades and a look of hurt comes over her face. She pulls her hand from my arm. “Oh. Well…I thought about you. Constantly.” “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay. I should have guessed we wouldn’t be on the same page⁠—” “No,” I continue, the words rushing out of me. “I’m sorry for what happened five years ago. I touched you when I shouldn’t have.” Her brows furrow and she gives me an odd look. “What are you talking about?” I can feel the intense gaze of the custodian down the street. No doubt he’s watching me closely to ensure that I’m not bothering the locals. “You and I,” I murmur. “You and I shouldn’t have happened.” To my surprise, Melody rolls her eyes. She shakes her head slowly and takes my hand in hers, lifting my big fist toward her face. “Listen carefully, Brux. I was so happy in that moment that I was thrilled to have sex with you. I felt seen. I felt listened to. I felt understood. Someone had seen my misery and fixed it. I wanted to have sex with you. You didn’t force me to do anything.” “Pity sex—” I begin, frowning. “Not pity sex,” she corrects. “And for the record, I’ve had sex with men for less than what I felt for you, which was bone-deep gratitude. Happiness and gratitude are perfectly good reasons to have voluntary sex. And let me say again. It was very, very voluntary.” And she presses a kiss to my knuckles, then smiles up at me. “And if—when—we have sex again, it will be voluntary then, too.” Heat creeps up my neck, and my tail won’t stop flicking about. “You didn’t come,” I point out, keeping my voice low. “Back then.” “I know.” She shrugs. “I was just happy to touch and be touched. For me it wasn’t about an orgasm. But if it’ll make you feel better, I promise that I won’t rest until you make me come this time.”  And Melody flutters her lashes at me. “So…you want sex again? From me?” Maybe this is a fetish. If so, that explains a lot. “At some point, yeah.” She shrugs and then gives my knuckles another kiss, glancing up at me as she does. “But I’d like to get to know you outside of bed, too. I want us to be friends. More than friends. Is it so weird that I’m attracted to you?” “Yes,” I admit bluntly.
Ruby Dixon (When She's Handy (Risdaverse, #13))
See I grew pessimistic. Unsure if reading the book would make any difference. For her. For the Justice. To prevail. Law. Order. Females like psychopaths and criminals. Fairy tales and vampires. Bad guys. Not the good guys. They are attracted to the bad guys. Using good guys. „Being smarter.” Until: caught. They enjoy using and hurting good people. It is not only their way of living. Killing. They have no inner control or conscience influenced by society. They allow themselves to be happy without any restraint, associating with bad people and engaging in unlawful activities. Bad people / Psychopath females Them and their owners. The Sin. The Crime. The Knowledge. The Secret. The Wisdom. The Snake. The Apple. Adam. Paradise. Hell. This is how they often end up in jail or dead, or occasionally getting splashed with acid, riding wheelchairs, usually due to their involvement with drug-dealing boyfriends. Getting: „surprised.” No one gets „acid” in his/her face for no reason. This is an honest book. Do you want me to say a name, an example or add a list? „Say her name.” ... ? OKAY. I will not add any other examples, or names, to the list, as I choose to mention, point out the story of: Breonna Taylor as both the beginning and end of the list. I do not want to spend time searching for more instances, ladies, as my intention is not to defend or advocate for individuals who have engaged in wrongdoing, regardless of their gender. I am not trying to save the lives of criminals anymore. I have no girlfriend/abuser. To save. From herself. I don't believe it is productive to compile a list of examples or names of females who were involved in criminal activities or found themselves in dangerous situations. Beds. Doing so would be a futile use of time. „The problem is, that women, they have/got all the pussies.” – Serbian proverb Perhaps the police used excessive force. Perhaps. Alright. I don't doubt it. I don't agree either. It was a dangerous guy. Warrants. Danger. Dangerous situation. Lawful enter or not. ... These bodycam videos don't show you the level of adrenaline you have in such situations. "Kill or be killed." The officers want to get home tonight as well to see their loved ones. I wouldn't call that "trigger-happy." But I think it fits to call the criminals: cowardly. Using live body shield: their girlfriends. In general. Hiding. Behind girls. Just like: Adam Maraudin. And so many more.
Tomas Adam Nyapi (BARCELONA MARIJUANA MAFIA)
Being attracted to Ryker was understandable, considering he was definitely my type. Tall, rough around the edges with that stubble on his jaw, the shaggy brown hair that was reaching for his shoulders, the couldn't-care-less attitude like he was at the top of the food chain and he fucking knew it. The biceps didn't hurt, either. No, I couldn't stop thinking with my ovaries and there didn't seem to be anything I could do to stop it.
Sabrina Blackburry (Dirty Lying Dragons (The Enchanted Fates, #2))
Shh,” I murmur, taking care to keep my voice low. “It is only a dream. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” [...] "A dream,” she repeats, pupils dilated as she stares up at me. She licks her lips, and I follow the movement with my eyes, a heat pulsing low at the base of my spine. “It was just a dream.” I nod, trying to angle my hips away from her in a futile attempt to hide my thickening cock. But her body is pressed close to mine, tucked beside me under my and Jadi’s wool traveling blankets. I see the moment she realizes, my preternatural vision able to take in the details of her shock. I see the way her pale eyes go wide, cheeks flushing pink. Hear her breath hitch in surprise. I feel my own cheeks heat in response, a flush of shame tightening in my chest. Shame at how much I want her. At how I’ve treated her. Shame at how jealously I guarded Jadi’s affections. At the way I cruelly tried to drive him away from her. “Asterion?” My name is barely a whisper on her lips, but she doesn’t pull away from me. Instead, her thigh presses against my hardening length. Almost like she’s seeking me out. But of course, that can’t be right. No woman would seek me out. Not after the way I’ve treated her. “Yes?” My voice catches in my throat, but I don’t dare look away. “Do you – are you…” her voice trails off, but she keeps her eyes locked on mine. Guilt tightens its hold behind my ribs, but I nod. There’s no point in denying it. No point in lying to her. Not when she can feel the proof of my attraction to her pressing against her. “I’m sorry,” I grit out, pulling my hand away from her face. “I don’t mean to… Please, just ignore it.” I roll away until I’m lying on my back, my erection almost painful as it pushes against the weight of the blankets. “Because of Jadi?” she asks, her voice thready and uncertain. I furrow my brow, glaring with irritation into the darkness. “Jadi? What does Jadi have to do with it?” “I mean – just that you and Jadi are together. Lovers? I not know word,” she babbles. “And I know that. Respect that. I not want come between you and Jadi. At party, he asked if he could court me,” she confesses. “I sorry if I…” I cut her off with a frustrated hiss, hating myself even more for this proof of how I’ve hurt Jadi. How successfully I have pushed her away from him. “You have nothing to apologize for,” I grind out. “Jadi has every right to court you. Every right. The only one who could deny him that is you.” “But you and Jadi…” “Are lovers? Intertwined as closely as two threads woven into the same cloth? Yes.” I bark out a bitter, mirthless laugh. “Which makes my treatment of him – of you – even worse.” The words are spilling out now, like water into the hull of a ship once the wood has cracked. Now that I’ve started, there is no stopping it. “I’ve known for moon cycles that he cares for you, and I hurt him for it. I was cruel to him and tried to chase you away. Because I was afraid you would steal him away from me, and he’s all I have. He’s everything to me. He’s my heart. My heart.” I clutch my fist against my chest in emphasis, still staring at the ceiling, not daring to turn and meet her eyes with my own. “I was jealous, and it was wrong, and now the gods are probably laughing at me. Because I want you. I want you. After trying to drive Jadi away from you, now I want you for myself. But I don’t deserve you. Not after the way I’ve treated you. And even then, even if I hadn’t…” [...] “I want you too.” Her words are no more than a whisper, and I tense, my first instinct to dismiss them the moment I register what she’s said. “I want you. And Jadi,” she admits, and there’s a raw vulnerability in those simple words that I don’t understand. “I shouldn’t, should I? Want you both, I mean? Like that?” I roll to my side to stare at her in disbelief.
Elisha Kemp (Burn the Stars (Dying Gods, #2))
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing and fists clenching. “I don’t hate you. That’s the problem, baby, don’t you see that?” He shakes his head bitterly. “I don’t hate you, I care way too much… but the last person I did—” “Hurt you,” I finish. “Okay, so we take this one step at a time. I’m not asking for marriage.” I grin, and he laughs. “Just a truce, if we can manage it. I’ll stop pushing you for a reaction, and you can stop trying to choke or kill me… okay, maybe the kill me part. Feel free to choke me any time, it’s pretty hot actually.” He chuckles again, but it finishes in a groan. “You can’t talk to me like that. I want you, I do, but I can’t… I would kill you… I don’t even know if I can be with someone like that again. You should stick to the others, to someone who can give you what you need. Not a broken fuck up.” “So try.” I shrug. “Find out for real. It doesn’t have to be now, but think about it. I won’t lie, I find you attractive and I wouldn’t kick you out of bed.” “And I thought you hated us,” he scoffs. “Oh, I still do, it’s annoying as hell, but I’m trying here. Orgasms tend to lessen hate, and let’s face it, we both know this is my life now. I’m just done fighting against it.
K.A. Knight (Den of Vipers)
I’m sorry, Garrett, no wonder you hate women.” “You know nothing, get out.” I look away in shame. “Then tell me. I’ll understand, I could help. What happened?” she implores. “I just want to help, Garrett, I swear I won’t hurt you. I just want… well, you. However I can get you, even as a friend.” “Don’t you see I’m ruined?” I scream. “Where? Where are you ruined? Your chest? It’s hot, get the fuck over it, you have a few scars.” She snorts. “A few?” I roar. “It’s a fucking horrendous mess that makes me feel sick to even look at. How could you ever expect me to think you find this attractive?” “You don’t get to tell me who I find attractive. I love your scars the way I love my own. They actually made me feel close to you before anyone else. Someone with those scars knows pain, like me. So yes, I like them, yes, I want you so fucking badly it’s stupid, so badly I touch myself to the thought of you, even when you’re mean and hateful. You don’t get to tell me what I want because you’re fucking scared!
K.A. Knight (Den of Vipers)
How others see me is how I see myself. When others see me as good, smart, attractive, important and other positive things, I can see myself that way and I like that a lot. I also need these reflections because I have no ability to create a stable self-image, so if I can't find anyone to reflect a positive image of myself back to me, my self-worth crashes and I have no way to do anything about it. I literally live on the opinions of others. If others do not verify my existence through giving me some kind of reflection and feedback via reactions to me, I cannot see myself. I do not exist. And remember, "positive" in this context doesn't necessarily mean "good." That is ideal and would probably always be the preferred situation, but many, many narcissistic people can survive on mostly negative attention, too. As long as their existence can be verified through reactions (attention) and they can experience themselves as important in some way - even if it's by making other people angry or upset at them, or through hurting others - that is enough. Some masochistic or sadistic narcissists may have even learned to thrive on negative attention and may gear their efforts toward doing things that constantly result in them being punished or in punishing others.
Little Shaman TLS (The Little Shaman: On Narcissists: Understanding Narcissists Vol 1)
I’m not telling you this to make you choose between him and Carina. I just don’t want you to doubt how he feels. I definitely don’t want to see him get hurt, but if he’s the one for you, then choose him. Be sure you’re ready to be with a man. Don’t let a word define who you are. You can love anyone, and loving Jackson doesn’t make you one way or another. It doesn’t mean you have to be attracted to other men just because you’re attracted to him.
Fiona Cole (Lovers (Voyeur, #2))
It’s honestly pathetic how attractive he is. The dude could barter world peace or some shit, I swear.
H.D. Carlton (Does It Hurt?)
She’s married. How can she be married? That makes no sense. It hurts like hell.
Laura Carter (The Law of Attraction (Brits in Manhattan #1))
INSTANT LOVE SPELLS THAT WORK FAST, NO SIDE EFFECTS AND IT DOESN’T BACKFIRE, My name is Dr ITSOKWI Spells caster. Call/WhatsApp +2349053366074 Specializing in helping you to achieve your goals. Trusted lost love spells in the world. Love spells that really work, spell to return ex lover with effective results GET BACK LOST LOVER AFTER DIVORCE, get my EX-LOVER back, Instant Divorce Spell, Fertility/Pregnancy Spell, Marriage Spell, Love spells, lost love spells, breakup spells, love spell casters that work,online love spell caster,psychic love spell casters that work, reunite love spell casters that really work,best love spell casters,free voodoo love spell casters,love spell caster that work,voodoo love spells caster protection, reunite us, attraction spells. Get back your lost love. Family disputes. Financial problems. Services:Psychic Readings, love reading, tarot love reading, Love spells, Lost love spells, Get back your lost love, Sangoma, Traditional healer, Court cases, Black Magic Removal, Stop drug addiction, Return missing relatives, Job and work cases,Curse Removal, Remove Black Magic, Hex Removal, Strong Spell, Negative Energy Cleansing, Protection Spell. Looking for an instant revenge solution for someone who made you feel bad? destroyed everything in your life? or someone who did bad to you? Contact DR ITSOKWI SPELLS. WhatsApp +2349053366074 spells to bring back lost love,bring back lost love 24 hours,bring back lost love in 24 hours,bring back lost love prayer in Alabama Alaska Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District Of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington State West Virginina, UK, Canada, Iceland,newzeland, England, Bristol E.t.c Call/WhatsApp: +2349053366074 Death Spells That Work Overnight to kill wicked Step-dad / Step mom, Death Revenge Spell on wicked friends, Voodoo Death Spells to kill Enemies, Black Magic Spells To Harm Someone, Black magic death spells on ex-lover, Revenge instant death spells on uncle, Spell to hurt or kill co-workers. Effective spell to Win Court Cases, Spell To Get Charges Dropped, Justice Spell Ritual to get victory over your enemy, money invocation spell, ritual money spells, spell to win lottery jackpot, Powerball, win million dollars on lottery jackpot using Dr ITSOKWI appropriate spells Call or WhatsApp +2349053366074 Email: Dritsokwi777demon@gmail.com
love magic life Publishing
I pressed my lips together, fighting the sting in my eyes. I wasn’t a bad person. I didn’t lie; I didn’t cheat—I didn’t hurt people on purpose. But I was…a lot. I was loud, emotional, and undoubtedly a bit of a drama queen when I’d had a glass or three of wine, like now. Mr. Captain over there probably thought I was a total bitch after that little display on the phone with Amanda. I didn’t blame him. I wore my heart on my sleeve, especially when I was pissed off. It was beyond my control. I’d never learned to play it cool or keep my mouth shut.
Evie James (Christmas Cancellation)
Noelle was an open book—most of the time. She didn’t bother hiding who she was, and I respected that. But the topic of her parents? That was a door she kept bolted shut. It stirred up an instinct I didn’t usually have for strangers—to defend her from whatever hurt lay behind that door. It wasn’t the same as looking out for my brother and sisters, or even the guys in my unit. This was different. More visceral. I wanted to shield her from whatever caused her pain and make it right.
Evie James (Christmas Cancellation)
I'm half listening. I'm interested in other things. How certain people devastate you with their face. How it hurts to see them. A certain kind of face does it—a different kind for all of us. My foster mother Mina was obsessed with the man who ended up killing her, Phil, and his slummy face had done it to her, because it doesn't have to be attractive or even remotely decent. It's only happened once to me so far, and it was my physics teacher, who told me my face had done that to him. When your faces do it to each other, that's sublime.
Sarah Braunstein (Bad Animals)
the same way in-state businesses do. This could hurt online shopping in that state, since one of the attractions
Anonymous
Most women can’t imagine a world where guys aren’t douchebags, because if all guys are douchebags – that means they (the women) are the good guys, the innocent victims in their stories. the oppressed. By openly saying that all men are pigs, it absolves them from their own responsibilities as the “other half” of the dating equation. So to maintain this – they apply the qualities of the attractive men who hurt them to all men, and simply ignore the ones who don’t fit into their preconceived notions
Anonymous
The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don’t. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes “beauty” hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. “Natural” and “unnatural” are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.
Anonymous
Dear Children, I am your dad. The father of all five of you pale creatures. Given how attractive and fertile your mother is, there may be more of you by the time you read this book. If you are reading this, I am probably dead. I would assume this because I can honestly foresee no other situation where you’d be interested in anything I’ve done. Right now, you are actually more interested in preventing me from doing things like working, sleeping, and smiling. I’m kidding, of course. Kind of. I love you with all of my heart, but you are probably the reason I’m dead. All right, you didn’t kill me. Your mother did. She kept getting pregnant! I don’t know how. Don’t think about it. It will give you the willies. At one point, I was afraid she got pregnant while she was pregnant. She was so fertile I didn’t even let her hold avocados. Anyway, this is a book all about what I observed being your dad when you were very young and I had some hair back in good old 2013. So why a book? Well, since you’ve come into my life, you’ve been a constant source of entertainment while simultaneously driving me insane. I felt I had to write down my observations about you in a book. And also for money, so you could eat and continue to break things. By the way, I’m sorry I yelled so much and did that loud clapping thing with my hands. I hated when my dad would do the loud clapping thing with his hands, so every time I do the loud clapping thing, it pains me in many ways. Most of the pain is because that loud clapping thing actually hurts my hands. You may be wondering how I wrote this book. From a very early age, you all instinctively knew I wasn’t that bright of a guy. Probably from all the times you had to correct me when I couldn’t read all the words in The Cat in the Hat. Hell, I find writing e-mails a chore. (Thank you, spell-check!) I wrote this book with the help of many people, but mostly your mother. Your mother is not only the only woman I’ve ever loved, but also the funniest person I know. When your mom was not in labor yelling at me, she made me laugh so hard. Love, Dad P.S. How did you get that hula hoop into that restaurant Easter 2011? Who’s Who in the Cast Jim Gaffigan (Dad).
Jim Gaffigan (Dad Is Fat)
But then again, if I can only attract what I expect, what was I to do with all of the hurt, sadness, sorrow, anger, and fear that had built up as a result of what I had seen
Iyanla Vanzant (Forgiveness: 21 Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything)
As if you care, if you hurt me
Suvika ST (NOT A BOOK: Fatal Attraction)
Life will be less attractive than when Aden was here, but still I must step onward. With the program over, she got the horse ready with Monroe’s help. No one gave her strange looks when she drove away. Already other buggies were hitched up to leave. Her heart hurt as she drove down the gravel road and past the creek and Aden’s old
Jerry S. Eicher (A Wedding Quilt for Ella (Little Valley, #1))
S: But Chris, I think his embarrassment isn't in relation to you or me but to himself. What can he do? C: I hate being thrown into such a physical state. S: Isn't that experiencing life to the hilt? C: No, it's just a dumb infatuation. I'm so ashamed. S: But even if his silence hurts you, isn't that what attracted you to him? The fact that he was inaccessible. So, I think there is a contradiction there, at least nothing to feel ashamed of -.
Chris Kraus (I Love Dick)
Those who hurt you in the past have no authority to determine whether or not you will live a life of love and fulfillment. You are the only one holding that power.
Katherine Woodward Thomas (Calling in "The One": 7 Weeks to Attract the Love of Your Life)
My eyes hurt," she said plaintively, as he surveyed the stacks of books they hadn't read yet. "Then by all means, we will save your eyes for a bit," Peri said, with a chuckle that rumbled inside his chest. He put his head down along his folded forelegs and looked up at her with an amused expression. "What are you thinking about?" he asked. "That I've never known anyone it was easier to be- friends with," she said, hesitating a moment over the "friend" part. Because it felt as if their relationship was unfolding into something a great deal warmer than mere friendship. "It's odd, isn't it?" he responded. "Except for my brother, I've never been as comfortable around any dragon as I am around you. I don't quite know how to fathom it." "Then let's not," she said instantly, not wanting to spoil anything. "All right?" He laughed. "One can certainly analyze things until they are no longer enjoyable. I bow to your wisdom. I am just happy to enjoy your company." She felt warm and tingly in a pleasant sort of way as he looked down at her with those glowing dark-emerald eyes. Feeling greatly daring, she reached out and scratched the soft skin under his chin. He sighed. "Oh, glory. That feels lovely. Don't stop doing that for the next thirty years or so. Take more time if you need it." She laughed, but kept scratching. "I wish there was something I could do for you that felt as good," he said, in a voice rich with content. "You already are," she said. "You're very comfortable to sit on." He laughed again, this time with a note of self-mockery. "I shall be sure to add that to my list of virtues. 'Makes a comfortable chair.' I am sure the Great Dragon at the gates of Paradise will find that ample reason to let me in straightaway. And the rest of my clan will surely inscribe it on my memorial wall." She blinked. "Dragons believe in Paradise?" she said, surprised. "Of course they do, silly goose," Peri replied, with another affectionate brush on his nose on her shoulder.
Mercedes Lackey (One Good Knight (Five Hundred Kingdoms, #2))
Whatever,' Jack says, waving his hand, 'I'm sorry you hurt yourself, Salman. You control your own life but you don't want to live with it.' Painted that way, rendered in little swipes, Salman doesn't sound attractive to himself.
Kazim Ali (The Disappearance of Seth)
Pain is what we get when we are consumed by the fire of anger. We need to balance that with love. Meditation is basically the way; Meditation is how you practice accepting yourself. You don’t have to focus on anything or force yourself in weird positions. Simply go to a garden during sunrise, sit in a bench and listen to the birds. That is meditation. You see, we shower to be clean, we go to a gym to exercise the body, we eat to have energy, and we meditate to put our thoughts in order with our soul. Meditation is not a way to escape reality but a practice that teaches to accept it. You need more reality in your life but you need it with an open heart. Most of the world is in the darkness and if you open a weak heart to it, you will get hurt. You can learn to see the world but you have to realize things with your own conscience. Then you can attract anything you want, including the answers to all your questions. You did attract this message. If you can believe that you are on the way to the truth and, when you see it, you will recognize it.
Robin Sacredfire
Date?” Paul glanced at Henry, who wore an equally puzzled expression.  “I heard Charlene talking about that once.  Sounds weird.” “Really?  You guys don’t date?”  I didn’t ask what they did to get to know a girl instead of dating. “No, we get invited to Introductions,” Paul said as if reading my mind. “What’s that?”  Sam hadn’t mentioned anything like that to me, and I wondered if I should add it to his list of omissions. “When a female comes of age, she’s brought to the Introduction room where she can meet werewolves she has never met before.  The Elders are there to make sure the girl is safe and to give the guys a few minutes to talk to her.  You know, to really get her scent.  When there’s a connection, a guy just knows and Claims her.  If not, the next group comes in for their chance.” I started to sweat as I sat there.  First, what did he mean by Claim?  Second, they kept a girl in a room while guys came in to look her over and smell her?  I reached for my water that sat on the coffee table in the center of our sitting arrangement.  My hands shook a little, and I tried really hard to calm down and not let my imagination run away. “Hey, Gabby, you okay?  Did Paul say something wrong?  Charlene said we could ask any questions we wanted...” They had no idea how foreign what they’d just said sounded to me. “Hey, Gabby, you don’t have to worry about Introductions if that’s what’s scaring you.”  Paul looked at me with concern.  “For you and Charlene, the attraction works different.  She explained it to us when she said that you were coming.  You guys have a level of appeal, or chemistry, with just about all werewolves.”  He is not helping, I thought while he continued.  “Because the level of attraction to you varies, it wouldn’t be safe to put you in an Introduction room.” “Yeah,” Henry agreed and, with a spark of excitement in his eyes, leaned forward in his chair.  “That’s when the mating duels happen.  It’s rare with a werewolf couple, but when Charlene was first brought here, I heard the guys went crazy because they didn’t know what was happening.  They fought over who had the strongest tie to her.  But you don’t have to worry about that with us.  Paul and I think you’re okay, and you smell good and everything, but we knew when we met you that you’re not right for either of us.  That’s why Charlene left you alone with us.” My stomach churned.  Werewolves were going to start fighting each other for me?  No thanks.  They both smiled at me encouragingly.  They probably thought their explanations helpful, but the information they threw at me stunned me. “What did you mean by ‘Claim’?”  My voice came out light and airy with anxiety, but I needed to know. “It’s when we bite our Mate.  The bite draws blood but doesn’t hurt,” Paul explained reassuringly. “What?” I nearly shouted.  My freak-o-meter bypassed meltdown. My head spun dizzily, and no doubt, all the color had drained from my face.  “Oh, not for you, Gabby,” Paul said, quickly leaning forward.  He made shushing motions with his hands.  “We can’t Claim humans like that.  When your Mate finds you, it’s up to you to Claim him.” So,
Melissa Haag (Hope(less) (Judgement of the Six #1))
WOMAN!” I SHOUTED, and shook Rachel’s bed roughly. “Wake up.” She shot straight up, her eyes wide in panic as she looked around her room before settling them on me. “God, I thought earthquakes had followed me to Texas.” Taking a calming breath, she brushed her wild hair back from her face and scowled at me. “What is wrong with you? And what time is it—seven? Really, Kash?” “Get up and get ready.” “No.” Pulling the covers up past her shoulders, she sank back into the mattress and shut her eyes. Hell. No. “This is your last warning, Rach. Get up.” A single snort was her only reply. “Such a pain in my ass,” I mumbled, and walked to the foot of the bed. Grabbing the bottom of the comforter, I ripped it off the bed and dropped it on the ground. “Oh my God, what if I had been naked?!” I raised an eyebrow and let my gaze run over her body. I wouldn’t have minded. Ah shit, now I was getting hard and the jersey material of these shorts wouldn’t hide that fact. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats! “Moot point; you’re not. Now, get your ass out of bed.” “Give me at least another couple hours. I just went to sleep.” “Not my fault, and you’ve had more than enough chances to get up yourself.” “Kash, please,” she whined. “Don’t whine. It’s not attractive.” Without giving her any more time, I scooped her into my arms and threw her over my shoulder before heading toward her bathroom. A low oompf left her before she began bitching at me. “I am going to gut you, you freakin’ asshole! Seven in the damn morning, what the hell is wrong with you?! Put me down—ugh! Easy, this shit hurts. You have really bony shoulders, has anyone ever told you that?” She gasped when I turned the shower water on. “Put me down right now, Logan Hendricks, or I swear to all that is holy you will regret the day you moved in across from me and almost took my Jeep door off!” “No can do, my little Sour Patch.” Thank God I was still only in my workout shorts. Kicking off my running shoes, I stepped into the large tub and winced when she shrieked. “You evil bastard, let me go!” “You sure have a mouth on you when you wake up.” “I will murder you!” I couldn’t help but smile. She was just so damn cute. “And you’re a little dramatic.” “This water is freezing,” she whined, and I’d bet she was pouting just as bad as Candice usually did. At least her anger was dying down and her fists had stopped pounding on my back. “What did I ever do to you?” “I gave you every opportunity to get yourself ready. You were the one who wouldn’t get out of bed.” “I had barely gone to sleep!” “Rach,” I snorted, “it’s seven in the morning and you left my place at nine last night. Why had you just gone to sleep?” She didn’t answer and stopped wiggling against me. She just hung there, limp. “What—no more threats? No more whining?” Silence. “Woman, I swear to God, if you fell asleep on my damn shoulder . . .” I trailed off when I heard her mumble something. “What’d you say?” “I was afraid to fall back asleep,” she whispered, and my eyes clenched shut. “Ah, Rach.” I slid her awkwardly down my body until she was standing in front of me. I tried to block the water that was directed at her, but little droplets were bouncing off my bare shoulders and hitting her face. She blinked rapidly against them before dropping her head. “Why didn’t you call me or something?” She huffed and shook her head. “What for, Kash? To make you sit there with me in sweats longer? So you could act like what happened yesterday morning didn’t? I don’t need you to babysit me when I’m being ridiculous.” “That’s not ridiculous.
Molly McAdams (Forgiving Lies (Forgiving Lies, #1))
Obviously you have no liking for Prudence,” he began, “but if you--” “I’ve tried my best to like her. I thought if one peeled away the layers of artifice, one would find the real Prudence beneath. But there’s nothing beneath. And I doubt there ever will be.” “And you find Beatrix Hathaway superior to her?” “In every regard, except perhaps beauty.” “There you have it wrong,” he informed her. “Miss Hathaway is a beauty.” Audrey’s brows lifted. “Do you think so?” she asked idly, lifting the teacup to her lips. “It’s obvious. Regardless of what I think of her character, Miss Hathaway is an exceptionally attractive woman.” “Oh, I don’t know…” Audrey devoted careful attention to her tea, adding a tiny lump of sugar. “She’s rather tall.” “She has the ideal height and form.” “And brown hair is so common…” “It’s not the usual shade of brown, it’s as dark as sable. And those eyes…” “Blue,” Audrey said with a dismissive wave. “The deepest, purest blue I’ve ever seen. No artist could capture--” Christopher broke off abruptly. “Never mind. I’m straying from the point.” “What is your point?” Audrey asked sweetly. “That it is of no significance to me whether Miss Hathaway is a beauty or not. She’s peculiar, and so is her family, and I have no interest in any of them. By the same token, I don’t give a damn if Prudence Mercer is beautiful--I’m interested in the workings of her mind. Her lovely, original, absolutely compelling mind.” “I see. Beatrix’s mind is peculiar, and Prudence’s is original and compelling.” “Just so.” Audrey shook her head slowly. “There is something I want to tell you. But it’s going to become more obvious over time. And you wouldn’t believe it if I told you, or at least you wouldn’t want to believe it. This is one of those things that must be discovered for oneself.” “Audrey, what the devil are you talking about?” Folding her narrow arms across her chest, his sister-in-law contemplated him sternly. And yet a strange little smile kept tugging at the corners of her lips. “If you are at all a gentleman,” she finally said, “you will call on Beatrix tomorrow and apologize for hurting her feelings. Go during one of your walks with Albert--she’ll be glad to see him, if not you.
Lisa Kleypas (Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways, #5))
Thinking about Noah made it difficult to remember that there would never again be a man in her life. Ever, ever, ever. She’d been hurt by men too often. Okay, there hadn’t been many, but the three major contenders had been totally horrible. Death, prison and weirdness. If there’d been even one lucky break where love was concerned, she might consider another stab at it down the line a bit, but not likely. She had already proven she didn’t know how to pick a man, and it was doubtful she could start now. But he was very attractive, the preacher man. Six feet, ink-black hair with a lock that fell over his brow sometimes. Expressive dark brows over the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen. And lips that just screamed Come to Papa. Then there was that smile. Or, all those smiles—the one that indulged, the one that mocked, the one that burst out of him before he could stop it. He couldn’t hide the fact that for a devout sort of guy there was some bad boy in him that he was barely keeping under control. His smile came with dimples that almost brought her to her knees. Six feet of delicious man with strong shoulders, long legs and big, hard hands. Yeah, he could get her in trouble. But
Robyn Carr (Forbidden Falls)
Some vital male brain function had been impaired during the few minutes Vim had held Sophie Windham in his arms. Badly impaired—impaired as if some part of him had been aching sorely for a long time, though it had taken the feel of that one woman in his embrace to make him aware of his own hurt. And now he could not focus on much else. He liked her, was the problem. Or part of it. The other part was he desired her, which made no sense. Of course he desired her the way any healthy male would desire any attractive woman, but this was… different. Vim had been a sexual friend to any number of women, and they’d been happy to return the favor. Romping was merely… romping. A wink and a smile, and both parties could be on their way, an itch having been adequately scratched for the nonce. Sophie was not a woman to romp with. She was a woman a man could spend years learning to cherish. “You
Grace Burrowes (Lady Sophie's Christmas Wish (The Duke's Daughters, #1; Windham, #4))
There were so many bad people in the world, so many people that would rather hurt and harm and crush. But the good people were the ones that made life worth living, that made searching for them worth every bad relationship and heartache, worth the pain, suffering and potential heartache of finding them.
Rachel Higginson (The Difference Between Us (Opposites Attract, #2))
The world is captivated by Hollywood superstars, music artists, and sports personalities. Hollywood is portrayed as the epitome of beauty and fashion capital of the world. Whatever the actors and actresses are wearing dictate the fashion trends and lifestyle being followed by fans in a global scale. The said movie and music characters never fail to amuse and amaze us with their clothes, shoes, bags, and hairstyles. The most popular shoes are the high heel booties studded with gems, gold, and anything sparkling in-between. You certainly wonder how they can perform dance and stage stunts with these booties heels. Women look so attractive donning high heel booties. They get few extra inches in height and look stunning from head to toe. If you are going for mall shopping or walking long distances, stay away from heeled bootiesas your feet will surely get hurt. However, if you are attending special occasions and corporate functions, heel bootiesis the perfect footwear.
John Rudy (The Great Chocolate Pyramid)