Complicated Friendship Quotes

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Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds.
Jamaica Kincaid
That's what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they'll fit right in your pocket.
Kathryn Stockett (The Help)
Villains and plots and enemies are simple things to me. But friendships are complicated, and love is harder still. It has wounded me deeper than a sword ever could.
Jennifer A. Nielsen (The Shadow Throne (Ascendance, #3))
Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they're boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says "Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed"--because he likes you anyways. He'll tolerate your junk
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
Fondness was the best word she could think of to describe what they felt for each other. Fondness was warm but not tepid, the color of amber, more affectionate than friendship but less complicated than love.
Coco Mellors (Cleopatra and Frankenstein)
I knew a man who gave twenty years of his life to a scatterbrained woman, sacrificing everything to her, his friendships, his work, the very respectability of his life and who one evening recognized that he had never loved her. He had been bored, thats all, bored like most people. Hence he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. Something must happen and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen even loveless slavery, even war or death.
Albert Camus
Get over it, Roo. If you have friends who actually like you, you’re popular enough.
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
Every intense relationship between human beings is full of traps, and if you want it to endure you have to learn to avoid them. I did so then, and finally it seemed that I had only come up against yet another proof of how splendid and shadowy our friendship was, how long and complicated Lila’s suffering had been, how it still endured and would endure forever.
Elena Ferrante (The Story of the Lost Child)
One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman.
Robin Hobb (Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3))
As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.
David Eddings (Magician's Gambit (The Belgariad #3))
Sometimes, the most awesome and complicated thing you can do is just stick around
Kate Hattemer (The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy)
Why would you complicate our friendship?" I whispered. "Like it's so simple now?" He countered.
Sarina Bowen (The Year We Fell Down (The Ivy Years, #1))
I wanted her and only her. I wanted to be a part of her storm. I wanted to feel my pulse against hers. I wanted the bitter on her sweet tongue. I wanted the sadness in her sweet syrup eyes. I wanted the silence in her screaming mind and the enigma that is really quite simple- a complicated happiness. I wasn't willing to let go. I was falling completely, forever, into solid fucking love that was swimming through my veins. I wanted to be the breath in her mouth and the rhythm in her chest that would beat only for me.
Shey Stahl (Waiting for You (Waiting for You, #1))
Human interaction. The most complicated form of happiness I will never figure out.
Charlotte Eriksson
Meghan pushed her chocolate cheesecake across the table to me. I hadn’t gotten paid yet for November, so I had only ordered coffee. “Here,” she said. “Don’t you want it?” “Sure I want it. I ordered it. But I’m giving it to you.” “Why?” Meghan stood up and got me a fork. “Remember what Nora said about love? In your movie?” “Love is when you have a really amazing piece of cake, and it’s the very last piece, but you let him have it,” I said. “So it’s really amazing cake,” said Meghan. “And I want you to have it.
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and color to one’s loves and friendships.
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
This isn't fair, he would think in those moments. This isn't friendship. It's something, but it's not friendship. He felt he had been hustled into a game of complicity, one he never intended to play.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
...[F]riendship is a method of castration that doesn't use a sharp object.
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
The word friend is a label anyone can try on. You decide who is best suited to wear it. Choose wisely. The most dangerous among us come dressed as angels and we learn too late they are the devil in disguise.
Carlos Wallace (Life Is Not Complicated-You Are: Turning Your Biggest Disappointments Into Your Greatest Blessings)
I'm not sure I ever want to get married. I'm neither messing around while waiting nor looking for some "real thing." What I want is much more complicated. I want somebody I can talk to about books, who would be my friend, and why couldn't we have sex as well if we wanted to? (And used contraception.) I'm not looking for romance. Lord Peter and Harriet would seem a pretty good model to me.
Jo Walton (Among Others)
Sharing secrets is the way in which women tie themselves together, for it reveals complicity and trust. Holding secrets shows trustworthiness and a sort of quite defiance. It is a natural thing for a female to hold secrets within her breast until the time is ripe to release them. Does it not follow the way in which her body is formed? A woman is made with that dark and mysterious recess that can grow a child safely until the child is ready to come out onto the birthing bed. And like birthing, secrets present themselves in many ways. some slip easily into the world, others must be torn out, if the body is unwilling.
Kathleen Kent (The Heretic's Daughter)
People can be complicated. We can also be ridiculously simple.
Anyta Sunday (Pisces Hooks Taurus (Signs of Love, #4))
But this practice [vegetarianism], in which youthful love of austerity finds charm, calls for attentions more complicated than those of culinary refinement itself; and it separates us too much from the common run of men in a function which is nearly always public, and in which either friendship or formality presides.
Marguerite Yourcenar (Memoirs of Hadrian)
I was rised to be honest, but the truth can be complicated. It doesn't matter if the truth won't make a mess, sometimes the words don't come out until you're alone. Even that's not guaranteed. Sometimes the truth is a secret you're keeping from yourself because living a lie is easier." - Mateo -
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (They Both Die at the End Series, 1))
Friendship is both complicated and not complicated at all.
Fredrik Backman (Beartown (Beartown, #1))
I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give final meaning and color to one's loves and friendships.
Kay Redfield Jamison (An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness)
... male company, sheer complicit male company: the complicity of males which is like, indeed is, a kind of complicity in crime, in chauvinism, in getting away with things, in just gluttonously enjoying the present even if hell is all around.
Iris Murdoch (The Sea, the Sea)
Well, everyone has a friend who holds a very special place in his life. Talking about men…a friend whom you love unconditionally and selflessly.....a friend who knows every secret of your life and who is always the first person whom you want to call when you are in some mess…a friend who tells you exactly what you want to hear. Ena was such a friend to me. My best friend – if that defines the zenith of good friendship. I would rather say, there is no definition of friendship that we shared with each other, the more I explain it, the more complicated it becomes to recite the aspects of our relationship. She was that closer a friend to me, who knew all the nitty-gritties of my life…from every girl who ever came into my life, to passwords of my email accounts or public profiles. Absolutely everything! She was the only girl on earth I trusted blindly and cared for, truly and unconditionally. She was the only girl who could actually make me dance to her beats. We shared that deeper relationship with each other.
Shivam Singh (Best Friends)
Some friends complete us, while others complicate us. Maybe you feel as if there were nothing better in the world than driving in a car, listening to music with friends, looking for an all-night donut shop. Nobody says a thing, and it is perfect. Maybe your lifelong fascination with harmony finally began to make sense in those scenes, packed in your family's station wagon, singing along to "God Only Knows," waiting in the parking lot until the song was over.
Hua Hsu (Stay True)
Noel: A lot of people see friends as something you have on Twitter or Facebook or wherever. If someone wants to read your updates and you want to read their updates, then you’re friends. You don’t ever have to see each other. But that seems like a stupid definition to me. Roo: Yeah. Noel: Although on the other hand, rethink. Maybe a friend is someone who wants your updates. Even if they’re boring. Or sad. Or annoyingly cutesy. A friend says, “Sign me up for your boring crap, yes indeed” – because he likes you anyway. He’ll tolerate your junk. Roo: You have lots of friends. Noel: No, I don’t. Roo: You do. You know everyone at school. You get invited to parties. Noel: I get invited to parties, yeah. And I know people. But I don’t want their updates. Roo: Oh. Noel: And I sincerely doubt they want mine. Roo: I want your updates. Noel: I want your updates. (He looks down, bashfully.) I do. I want all your updates, Ruby.
E. Lockhart (Real Live Boyfriends: Yes. Boyfriends, Plural. If My Life Weren't Complicated, I Wouldn't Be Ruby Oliver (Ruby Oliver, #4))
(In Vastai this is usually part of a petition for the God of the Silent to send one a good husband and a happy marriage. These three, however, were asking for the forest to preserve their friendship so long as they lived, and keep undesirable complications like husbands far from their doors.)
Ann Leckie (The Raven Tower)
A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful, a little less. In either case, a fresh complication is added to the already intricate business of friendship: as Clem had once remarked, you might as well try to dance a tarantella with a Siamese twin.
Jan Struther (Mrs. Miniver)
It is sometimes difficult to motivate yourself every day, and friendships and relationships might not be in the places you want them to be. Sometimes life might not unfold as we had hoped it would, and although life can seem complicated, it can also be good.
Lynette Ferreira (Would You Remember Me?)
Friendships were so damn complicated, so bound with sharp edges that could jab a hole through you at any given point.
J.D. Robb (Promises in Death (In Death, #28))
In the world of today, human desires far supersede human needs. Waste, as you can see, is the result of all of those contradictions. That is how we ended up complicating our world.
Janvier Chouteu-Chando
Friendship between women is complicated. We can be kind to the world, but where other women are concerned, we often show our basest selves. We
Allison Amend (Enchanted Islands)
Teen "addiction" to social media is a new extension of typical human engagement. Their use of social media as their primary site of sociality is most often a byproduct of cultural dynamics that have nothing to do with technology, including parental restrictions and highly scheduled lives. Teens turn to, and are obsessed with whichever environment allows them to connect to friends. most teens aren't addicted to social media; if anything, they're addicted to each other.
Danah Boyd (It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens)
The company you keep determines how others view you. Identify with mediocrity and you will be labeled sub par. Collaborate with questionable people and your reputation becomes suspect. Guilt by association can end a career, hurt your business and cost you friends. Choose alliances wisely or you may be condemned for someone else's sins.
Carlos Wallace (Life Is Not Complicated-You Are: Turning Your Biggest Disappointments Into Your Greatest Blessings)
No muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without consequence, change without aesthetics, age without values, life without effort, water without thirst, food without nourishment, love without sacrifice, power without fairness, facts without rigor, statistics without logic, mathematics without proof, teaching without experience, politeness without warmth, values without embodiment, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, friendship without investment, virtue without risk, probability without ergodicity, wealth without exposure, complication without depth, fluency without content, decision without asymmetry, science without skepticism, religion without tolerance, and, most of all: nothing without skin in the game.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto))
Sure, we’d just made friends like toddlers in the park, but why did adults have to complicate everything? If you click with someone, be their friend. If they prove they’re not worthy of your friendship, bury their body and start again.
Jaymin Eve (Reborn (Shadow Beast Shifter, #3))
Certaines relations harmonieuses se créent et durent grâce à un système complexe de menues contre-vérités, de renoncements, une espèce de ballet complice d'attitudes et de postures qui peut se résumer dans un proverbe jamais assez cité, ou plutôt une sentence, cette désignation lui convenant beaucoup mieux, Toi et moi nous savons, mais tais-toi et je me tairai. (ch. 5)
José Saramago (The History of the Siege of Lisbon)
Their longstanding friendship turned into a deeper complicity in which there was no room for secrets, suspicion, or offense; they started from the principle that they would never hurt each other and that if this happened, it would be unintentional. They protected each other, which made their present hardships and the ghosts of the past bearable.
Isabel Allende (A Long Petal of the Sea)
Siblings, more than parents, more than teachers and friends and lovers and pets, shape the people we are.
Elisa Albert (Freud's Blind Spot: 23 Original Essays on Cherished, Estranged, Lost, Hurtful, Hopeful, Complicated Siblings)
What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey.
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
They know how to win the battle because you tell them the tools they need to defeat you. Guard your heart, hold your tongue.
Carlos Wallace (Life is not Complicated, You Are (College Edition))
An authentic friend understands that friendship is an ever-evolving relationship bound to be complicated, but commonly comprised of mutual respect.
Asa Don Brown
Friendship, much like family, seems to come with too many attachments — like a vacuum cleaner too complicated to use.
C.S. O’Cinneide (Starr Sign: The Candace Starr Series)
...Never opt for war, no matter how simple it may seem, especially when you know that peace is achievable, even if achieving that peace entails going through a complicated and protracted process,
Janvier Chouteu-Chando (The Usurper and Other Stories)
Truth is so simple which is why it so complicated. All because of this innate desire; the desire not to be alone, the desire for companionship, the desire for friendship, the desire to love and be loved.
Wald Wassermann
Friendship, popularly represented as something simple and straightforward—in contrast with love—is perhaps no less complicated, requiring equally mysterious nourishment; like love, too, bearing also within its embryo inherent seeds of dissolution, something more fundamentally destructive, perhaps, than the mere passing of time, the all-obliterating march of events which had, for example, come between Stringham and myself.
Anthony Powell (The Soldier's Art: Book 8 of A Dance to the Music of Time)
You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, "I made it!" You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster... Ambivalence can help tame the beast. Remember, your career is a bad boyfriend. It likes it when you don't depend on it. It will reward you every time you don't act needy. It will chase you if you act like other things (passion, friendship, family, longevity) are more important to you. If your career is a bad boyfriend, it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with somebody else.
Amy Poehler (Yes Please)
Over the months since she had joined them, he had seen her attitude toward him change until they had shared a rather specialized kind of friendship. He liked her; she liked him. Everything had been fine up to that point. Why couldn't she just leave it alone? Garion surmised that it probably had something to do with the inner workings of the female mind. As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.
David Eddings (Magician's Gambit (The Belgariad, #3))
When there’s a history between people, it makes for some serious complications—even in something seemingly as simple as friendship. There is no real starting over. There’s only trying to minimize the importance of things in the past. And some events are just too life altering to trivialize.
Megan Thomason (Arbitrate (Daynight, #2))
Idyllic is how Kundera describes human relationships with animals. Idyllic because animals were not expelled with us from Paradise. There they remain, untroubled by such complications as the separation of body and soul, and it's through our love and friendship with them that we are able to reconnect to Paradise, albeit by just a thread.
Sigrid Nunez (The Friend)
I knew,” he breathed, pressing his forehead to mine, “when I developed a crush on you.” My eyes flashed open. “But we drifted apart,” I whispered. He shook his head. “I was scared of how you’d react, that my feelings would complicate things, ruin our friendship. That is why we didn’t hang out much as we got older. We didn’t drift apart. I pushed you away.
Shaye Evans (Christmas Wishes)
Girls aside, the other thing I found in the last few years of being at school, was a quiet, but strong Christian faith – and this touched me profoundly, setting up a relationship or faith that has followed me ever since. I am so grateful for this. It has provided me with a real anchor to my life and has been the secret strength to so many great adventures since. But it came to me very simply one day at school, aged only sixteen. As a young kid, I had always found that a faith in God was so natural. It was a simple comfort to me: unquestioning and personal. But once I went to school and was forced to sit through somewhere in the region of nine hundred dry, Latin-liturgical, chapel services, listening to stereotypical churchy people droning on, I just thought that I had got the whole faith deal wrong. Maybe God wasn’t intimate and personal but was much more like chapel was … tedious, judgemental, boring and irrelevant. The irony was that if chapel was all of those things, a real faith is the opposite. But somehow, and without much thought, I had thrown the beautiful out with the boring. If church stinks, then faith must do, too. The precious, natural, instinctive faith I had known when I was younger was tossed out with this newly found delusion that because I was growing up, it was time to ‘believe’ like a grown-up. I mean, what does a child know about faith? It took a low point at school, when my godfather, Stephen, died, to shake me into searching a bit harder to re-find this faith I had once known. Life is like that. Sometimes it takes a jolt to make us sit and remember who and what we are really about. Stephen had been my father’s best friend in the world. And he was like a second father to me. He came on all our family holidays, and spent almost every weekend down with us in the Isle of Wight in the summer, sailing with Dad and me. He died very suddenly and without warning, of a heart attack in Johannesburg. I was devastated. I remember sitting up a tree one night at school on my own, and praying the simplest, most heartfelt prayer of my life. ‘Please, God, comfort me.’ Blow me down … He did. My journey ever since has been trying to make sure I don’t let life or vicars or church over-complicate that simple faith I had found. And the more of the Christian faith I discover, the more I realize that, at heart, it is simple. (What a relief it has been in later life to find that there are some great church communities out there, with honest, loving friendships that help me with all of this stuff.) To me, my Christian faith is all about being held, comforted, forgiven, strengthened and loved – yet somehow that message gets lost on most of us, and we tend only to remember the religious nutters or the God of endless school assemblies. This is no one’s fault, it is just life. Our job is to stay open and gentle, so we can hear the knocking on the door of our heart when it comes. The irony is that I never meet anyone who doesn’t want to be loved or held or forgiven. Yet I meet a lot of folk who hate religion. And I so sympathize. But so did Jesus. In fact, He didn’t just sympathize, He went much further. It seems more like this Jesus came to destroy religion and to bring life. This really is the heart of what I found as a young teenager: Christ comes to make us free, to bring us life in all its fullness. He is there to forgive us where we have messed up (and who hasn’t), and to be the backbone in our being. Faith in Christ has been the great empowering presence in my life, helping me walk strong when so often I feel so weak. It is no wonder I felt I had stumbled on something remarkable that night up that tree. I had found a calling for my life.
Bear Grylls (Mud, Sweat and Tears)
Some say ‘a dog’ or ‘a horse’ as if every one of them is like every other. I’ve heard a man call a mare he had owned for seven years ‘it’ as if he were speaking of a chair. I’ve never understood that. One does not have to be Witted to know the companionship of a beast, and to know that the friendship of an animal is every bit as rich and complicated as that of a man or woman.
Robin Hobb (Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3))
My mother's perpetual now, tempting me with possibility. Weren't we silly, she might say? What was the matter with us? Let's be close again. My doomed and complicated longing surged, and I had to hang up. The two of us had no now. Our furious fires had burned everything to the ground. As I'd grown, each time I brought my mother in, called for her, or let her advise my course, I was ruptured.
Susanna Sonnenberg (She Matters: A Life in Friendships)
I noticed regardless if they are surrounded by weeds, they still grow, and they are so colorful because there isn’t anyone to intervene with the process of Mother Nature. They know what to do. It comes naturally. I think everything should happen naturally, but that is impossible because humans are good at interfering with the natural process of life. They fuck it up, and that is why things are so complicated. They think they know what is best, but in reality, they are just in the way. They make things worse than they should be. If human beings just let nature take its course, I believe we would have more happy people in the world ... as opposed to people who suffer by the hands and actions of someone who has fucked up their life. Then they have to figure it out alone—regardless of age.
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
I reached across her folded legs, tugged at the magazine in her tense clutch, like a tug-of-war. I didn't want her to leave. The white glare of the overhead light gleamed across her collarbones. She was beautiful, with all her nerves and all her complicated, circuitous feelings and contradictions and fears. This would be the last time I'd see her in person. "I love you," I said. "I love you, too.
Ottessa Moshfegh (My Year of Rest and Relaxation)
A death in reverse is the rewinding of life. I do not die of old age, in a bed surrounded by strangers my loved ones paid to take care of me. I die in reverse. I die falling back into a younger age. From my forty-five years to twenty-five. To sixteen. When we were in love. To fourteen: when we first met. To five. To one. To the hospital my mother died at from the complications of my existence. A life for a life.
F.K. Preston
Nerys wondered if there was anyone she could really count as a friend. She’d always had best friends at school. A series of complicated affiliations that could change with a swift and crushing blow if one of them wore the wrong outfit or liked the wrong music. A couple of those friendships had lasted into her teens and she cursed herself for messing things up by sleeping with Claire’s boyfriend. And Catherine’s dad. She might have got away with it if they weren’t both at the same time.
Heide Goody (Clovenhoof (Clovenhoof, #1))
strive to become emotion scientists. You could be brilliant, with an IQ that Einstein would envy, but if you’re unable to recognize your emotions and see how they’re affecting your behavior, all that cognitive firepower won’t do you as much good as you might imagine. A gifted child who doesn’t have the permission to feel, along with the vocabulary to express those feelings and the ability to understand them, won’t be able to manage complicated emotions around friendships and academics, limiting his or her potential.
Marc Brackett (Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive)
Someone else’s idea of what constitutes a good life or “happily ever after” is not a one-size-fits-all. You can be someone for whom relationships are too complicated. You can be going through something in your life, processing trauma you may have denied for too long, or you can be going through physical changes in your body. Either way, you might not have the desires other people expect you to have. Maybe all you want right now is a friend. Friendship is the best foundation, anyway, for whatever may evolve beyond that. It boils down to this: Not everyone wants the same thing, and that’s okay.
D.K. Sanz (Grateful to Be Alive: My Road to Recovery from Addiction)
exciting time in the age of computers, when the machines first became personal and later, fashionable accessories. It is also a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. And it is a gadget lover’s dream, with fabulous, inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came into being. But more than anything, Isaacson has crafted a biography of a complicated, peculiar personality—Jobs was charming, loathsome, lovable, obsessive, maddening—and the author shows how Jobs’s character was instrumental in shaping some of the greatest technological innovations of our time.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
You grew up in a world of magical power,” Jason said, turning his gaze from Neil to address the whole team. “Direct, objective, honest power. I come from a political world, where power is nebulous and the wars are as much about ideology as territory. We grow up watching leaders who need to sway the populace in order to hold power, even as the populace can share information in ways that would be as amazing to you as magic was to me.” Jason nodded at Humphrey. “Humphrey’s mother encouraged our friendship because she recognised that I had a more political mind than is normally to be found in Greenstone. I’m sure it’s different in more cosmopolitan cities, but the politics here are amateurish and crude. Dangerous, yes, because power always is, but not especially complicated. She wanted Humphrey to get to know me so that he would see the next guy like me coming.” Jason conjured his dagger into his hand. “This,” he said, “Is the weakest weapon there is. A blade can cut down a person but words can bring down a kingdom. Adultery can end a dynasty, greed can start a war and compassion can end one. People will die for strangers out of faith and kill their neighbours out of fear.” He casually tossed aside the dagger and it vanished. “Everything is a weapon,” he concluded. “The trick is learning to wield them without doing yourself an injury.
Shirtaloon (He Who Fights with Monsters 3 (He Who Fights with Monsters, #3))
Timing is something that none of us can seem to get quite right with relationships. We meet the person of our dreams the month before they leave to go study abroad. We form an incredibly close friendship with an attractive person who is already taken. One relationship ends because our partner isn’t ready to get serious and another ends because they’re getting serious too soon. “It would be perfect,” We moan to our friends, “If only this were five years from now/eight years sooner/some indistinct time in the future where all our problems would take care of themselves.” Timing seems to be the invariable third party in all of our relationships. And yet we never stop to consider why we let timing play such a drastic role in our lives. Timing is a bitch, yes. But it’s only a bitch if we let it be. Here’s a simple truth that I think we all need to face up to: the people we meet at the wrong time are actually just the wrong people. You never meet the right people at the wrong time because the right people are timeless. The right people make you want to throw away the plans you originally had for one and follow them into the hazy, unknown future without a glance backwards. The right people don’t make you hmm and haw about whether or not you want to be with them; you just know. You know that any adventure you had originally planned out for your future isn’t going to be half as incredible as the adventures you could have by their side. That no matter what you thought you wanted before, this is better. Everything is better since they came along. When you are with the right person, time falls away. You don’t worry about fitting them into your complicated schedule, because they become a part of that schedule. They become the backbone of it. Your happiness becomes your priority and so long as they are contributing to it, you can work around the rest. The right people don’t stand in the way of the things you once wanted and make you choose them over them. The right people encourage you: To try harder, dream bigger, do better. They bring out the most incredible parts of yourself and make you want to fight harder than ever before. The right people don’t impose limits on your time or your dreams or your abilities. They want to tackle those mountains with you, and they don’t care how much time it takes. With the right person, you have all of the time in the world. The truth is, when we pass someone up because the timing is wrong, what we are really saying is that we don’t care to spend our time on that person. There will never be a magical time when everything falls into place and fixes all our broken relationships. But there may someday be a person who makes the issue of timing irrelevant. Because when someone is right for us, we make the time to let them into our lives. And that kind of timing is always right.
Heidi Priebe (This Is Me Letting You Go)
Isaacson’s biography can be read in several ways. It is on the one hand a history of the most exciting time in the age of computers, when the machines first became personal and later, fashionable accessories. It is also a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. And it is a gadget lover’s dream, with fabulous, inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came into being. But more than anything, Isaacson has crafted a biography of a complicated, peculiar personality—Jobs was charming, loathsome, lovable, obsessive, maddening—and the author shows how Jobs’s character was instrumental in shaping some of the greatest technological innovations
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
Isaacson’s biography can be read in several ways. It is on the one hand a history of the most exciting time in the age of computers, when the machines first became personal and later, fashionable accessories. It is also a textbook study of the rise and fall and rise of Apple and the brutal clashes that destroyed friendships and careers. And it is a gadget lover’s dream, with fabulous, inside accounts of how the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad came into being. But more than anything, Isaacson has crafted a biography of a complicated, peculiar personality—Jobs was charming, loathsome, lovable, obsessive, maddening—and the author shows how Jobs’s character was instrumental in shaping some of the greatest technological innovations of our time.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
Between the sisters' joined hands, the pressure of their pulses mingled in steady throbs. Daisy was not certain if she was giving comfort to her sister or receiving it. Lillian's time was here, and Daisy was afraid for her, of the pain and possible complications, and the fact that life would never be the same afterward. She glanced at Evie, who flashed her a smile, and Annabelle, whose face was reassuringly calm. They would help each other through all the challenges and joys and fears of their lives, Daisy thought, and she was suddenly overwhelmed with love for all of them. "I will never live away from you," she said. "I want the four of us to be together always. I could never bear to lose any of you." She felt Annabelle's slippered toe nudge her leg affectionately. "Daisy... you can never lose a true friend.
Lisa Kleypas (Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4))
Most hate is more common and more complicated, with as many varieties as there are varieties of love. Just as there is possessive love and needy love; family love and friendship; romantic love and unrequited love; passion and respect, affection and obsession, so hatred has its shadings. There is hate that fears, and hate that merely feels contempt; there is hate that expresses power, and hate that comes from powerlessness; there is revenge, and there is hate that comes from envy. There is hate that was love, and hate that is a curious expression of love. There is hate of the other, and hate of something that reminds us too much of ourselves. There is the oppressor's hate, and the victim's hate. There is hate that burns slowly, and hate that fades. And there is hate that explodes, and hate that never catches fire.
Andrew Sullivan
He brushed past us, and did not interrupt what he was saying to her, but gave us, out of the corner of his blue eye, a little sign, which began and ended, so to speak, inside his eyelids, and as it did not involve the least movement of his facial muscles, managed to pass quite unperceived by the lady; but, striving to compensate by the intensity of his feelings for the somewhat restricted field in which they had to find expression, he made that blue chink, which was set apart for us, sparkle with all the animation of cordiality, which went far beyond mere playfulness, and almost touched the border-line of roguery; he subtilised the refinements of good-fellowship into a wink of connivance, a hint, a hidden meaning, a secret understanding, all the mysteries of complicity in a plot, and finally exalted his assurances of friendship to the level of protestations of affection, even of a declaration of love, lighting up for us, and for us alone, with a secret and languid flame invisible by the great lady upon his other side, an enamoured pupil in a countenance of ice.
Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time)
Why do people go to church on Sundays? A question that is very complicated because I know what the answer is supposed to be but I do not really know the answer. . I think people go because it is a kind of tradition . I think some goes because someone told them if tgey do not they might go to hell . Maybe some go to look for a wife or husband ☺ . Maybe some go to church to display their latest designer shoes or handbags . Some goes just to please their Pastor . Some people go to church because they love the music or the preaching . Some goes because of some social reasons and friendship . Some have it in their mind that they will experience the presence of God in the church . Some goes to church because of miracle . Some goes to church when they are expecting something maybe child, comfort, marriage, work etc. . Some felt it is an obligation to give God a day out of the seven days he created Let me tell you that church is not there to entertain you, Ephesians 3:20... there are things going on in the church that some people barely know about. Ask yourself today why do I go to church. I am sure a sincere answer will help you.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
On reading a translated copy of the covenant, Philip V was horrified. The Muslim ruler of Jerusalem, through his emissary, the viceroy of Islamic Granada, was extending to the Jewish people the hand of eternal peace and friendship. The gesture was occasioned by the recent discovery of the lost ark of the Old Testament and the stone tablets upon which God had etched the Law with His finger. Both were found in perfect condition in a ditch in the Sinai Desert and had awoken in the Muslims, who discovered them, a desire to be circumcised, convert to Judaism, and return the Holy Land to the Jews. However, since this would leave millions of Palestinian Muslims homeless, the King of Jerusalem wanted the Jews to give him France in return. The guilty homeowner Bananias told French authorities that after the Muslim offer, the Jews of France concocted the well-poisoning plot and hired the lepers to carry it out. After reading the translation and several corroborating documents, including a highly incriminating letter from the Muslim King of Tunisia, Philip ordered all Jews in France arrested for “complicity . . . to bring about the death of the people and the subjects of the kingdom.” Two years later, any Jewish survivors of the royal terror were exiled from the country.   The
John Kelly (The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time)
with “This is a class assignment,” and (2) they had to engage the interactions with a straight face. They couldn’t give away the punchline. The exchanges went something like this: Students (walking in a group toward a stranger in a mall): “Excuse me, sir!” Stranger (looking around and awkwardly shifting bags of clothes): “Uhh, yeah? Me?” Students: “Yes! You. I was walking by, saw you, and wondered: Will you be my friend? Can I see pictures of your family? What are your political preferences? Can I see the pictures of your tattoos? What are your religious preferences? Why? Are you pro-choice? How come? Who are your favorite musicians? We’re going to read you a list of probing, introspective quotes, and you simply give us a thumbs up or a thumbs down if you like them or don’t like them. If you feel angry about a quote, tell us why.” And so on. My students had to video each interaction. And yes, it was as awkward and cringey as you can imagine. According to the papers they had to write after the fact, the assignment stirred up quite a bit of reflection. In a few short years, my students had come to believe they had “friends” because they knew some information about people. They thought they were connecting with those people. The exercise helped them see that our social media exchanges are anything but normal. The thumbs ups and thumbs downs are anything but connecting. The reality is that most of us don’t have any friends. Until recently, friendship was about enduring the awkwardness and ugliness of human
John Delony (Own Your Past Change Your Future: A Not-So-Complicated Approach to Relationships, Mental Health & Wellness)
Cultivate Spiritual Allies One of the most significant things you learn from the life of Paul is that the self-made man is incomplete. Paul believed that mature manhood was forged in the body of Christ In his letters, Paul talks often about the people he was serving and being served by in the body of Christ. As you live in the body of Christ, you should be intentional about cultivating at least three key relationships based on Paul’s example: 1. Paul: You need a mentor, a coach, or shepherd who is further along in their walk with Christ. You need the accountability and counsel of more mature men. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. Typically there’s more demand than supply for mentors. Some churches try to meet this need with complicated mentoring matchmaker type programs. Typically, you can find a mentor more naturally than that. Think of who is already in your life. Is there an elder, a pastor, a professor, a businessman, or other person that you already respect? Seek that man out; let him know that you respect the way he lives his life and ask if you can take him out for coffee or lunch to ask him some questions — and then see where it goes from there. Don’t be surprised if that one person isn’t able to mentor you in everything. While he may be a great spiritual mentor, you may need other mentors in the areas of marriage, fathering, money, and so on. 2. Timothy: You need to be a Paul to another man (or men). God calls us to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). The books of 1st and 2nd Timothy demonstrate some of the investment that Paul made in Timothy as a younger brother (and rising leader) in the faith. It’s your job to reproduce in others the things you learn from the Paul(s) in your life. This kind of relationship should also be organic. You don’t need to approach strangers to offer your mentoring services. As you lead and serve in your spheres of influence, you’ll attract other men who want your input. Don’t be surprised if they don’t quite know what to ask of you. One practical way to engage with someone who asks for your input is to suggest that they come up with three questions that you can answer over coffee or lunch and then see where it goes from there. 3. Barnabas: You need a go-to friend who is a peer. One of Paul’s most faithful ministry companions was named Barnabas. Acts 4:36 tells us that Barnabas’s name means “son of encouragement.” Have you found an encouraging companion in your walk with Christ? Don’t take that friendship for granted. Enjoy the blessing of friendship, of someone to walk through life with. Make it a priority to build each other up in the faith. Be a source of sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17) and friendly wounds (Proverbs 27:6) for each other. But also look for ways to work together to be disruptive — in the good sense of that word. Challenge each other in breaking the patterns of the world around you in order to interrupt it with the Gospel. Consider all the risky situations Paul and Barnabas got themselves into and ask each other, “what are we doing that’s risky for the Gospel?
Randy Stinson (A Guide To Biblical Manhood)
Dear, What’s the Point of it All? What is the point of being nice? When you do not know what you are going to get from it? Knowing eventually sooner rather than later someone and maybe that person you are being nice to will turn their back on you. I always have to stay grounded and focused. When I am there for people, I feel like I am always punished for it. I am always treated as if I committed a crime. I was there for my mom; however, she was killing me slowly but surely. Like my mom, I noticed that when people get themselves in some shit, they get stuck in their own mess. They are confident that they do not have to deal with the consequences—because they know the ‘kind’ person will bail them out. What’s the point of being kind? Like my mom and the officer, there are so many people in the world who are judgmental and tainted because of their selfish needs. What’s the point of my life? Here I am in a library filled with many books. I can read them and go anywhere I want to in my mind, but after I close the book, I will have to snap out of my fantasy world and welcome the cruel cold world, which is reality. If I was a book, I would be better off left on the shelf. There is no excitement in my life—only struggles. What’s the point of living and loving life when the only thing I do is read between the lines and tread carefully? Come to think about it, I am a book that nobody can understand or read. They think they know what is best for me, but if they only take the time to listen, I would be so happy to tell them about me and my needs and wants. My actions scream for attention, but time after time, I am ignored. Sadly, without a care, they were quick to rip out the pages. Yet, once again, nobody noticed me. What’s the point of it all when I never had an opportunity to make a mistake? If I did one thing wrong, they would give up on me and send me to one home after another. I’ve always been fully exposed and had to walk in a line filled with sharp curves from disappointment to disappointment. Sorrow is my aura, and sadness hugs me tightly. It is hard to cry when my eyes are closed shut by the barbed wire fence of my eyelashes as they prohibit tears from falling. What’s the point of complicating my life? I am always back to where I started, and then ... I relive the same patterns, but on a more difficult journey. I believe when you put yourself in your own mess that you should clean it up and start over. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. However, when someone else puts you in their mess, you do not know how to clean up the mess they’ve made. You do not know how to start over because you do not know where to begin. I look at it this way; it is like telling a dead person he/she can start over. How so, when that person’s life no longer exists? I know my life isn’t over. However, I am lost in a maze my mom set up for herself—and she too is lost in her own maze. When a person gets lost in their own maze, they are really fucked up. However, this maze shouldn’t be left for me to figure out. Unfortunately, I am in it, and I have to find my way out one way or another. What’s the point of taking Kace from me? He was safe and in good hands. Now he is worse off with people who are abusing him. He didn’t ask for this—I didn’t either. He deserves so much better. Again, what is the point of it all? What’s the point of making me suffer? Do you get a kick out of it? What are you trying to accomplish? I am trying to understand; what is the point of it all? What is the point? I don’t know why I am here.
Charlena E. Jackson (Pinwheels and Dandelions)
And even if we were able to avoid the complications that came with a sexed-up rock star, his schedule was insane enough to leave no time for friendships with the nerdy little girl from Philly that didn’t put out.
L.D. Davis (Friction)
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” – Bruce Lee
Portia A. Cosby (It's Complicated)
Wherever problem persist, wisdom is lacking. There is no problem anywhere except wisdom problem. Wisdom provides solutions where there is complications.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
You're not simple. You're complicated. You're difficult, challenging, beautiful, and you exhaust me. I love you, I do. You're my best friend, but I can't be with you. Not like that. Are you happy now?
Jessica Calla (She Laughs In Pink (Sheridan Hall #1))
Often female friendships were ruined by jealousy, competitiveness, fragmented loyalities and destructive tendencies. Male friendships would often be complicated by sexual agenda's, unreciprocated emotions and sexual tensions.
Jill Thrussell (The Rich List)
John teaches us that the strongest relationship with Christ may not necessarily be a complicated one. He teaches us that the greatest webs of loyalty are spun, not with airtight theologies or foolproof philosophies, but with friendships: stubborn, selfless, joyful friendships.
Max Lucado
Once I had been introduced to depression, I realized if I wanted to help my friend and preserve our friendship, I needed to understand what the illness was all about.
Carlos Wallace (Life Is Not Complicated-You Are: Turning Your Biggest Disappointments Into Your Greatest Blessings)
You could be brilliant, with an IQ that Einstein would envy, but if you’re unable to recognize your emotions and see how they’re affecting your behavior, all that cognitive firepower won’t do you as much good as you might imagine. A gifted child who doesn’t have the permission to feel, along with the vocabulary to express those feelings and the ability to understand them, won’t be able to manage complicated emotions around friendships and academics, limiting his or her potential.
Marc Brackett (Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive)
As soon as a friendship passed a certain point—some obscure and secret boundary—a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.
David Eddings (Magician's Gambit (The Belgariad, #3))
To understand this, you need frist to Know some words which are formed from Arabic to English by me : 1- farcashize (V) : يُفركش 2- farcashization (N) : الفركشة 3- farcashized/farcashizational (Adj) : مُفركش 4- farcashizationally (Adv) : مُفركشآ The logic of the dating does not express the relationship, it is the relationship, otherwise the time that I spend with special someone is a neutral phenomenon and the observation of the neutral phenomenon in the term of the relationships changes its nature. Like every single Sudanese man, I know that I would like to be a one-man multinational fashion phenomenon but to be described as farcashizational man by some students is something I don't expect it at all. The phenomenon of farcashization becomes a part of Sudanese girl's speech, unfortunately it is like gossiping, I was chicken-hearted when my closed friend told me that many female students at EDC said that we were in love together and then you were farcashized by me. At that time we were laughing but deeply inside myself, an idea was rambling which was "maybe I am one of their desires" because when one has achieved the object of one's desires, it is evident that one's real desire was not the ignorant possession of the desired object but to know it as possessed as actually contemplated as within one, so maybe I was farcashizationally farcashized by my friend in thier mind as a wish that the same thing to be done with me by them and that leads to say "girls are dangerous creatures especially when they are your students". When there is both love and friendship, we dwell in the realm of the relationship and when there is neither love nor friendship, we exist in a vacuity of relationships, we can feel and we can express feelings but the more we feel, the further off we are, so what is not yet felt can't be shown and what is already desired can't be hidden so farcashization and desire are not distant, it's their principle that can't be seen. It would be a very naive sort of dogmatism to assume that every beautiful girl is an impossible creature to be got or to accept the man as he is and she is always going to embarrass and farcashize him, as if she is an indocile black wild cat, the beautiful girl is not a unique and homogeneous but she is immensely diversified, having as many different schemes and patterns as there are different ways of beauty, so the phenomenons which we find in our certain relationships such as farcashization are not transferable with all people but the attitude of the relationship, therefore the dating of two people is like the contact of two chemical substances, if there is any reaction between them depending on that attitude, both are transformed. Finally there is no relationship between any two partners looks like what we really see, yours doesn't, mine doesn't and people are much more complicated than what we imagine, then their relationships are more perplexing too, so you can't judge any relationship according the actions of the relationship's partners, it is true of every relation.
Omer Mohamed
Every relationship will be complicated until you'll give value to each relationship accordingly. Every relationship has its respect, value, and self-worth. A relationship demands honesty. Whether in family or friendship or marriage, we have to show our true hearts to have a real connection to every relationship.
Muhammad Saad Uddin
as I start to write about my relationship with Anthony, I’ve had to pause and walk away from my desk. The pen weighs about twenty pounds and my brain thuds to a sluggish halt. Our friendship is complicated and many layered. I must write honestly about how it has affected my life or else why write at all? I’m scared to poison things between us, or scare the magic out of it by trying to understand it, but so be it.
Flea (Acid for the Children: A Memoir)
I’ve been thinking about it. All these years, I’ve spent wallowing in self-pity and despair after my dad died. Yet, I have nothing to show for it. “I hated myself more and more with each day. I never did anything productive or constructive with my time. I let it all waste away. My dad didn’t want me to become a dreamer. But I don’t think he would’ve wanted me to waste all those years doing nothing either. “I know it seems very complicated when it comes to our relationship but I do feel that on some level, he did love me. And when he died, I became so lost. He’s told me what to do for so long that I didn’t know how to live without him ordering me around all the time. I felt like a caged animal that was finally free but too afraid to step outside. “But I have someone that most people don’t. I have you, Charlie. Every day, for years, you’d come to check on me. Rain or shine. And even though I didn’t let you in, I was rude, or I was mean to you, you came every day…because you made me a promise.” Bernie started sobbing. “I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like you, Charlie. You are the best person I know. Because of you, I can rise and get out of bed to face another day. You saved my life.
N.A. Leigh (Mr. Hinkle's Verum Ink: the navy blue book (Mr. Hinkle's Verium Ink 1))
If you are maintaining friendships that breed competition, negativity, or jealousy, you’ve got to let them go. I know it’s complicated, and I know it hurts, but allowing people into your life who do not make you better is a recipe for disaster. If you feel guilty over cutting someone loose, think about this: do they feel guilty about treating you poorly?
Cara Alwill Leyba (Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity, and Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur)
I think that’s a good woman there,” Dan said of Mel. “That man of hers, now, there’s a piece of work.” “Jack?” Cheryl asked. She laughed. “Oh, I had a bad thing for Jack, back when I was drinking. Bad. I’d have followed him anywhere!” Dan picked up her hand and held it. “You over that now?” She got a strange look on her face. “Listen, I can’t handle anything more complicated than friendship….” He gave the hand a squeeze and smiled. “Try not to get ahead of me, Cheryl. I don’t have anything complicated in mind. This is all I’m looking for—Sunday picnics with a nice woman, maybe a little handholding sometimes. Maybe we’ll get closer down the line, maybe we’ll just be friends who have a sandwich and tea. This is okay, don’t you think?” “I guess,” she said doubtfully. “It’s just that I haven’t had a regular, normal, healthy relationship that I can remember.” “Me neither,” he said. “It’s kind of scary wonderful, isn’t it?” Dan
Robyn Carr (Paradise Valley)
Another uplifting development was Amy’s recovery from her ordeal. Loretta could scarcely believe how quickly the child was regaining her former gaiety, and she soon realized Swift Antelope was the cause. The young warrior clearly adored Amy and spent hours roaming the river with her, forging a friendship that set Amy’s cheeks aglow. Hunter, quite the opposite of Loretta, found this same period of time a trial. While Swift Antelope made steady progress with Amy, he couldn’t see himself making any headway with Loretta. She still went to great lengths to avoid sleeping beside him, choosing instead to share Amy’s far less comfortable pallet. To complicate matters further there was Bright Star’s campaign to make Hunter take notice of her. It seemed to Hunter that every time he turned around, Bright Star hovered nearby, fluttering her lashes and blushing, making such an obvious play for Hunter’s affections that he knew it couldn’t escape his wife’s notice for long. Hunter didn’t want to shame Bright Star by scorning her. At the same time, he didn’t want Loretta to believe he was encouraging the girl. He already had enough problems. While he mulled the situation over, trying to think of a kind way to discourage Bright Star, the young maiden intensified her campaign, and, as Hunter had feared, Loretta at last realized what was going on. When she did, Hunter took the brunt. “Who is that girl?” Loretta demanded one evening. “What girl?” Hunter felt heat rising up his neck and avoided meeting his wife’s flashing blue gaze. “That girl, the one who seems to have something in her eye.” Hunter obliged Loretta by giving Bright Star a bored glance. “She is sister to my woman who is dead.” He bent back over the arrowhead he was sharpening. “She is called Bright Star.” “She doesn’t look very bright. Is that a tic, or does she always blink that way?” Hunter smothered a snort of laughter. “She makes eyes, yes?” “At you?” He straightened and lifted a dark brow. “You think she makes eyes for you?
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
It was as if he had been assigned to take apart a fiendishly complicated alarm clock to see why it wasn’t working, only to discover that an important part of the clock was inside his own mind.
Michael Lewis (The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds)
Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress—the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving. Sometimes those problems are simple: eating good food, traveling to some new place, winning at the new video game you just bought. Other times those problems are abstract and complicated: fixing your relationship with your mother, finding a career you can feel good about, developing better friendships. Whatever your problems are, the concept is the same: solve problems; be happy.
Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life)
I felt a shifting in my brain, pieces of the past rearranging. All this time I’d been thinking in absolutes, like it was an either/or proposition: friends versus not friends, and if it ended badly, the whole thing must have been a lie. But maybe it was more complicated. There could be different types of friendship, and different stages within each one. Deep bonds of loyalty and affection, or ties that have more to do with convenience. Relationships that hold you back, and ones that grow with you.
Amanda Sellet (By the Book)
He was convinced that if the attack on Omando had caused such interest in the world it was not so much because of the victim’s importance, but because fear, resentment and repeated disillusion in the age of slavery and radiation death had in the end branded the hearts of millions of human beings with an edge of misanthropy, which made them follow with sympathy, and perhaps some feeling of personal re- venge, the story of '‘the man who had changed species.” He turned toward Laurent with sympathy. It was difficult not to like that generous, slightly sing-song voice, not to like that black giant who spoke so frankly about himself when he thought he was speaking only of the African fauna. inclined to a gentle skepticism which usually sufficed to protect him both against excessive illusions about human nature and against excessive doubt of it a sort of Saint Francis of Assisi, only more energetic, more dashing, more muscular he had the greatest respect for humor, because it was one of the best weapons ever forged by man for the struggle against himself. devoured by some ravenous dream of hygiene and universal health who desperately pursue a certain ideal of human decency, call it tolerance, justice or liberty The idea, too, that people who have suffered too much aren’t any longer capable of ... of complicity with you, for that’s what it amounts to. That they aren’t any longer capable of playing ball with us. The idea that they’ve somehow been spoiled once for all. It was partly on account of this idea that the German theorists of racialism preached the extermination of the Jews; they had been made to suffer too much, and therefore they could not be anything after that but enemies of the human race. A man can’t spend his life in Africa without acquiring something pretty close to a great affection for the elephants. Those great herds are, after all, the last symbol of liberty left among us. It s something that’s fast disappearing, from more points of view than one. Every time you come upon them in the open, moving their trunks and their great ears, an irresistible smile rises to your lips. I defy anyone to look upon elephants without a sense of wonder. Their very enormity, their, clumsiness, their giant stature, represent a mass of liberty that sets you dreaming. They’re . . . yes, they’re the last individuals. a trace of superiority, of condescension toward me, as though to point out to me that this was obviously something I could not understand, a private and secret world which I was not permitted to enter. Yes, there are some among us who are fighting for the independence of Africa. But why? To protect the elephants. To take the protection of African fauna into their own hands. Perhaps for them elephants are only an image of their own liberty. That suits me: liberty always suits me. Personally, I have no patience with nationalism: the new or the old, the white or the black, the red or the yellow. They aim between the eyes, just because it’s big, free and beautiful. That’s what they call a fine shot. A trophy. people have been seized by such a need for friendship and company that the dogs can’t manage it. We’ve been asking too much of them. The job has broken them down— they’ve had it. Just think how long they’ve been doing their damnedest for us, wagging their tails and holding out their paws— they’ve had enough . . .’ It’s natural: they’ve seen too much. And the people feel lonely and deserted, and they need something bigger that can really take the strain. Dogs aren’t enough any more; men need elephants. ‘Look here, my friend, for three years I was a bus conductor in Paris. I recommend it during rush hours; it gave me what you might call a knowledge of human nature— a good, solid knowledge which prompted me to change sides and go over to the elephants. there was around him an air of authenticity impossible to disregard: the authenticity of sheer physical nobility
Romain Gary
No muscles without strength, friendship without trust, opinion without consequence, change without aesthetics, age without values, life without effort, water without thirst, food without nourishment, love without sacrifice, power without fairness, facts without rigor, statistics without logic, mathematics without proof, teaching without experience, politeness without warmth, values without embodiment, degrees without erudition, militarism without fortitude, progress without civilization, friendship without investment, virtue without risk, probability without ergodicity, wealth without exposure, complication without depth, fluency without content, decision without asymmetry, science without skepticism, religion without tolerance,
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life (Incerto))
Part 2 - Now the problem is India is with multiple cultures, context specific reasons and languages - so protecting value of India means protecting each and every cultural values in India, but when these people turn arrogant their values getting down, that is the problem, you have to withstand the pain to show you are capable, if you are capable then the culture you belong is also capable - this is applicable for anyone, and once your character and your cultural identities are analyzed you will be easily estimated to be fit for something. But in my case, it is totally complicated, First I am Ganapathy K (Son of Krishnamoorthy not Shiv), that born on 14- April 1992 (Approximate Birth day of Lord Rama and Tamil New year and Dr Ambedkar birthday), My family name is Somavarapu (Which means clans of Chandra - Or Monday - Or cold place) My family origin is from Tenali - Guntur, but permanently settled in TN, born in agricultural family (Kamma Naidu (General caste in AP and Telangana) but Identified as Vadugan Naidu (OBC) for reservation benefits as OBC Non Creamy - as made by my ancestors - I did not make this. And Manu smiriti varna system did not take place in south India much like UP or Rajasthan even in ancient times. Even in ancient times, north rulers did not rule south india at all, rather they made friendship sometimes or they made leaders for south people by selecting best fit model. So whomever are said to be kshatriyas in South are Pseudo Kshatriyas or deemed Kshatriyas which means there are no real Kshatriyas in South India - and it was not required much in south. tribal people and indigenous people in south were very strong in ancient time, that they prayed and worshiped only forest based idolizers. they do not even know these Hindustani or Sanskrit things, and Tamil was started from Sangam literature (As per records - And when sangam literature was happening - Lord shiva and Lord Karthikeya was present on the hall - As mentioned on Tholkappiam ) - So ethically Tamil also becomes somehow language of God, Krishnadevraya once said Telugu was given by Lord shiva. And Kannada is kind of poetic language which is mixture of Dravidian style languages with some sanskrit touch and has remarkable historical significance from Ramayana period. My caste (Kamma) as doing agriculture work was regarded as upper sudra by British people but since they knew sanskrit, they were taking warrior roles ( Rudramadevi, munsuri naidu clan, pemmasani clan, kandi nayaka (Srilanka clan ) As Kamma also has interactions with Kapu, Balija, Velama, Telaga and Reddy clans - they were considered as land lords/Zamindari system - later in some places given chowdary and Rao title too. And my intellactual property in Bio sciences and my great granpa wrtings, my family knowledge which includes (Vattelzhuthu - Tamil + Malayalam mixture) sanskrit notes about medicinal plants in western ghats which my great grandpa wrote, my previous incarnation in Rajput family and European family.
Ganapathy K Siddharth Vijayaraghavan
false accusations of harm are used to avoid acknowledgment of complicity in creating conflict and instead escalate normative conflict to the level of crisis. This choice to punish rather than resolve is a product of distorted thinking, and relies on reinforcement of negative group relationships, when instead these ideologies should be actively challenged. Through this overstatement of harm, false accusations are used to justify cruelty, while shunning keeps information from entering into the process. Resistance to shunning, exclusion, and unilateral control, while necessary, are mischaracterized as harm and used to re-justify more escalation towards bullying, state intervention, and violence. Emphasizing communication and repair, instead of shunning and separation, is the key to transforming these paradigms. PART ONE | The Conflicted Self and the Abusive State Chapter One lays out the fundamental differences between Conflict and Abuse in the realm of the heart, the intimate: the flirt, relationships, households, and surrounding friendship circles.
Sarah Schulman (Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair)