“
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
”
”
Maya Angelou
“
Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
“
Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
“
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
”
”
John Keats (Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne)
“
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
”
”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
“
I'm happy. Which often looks like crazy.
”
”
David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly)
“
We are like butterflies who flutter for a day and think it is forever.
”
”
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
“
Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
”
”
Hans Christian Andersen (The Complete Fairy Tales)
“
Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
“
I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair
I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see
For still there are so many things
That I have never seen
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green
I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people that will see a world
That I shall never know
But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“
and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.
”
”
Ruskin Bond (Scenes from a Writer's Life)
“
You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
“
She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
”
”
Jerry Spinelli (Stargirl (Stargirl, #1))
“
Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.
”
”
Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City)
“
I am a happy camper so I guess I’m doing something right. Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.
”
”
J. Richard Lessor
“
We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.
”
”
John Marsden (The Dead of Night (Tomorrow, #2))
“
The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.
”
”
George Carlin
“
The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore
“
Every butterfly in the world has migrated to my stomach.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
“
Luke used to give me butterflies. Noah spawned mutant pterodactyls.
”
”
Katie McGarry (Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits, #1))
“
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
”
”
Richard Bach (Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah)
“
Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind.
”
”
Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
“
Butterflies are self propelled flowers.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein
“
a flower knows, when its butterfly will return,
and if the moon walks out, the sky will understand;
but now it hurts, to watch you leave so soon,
when I don't know, if you will ever come back.
”
”
Sanober Khan
“
Grown-ups love figures... When you tell them you've made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? " Instead they demand "How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? " Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (The Little Prince)
“
When she transformed into a butterfly, the caterpillars spoke not of her beauty, but of her weirdness. They wanted her to change back into what she always had been. But she had wings.
”
”
Dean Jackson
“
What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.
”
”
Lao Tzu
“
If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it - then I can achieve it.
”
”
Muhammad Ali (The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey)
“
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
”
”
R. Buckminster Fuller
“
Life is short. If you doubt me, ask a butterfly. Their average life span is a mere five to fourteen days.
”
”
Ellen DeGeneres (The Funny Thing Is...)
“
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.
”
”
Zhuangzi (The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu (SUNY series in Religion and Philosophy) (English and Mandarin Chinese Edition))
“
Be a child again. Flirt. Giggle. Dip your cookies in your milk. Take a nap. Say you're sorry if you hurt someone. Chase a butterfly. Be a child again.
”
”
Max Lucado (When God Whispers Your Name)
“
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
”
”
Muhammad Ali (Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times)
“
According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you stop worrying. Things don't bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful coincidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous. (quoted by Carol Lynn Pearson in Consider the Butterfly)
”
”
Deepak Chopra (SynchroDestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles)
“
You are my butterfly and refuse to set you free.
”
”
Shannon Hale
“
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. The hands can't hit what the eyes can't see.
”
”
Muhammad Ali
“
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.
”
”
Ernest Hemingway
“
Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders)
“
You do not just wake up and become the butterfly"
-Growth is a process.
”
”
Rupi Kaur (The Sun and Her Flowers)
“
Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov
“
My soul has painted like the wings of butterflies,
Fairy tales of yesterday will grow but never die,
I can fly, my friends...
”
”
Freddie Mercury
“
He said that we belonged together because he was born with a flower and I was born with a butterfly and that flowers and butterflies need each other for survival.
”
”
Gemma Malley (The Declaration (The Declaration, #1))
“
If that moment had been a real thing, it would've been a butterfly, flapping and fluttering toward the sun.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1))
“
Butterflies and zebras
and moonbeams and fairy tales,
That's all she ever thinks about,
Riding with the wind.
”
”
Jimi Hendrix
“
Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults.
”
”
Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
“
She loved him because he had brought her back to life. She had been like a caterpillar in a cocoon, and he had drawn her out and shown her that she was a butterfly.
”
”
Ken Follett (The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1))
“
He’d almost told the princess that she could keep Hellas’s Horse, but there was something to be said about the prospect of charging down Morath foot soldiers atop a horse named Butterfly.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass, #6))
“
What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.
”
”
Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
“
How does one become a butterfly? They have to want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.
”
”
Trina Paulus (Hope for the Flowers)
“
My loathings are simple. stupidity, oppression, crime, cruelty, soft music. My pleasures are the most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Strong Opinions)
“
he sucked the nectar from her heart like a famished butterfly.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins
“
Liraz may have captured Ziri's soul like a butterfly in a bottle, but that was only a formality. It was already hers.
And, clearly, judging by the state of her laugh-sobbing in Karou's arms, hers was his, too.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Dreams of Gods & Monsters (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #3))
“
Her adept said: "I'll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does."
Gideon lifted her sword. The construct worked itself free of its last confines of masonry and rotten wood and heaved before them, flexing itself like a butterfly.
"We do bones, motherfucker," she said.
”
”
Tamsyn Muir (Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1))
“
Some things, when they change, never do return to the way they once were. Butterflies for instance, and women who've been in love with the wrong man too often.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (Practical Magic (Practical Magic, #1))
“
The only authority I respect is the one that causes butterflies to fly south in fall and north in springtime.
”
”
Tom Robbins (Another Roadside Attraction)
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
“
His magic is powerful, intoxicating. I'm a butterfly caught in his net, unable and unwilling to escape. I'm his ....... totally his". (Ana to Christian)
”
”
E.L. James (Fifty Shades Darker (Fifty Shades, #2))
“
The only time you should ever look back, is to see how far you've come.
”
”
Bangtan Boys, Butterfly
“
But on paper, things can live forever.
On paper, a butterfly
never dies.
”
”
Jacqueline Woodson (Brown Girl Dreaming)
“
Ash pulled me back against him, brushing my hair from my neck. His mouth skimmed my shoulder, up my neck, sending butterflies swarming through my insides. "If you want to rest, then do so," he murmured against my skin. "The rain will not touch you, I promise.
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron King (The Iron Fey, #1))
“
We are all butterflies. Earth is our chrysalis.
”
”
LeeAnn Taylor
“
When a caterpillar changes into a butterfly it loses it's caterpillar life.
”
”
L.J. Smith (Night World, No. 1 (Night World, #1-3))
“
I learned about the sacred art of self decoration with the monarch butterflies perched atop my head, lightning bugs as my night jewelry, and emerald-green frogs as bracelets.
”
”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés (Women Who Run With the Wolves)
“
If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.
”
”
Wendy Mass (The Candymakers (The Candymakers, #1))
“
Hundreds of butterflies flitted in and out of sight like short-lived punctuation marks in a stream of consciousness without beginning or end.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Good. So you may be dense, but you’re not an idiot.’
‘How can you even talk to me like that? Don’t you know I can summon zombies and skeletons and –’
‘Right now you couldn’t summon a wishbone without melting into a puddle of darkness, di Angelo,’ Will said. ‘I told you, no more Underworldy stuff, doctor’s orders. You owe me at least three days of rest in the infirmary. Starting now.’
Nico felt like a hundred skeletal butterflies were resurrecting in his stomach. ‘Three days? I – I suppose that would be okay.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
“
You can be betrayed in your sleep. The whole world can tilt while you're dreaming of butterflies.
”
”
Alice Hoffman (The Ice Queen)
“
But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1))
“
Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.
”
”
Robert A. Heinlein (The Cat Who Walks Through Walls)
“
My brain is divided into two butterflies, and both are in love with your rose-shaped heart. If you've got the garden, I've got my whole life.
”
”
Jarod Kintz (This Book is Not for Sale)
“
Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.
”
”
Henry David Thoreau
“
Skip meeting him? The butterflies, the pounding heart, the blushing? The part where you enter each other's magnetic fields for the first time, and it's like invisble lines of energy are drawing you together-
”
”
Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1))
“
Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.
”
”
Dot Hutchison (The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1))
“
I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness―in a landscape selected at random―is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern―to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov
“
For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
“
I thought that it was more likely the opposite. I must have shut grief out. Found it in books. Cried over fiction instead of the truth. The truth was unconfined, unadorned. There was no poetic language to it, no yellow butterflies, no epic floods. There wasn't a town trapped underwater or generations of men with the same name destined to make the same mistakes. The truth was vast enough to drown in.
”
”
Nina LaCour (We Are Okay)
“
They never say to you, 'What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?' Instead, they demand 'How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much money does his father make?' Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.
”
”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“
She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.
”
”
Lisa Genova (Still Alice)
“
one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #9))
“
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.
”
”
Benjamin Franklin
“
She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music.
She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school.
In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was...
She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.
”
”
Jerry Spinelli (Stargirl (Stargirl, #1))
“
I tell of hearts and souls and dances...
Butterflies and second chances;
Desperate ones and dreamers bound,
Seeking life from barren ground,
Who suffer on in earthly fate
The bitter pain of agony hate,
Might but they stop and here forgive
Would break the bonds to breathe and live
And find that God in goodness brings
A chance for change, the hope of wings
To rest in Him, and self to die
And so become a butterfly.
”
”
Karen Kingsbury (Oceans Apart)
“
It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then...and then -- ah -- we open our eyes and the day is before us and ... we become ourselves.
”
”
Jerry Spinelli (Stargirl (Stargirl, #1))
“
What is it about her that is so goddamned special?
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #9))
“
Butterfly.
What a beautiful word
What a delicate creature.
Delicate like the cruel words that flow right out of your mouths and the food that flies right out of your hands…
Does it make you feel better?
Does it make you feel good ?
Does picking on a girl make you more of a man?
Well, I’m standing up for myself
Like I should have done before
I’m not putting up with your Butterfly anymore."
(Kiersten slides the sack off her wrist and opens it, pulling out a handful of hand-made butterflies. She takes the microphone out of the stand and begins walking down the stairs as she continues speaking.)
“I’d like to extend to others what others have extended to me.”
(She walks up to Mrs. Brill first and holds out a butterfly)
“Butterfly you, Mrs. Brill.”
(Mrs. Brill smiles at her and takes the butterfly out of her hands. Lake laughs out loud and I have to nudge her to get her to be quiet. Kiersten walks around the room, passing out butterflies to several of the students, including the three from the lunchroom.)
“Butterfly you, Mark.
Butterfly you, Brendan.
Butterfly you, Colby.”
(When she finishes passing out the butterflies, she walks back onto the stage and places the microphone back into the stand.)
“I have one thing to say to you
And I’m not referring to the bullies
Or the ones they pursue.
I’m referring to those of you that just stand by
The ones who don’t take up for those of us that cry
Those of you who just…turn a blind eye.
After all it’s not you it’s happening to
You aren’t the one being bullied
And you aren’t the one being rude
It isn’t your hand that’s throwing the food
But…it is your mouth not speaking up
It is your feet not taking a stand
It is your arm not lending a hand
It is your heart
Not giving a damn.
So take up for yourself
Take up for your friends
I challenge you to be someone
Who doesn’t give in.
Don’t give in.
Don’t let them win.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Point of Retreat (Slammed, #2))
“
I’m sorry, Shepley,” I called after him.
He froze and wheeled around, with the face of a man that had reached his limit. “I wish you and Travis would just get your shit together! You’re a goddamn tornado! When you’re happy, it’s love and peace and butterflies. When you’re pissed, you take the whole fucking world down with you!
”
”
Jamie McGuire (Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1))
“
Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there.
”
”
Bernie Mcgill (The Butterfly Cabinet)
“
It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkable difficult to kill.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders)
“
I settled on the floor and whispered to Sam, “I want you to listen to me, if you can.” I leaned the side of my face against his ruff and remembered the golden wood he had shown me so long ago. I remembered the way the yellow leaves, the color of Sam’s eyes, fluttered and twisted, crashing butterflies, on their way to the ground. The slender white trunks of the birches, creamy and smooth as human skin. I remembered Sam standing in the middle of the wood, his arms stretched out, a dark, solid form in the dream of the trees. His coming to me, me punching his chest, the soft kiss. I remembered every kiss we’d ever had, and I remembered every time I’d curled in his human arms. I remembered the soft warmth of his breath on the back of my neck while we slept.
I remembered Sam.
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1))
“
You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain. We bear their children, who are witches if they are female, human if not; and then in the blink of an eye they are gone, felled, slain, lost. Our sons, too. When a little boy is growing, he thinks he is immortal. His mother knows he isn't. Each time becomes more painful, until finally your heart is broken. Perhaps that is when Yambe-Akka comes for you. She is older than the tundra. Perhaps, for her, witches' lives are as brief as men's are to us.
”
”
Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1))
“
I believe there is something of the divine mystery in everything that exists. We can see it sparkle in a sunflower or a poppy. We sense more of the unfathomable mystery in a butterfly that flutters from a twig--or in a goldfish swimming in a bowl. But we are closest to God in our own soul. Only there can we become one with the greatest mystery of life. In truth, at very rare moments we can experience that we ourselves are that divine mystery.
”
”
Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy)
“
Awakening is not a thing. It is not a goal, not a concept. It is not something to be attained. It is a metamorphosis. If the caterpillar thinks about the butterfly it is to become, saying ‘And then I shall have wings and antennae,’ there will never be a butterfly. The caterpillar must accept its own disappearance in its transformation. When the marvelous butterfly takes wing, nothing of the caterpillar remains.
”
”
Alejandro Jodorowsky
“
I have never been one of those people—I know you aren’t, either—who feels that the love one has for a child is somehow a superior love, one more meaningful, more significant, and grander than any other. I didn’t feel that before Jacob, and I didn’t feel that after. But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not “I love him” but “How is he?” The world, overnight, rearranges itself into an obstacle course of terrors. I would hold him in my arms and wait to cross the street and would think how absurd it was that my child, that any child, could expect to survive this life. It seemed as improbable as the survival of one of those late-spring butterflies—you know, those little white ones—I sometimes saw wobbling through the air, always just millimeters away from smacking itself against a windshield.
”
”
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
“
The love stories sold us the wrong thing. The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick. It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out.
”
”
Abby Jimenez (Just for the Summer)
“
how come you're so ugly?"
"my life has hardly been pretty — the hospitals, the jails, the jobs, the women, the drinking. some of my critics claim that i have deliberately inflicted myself with pain. i wish that some of my critics had been along with me for the journey. it’s true that i haven't always chosen easy situations but that's a hell of a long ways from saying that i leaped into the oven and locked the door. hangover, the electric needle, bad booze, bad women, madness in small rooms, starvation in the land of plenty, god knows how i got so ugly, i guess it just comes from being slugged and slugged again and again, and not going down, still trying to think, to feel, still trying to put the butterfly back together again…it’s written a map on my face that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall.
sometimes i’ll see myself somewhere…suddenly…say in a large mirror in a supermarket…eyes like little mean bugs…face scarred, twisted, yes, i look insane, demented, what a mess…spilled vomit of skin…yet, when i see the “handsome” men i think, my god my god, i’m glad i’m not them
”
”
Charles Bukowski (Charles Bukowski: Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters 1963-1993)
“
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
”
”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“
I don’t know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, ‘Why don’t you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?’ And I always say, well, when you say that, you’ve also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that’s got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate…
”
”
David Attenborough
“
I Like For You To Be Still
I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy
I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid
I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true
”
”
Pablo Neruda
“
Somewhere
someone
thinks they love
someone else
exactly like
I
love you.
Somewhere
someone shakes
from the ripple
of a thousand butterflies
inside a
single stomach.
Somewhere
someone
is packing their
bags
to see the world
with someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is reaching through
the most
terrifying few
feet of space
to hold the
hand
of someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is watching
someone else’s
chest
rise and fall
with the
breath
of slumber.
Somewhere
someone
is pouring
ink like blood
onto pages
fighting
to say the truth
that has
no words.
Somewhere
someone
is waiting
patient
but exhausted
to just
be
with someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is opening
their eyes
to a sunrise
in someplace
they have never
seen.
Somewhere
someone
is pulling out
the petals
twisting the
apple stem
picking up
the heads up penny
rubbing the
rabbits foot
knocking on
wood
throwing
coins into
fountains
hunting for
the only clover
with only 4 leaves
skipping over
the cracks
snapping the
wishbone
crossing their
fingers
blowing out
the candles
sending dandelion
seeds into the
air
ushering eyelashes
off their thumbs
finding the first
star
and waiting for
11:11 on
their clock
to spend their
wishes
on someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is saying
goodbye
but somewhere
someone else
is saying
hello.
Somewhere
someone
is sharing their first
or their last
kiss
with their
or no longer their
someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is wondering
if how they feel
is how the other
they
feels about them
and if both theys
could ever become
a they
together.
Somewhere
someone
is the decoder ring
to all of
the great mysteries
of life
for someone
else.
Somewhere
someone
is the treasure map.
Somewhere
someone
thinks they love
someone else
exactly like
I
love you.
Somewhere
someone
is wrong.
”
”
Tyler Knott Gregson
“
I was told
The average girl begins to plan her wedding at the age of 7
She picks the colors and the cake first
By the age of 10
She knows time,
And location
By 17
She’s already chosen a gown
2 bridesmaids
And a maid of honor
By 23
She’s waiting for a man
Who wont break out in hives when he hears the word “commitment”
Someone who doesn’t smell like a Band-Aid drenched in lonely
Someone who isn’t a temporary solution to the empty side of the bed
Someone
Who’ll hold her hand like it’s the only one they’ve ever seen
To be honest
I don’t know what kind of tux I’ll be wearing
I have no clue what want my wedding will look like
But I imagine
The women who pins my last to hers
Will butterfly down the aisle
Like a 5 foot promise
I imagine
Her smile
Will be so large that you’ll see it on google maps
And know exactly where our wedding is being held
The woman that I plan to marry
Will have champagne in her walk
And I will get drunk on her footsteps
When the pastor asks
If I take this woman to be my wife
I will say yes before he finishes the sentence
I’ll apologize later for being impolite
But I will also explain him
That our first kiss happened 6 years ago
And I’ve been practicing my “Yes”
For past 2, 165 days
When people ask me about my wedding
I never really know what to say
But when they ask me about my future wife
I always tell them
Her eyes are the only Christmas lights that deserve to be seen all year long
I say
She thinks too much
Misses her father
Loves to laugh
And she’s terrible at lying
Because her face never figured out how to do it correctl
I tell them
If my alarm clock sounded like her voice
My snooze button would collect dust
I tell them
If she came in a bottle
I would drink her until my vision is blurry and my friends take away my keys
If she was a book
I would memorize her table of contents
I would read her cover-to-cover
Hoping to find typos
Just so we can both have a few things to work on
Because aren’t we all unfinished?
Don’t we all need a little editing?
Aren’t we all waiting to be proofread by someone?
Aren’t we all praying they will tell us that we make sense
She don’t always make sense
But her imperfections are the things I love about her the most
I don’t know when I will be married
I don’t know where I will be married
But I do know this
Whenever I’m asked about my future wife
I always say
…She’s a lot like you
”
”
Rudy Francisco