β
Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke
β
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
β
β
George Washington
β
Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
People do not seem to realise that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
β
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.
β
β
James Baldwin
β
I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.
β
β
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
β
Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (A Confession)
β
Ten Things You Shouldn't Say on a Date.
1. You're wearing that?
2. Something smells funny.
3. Where's the Tylenol?
4. And to think, I first wanted to date your brother.
5. I have a confession to makeβ¦
6. My dad has a suit just like that.
7. That man is hot. Look at him.
8. My ex, may he rot in hell foreverβ¦
9. You're going to order that? Seriously?
10. You're how old?
β
β
Gena Showalter (Animal Instincts)
β
Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter; only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you-that would be the real betrayal.
β
β
George Orwell (1984)
β
I love new clothes. If everyone could just wear new clothes everyday, I reckon depression wouldnβt exist anymore.
β
β
Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1))
β
You made me confess the fears that I have. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too.
β
β
James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)
β
I'm not good with children," the god confessed. "Or people. Well, any organic life forms, really.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
β
She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
β
β
Jane Austen (Persuasion)
β
To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo
β
There are people you meet that you get to know, and then there are people you meet that you already know.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
β
β
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
β
If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.
β
β
Fernando Pessoa (The Book of Disquiet)
β
In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
Yelena, you've driven me crazy. You've caused me considerable trouble and I've contemplated ending your life twice since I've known you." Valek's warm breath in my ear sent a shiver down my spine.
"But youβve slipped under my skin, invaded my blood and seized my heart.β
βThat sounds more like a poison than a person,β was all I could say. His confession had both shocked and thrilled me.
βExactly,β Valek replied. βYou have poisoned me.
β
β
Maria V. Snyder (Poison Study (Study, #1))
β
Life would be a lot easier if conversations were rewindable and erasable, like videos. Or if you could instruct people to disregard what you just said, like in a courtroom.
β
β
Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1))
β
But I have to confess, I'm glad you two had at least a few months of happiness together."
I'm not glad," says Peeta. "I wish we had waited until the whole thing was done officially."
This takes even Caesar aback. "Surely even a brief time is better than no time?"
Maybe I'd think that, too, Caesar," says Peeta bitterly, "If it weren't for the baby.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
β
There is a difference between admitting and confessing. Admitting involves softening, making excuses for things that cannot be excused; confessing just names the crimes at its full severity.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
β
I cut off his fingers to get him to talk, and when he'd confessed everything I wanted to hear, I had his fucking tongue cut out, and the stump cauterized."
Everyone in the room stared at him.
"I called him an asshole, too," said Locke. "He didn't like that.
β
β
Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1))
β
I'm scared I'll never feel this again with anyone else," I whisper.
He squeezes my hands. "I'm scared you will.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
And there I am, blushing and confused, made beautiful by Cinnaβs hands, desirable by Peetaβs confession, tragic by circumstance, and by all accounts, unforgettable.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
β
Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face.
β
β
Augusten Burroughs
β
Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."
"She's drunk," Joe Bell informed me.
"Moderately," Holly confessed....Holly lifted her martini. "Let's wish the Doc luck, too," she said, touching her glass against mine. "Good luck: and believe me, dearest Doc -- it's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear.
β
β
Truman Capote (Breakfast at Tiffanyβs and Three Stories)
β
I love you so much.β His voice is breathless and full of fear. βIβll love you forever. Even when I canβt.β My tears fall harder at his words. βAnd Iβll love you forever. Even when I shouldn't.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat......Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established.........Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation.........Forgiveness does not excuse anything.........You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness......
β
β
William Paul Young (The Shack)
β
Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.
β
β
Ambrose Bierce (The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary)
β
Catholics don't believe in divorce. We do believe in murder. There's always Confession, after all.
--Brianna Fraser to Roger MacKenzie
β
β
Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7))
β
But the second she opened her eyes and looked at me, I knew. She was either going to be the death of me . . . or she was going to be the one who finally brought me back to life.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Ugly Love)
β
Some secrets should never turn into confessions. I know that better than anyone.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
True confessions are written with tears only. But my tears would drown the world, as my inner fire would reduce it to ashes.
β
β
Emil M. Cioran (On the Heights of Despair)
β
And I didn't choose it, Kat. I chose you.
β
β
Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
β
Him: Confession: I deleted all the 1 Direction from your iPod when u were in the can.
Youβre welcome.
Me: WHAT?? Iβm going to kiss u!
Him: With tongue?
It takes me a second to realize what happened, at which point Iβm completely mortified.
Me: Kill u! I meant KILL. u. Damn autocorrect.
Him: Surrrrrre. Letβs blame it on autocorrect.
Me: Shut it.
Him: I think someone wants to kiss meβ¦
β
β
Elle Kennedy (The Deal (Off-Campus, #1))
β
Every person needs to take one day away.Β A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.Β Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.Β Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.Β Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.
β
β
Maya Angelou (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now)
β
I'm afraid if I listen to my heart once, I'll never figure out how to ignore it again.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.
β
β
Fulton J. Sheen
β
She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness...
β
β
Ayn Rand (The Fountainhead)
β
Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.
β
β
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
β
Itβs amazing how much distance one truth can create between two people.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
Iβll love you forever. Even when I canβt.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
I promise I shall never give up, and that I'll die yelling and laughing, and that until then I'll rush around this world I insist is holy and pull at everyone's lapel and make them confess to me and to all.
β
β
Jack Kerouac
β
In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
β
The punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
I think love is a hard word to define,β I say to her. βYou can love a lot of things about a person but still not love the whole person.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
It is too difficult to think nobly when one thinks only of earning a living.
β
β
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Confessions)
β
For a long time,β Nico said, βI had a crush on you. I just wanted you to know.β Percy looked at Nico. Then at Annabeth, as if to check that heβd heard correctly. Then back at Nico.
βYou ββ
βYeah,β Nico said. βYouβre a great person. But Iβm over that. Iβm happy for you guys.β
βYou β¦ so you mean ββ
βRight.β
Annabethβs grey eyes started to sparkle. She gave Nico a sideways smile.
βWait,β Percy said. βSo you mean ββ
βRight,β Nico said again. βBut itβs cool. Weβre cool. I mean, I see now β¦ youβre cute, but youβre not my type.β
βIβm not your type β¦ Wait. So ββ
βSee you around, Percy,β Nico said.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Blood of Olympus (The Heroes of Olympus, #5))
β
Everyone is so obsessed with themselves nowadays that they have no time for me.
β
β
Louise Rennison (Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #4))
β
I liked the feeling of love,' [Jonas] confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. 'I wish we still had that,' he whispered. 'Of course,' he added quickly, 'I do understand that it wouldn't work very well. And that it's much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live.'
...'Still,' he said slowly, almost to himself, 'I did like the light they made. And the warmth.
β
β
Lois Lowry (The Giver (The Giver, #1))
β
But I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius.
β
β
Truman Capote (Music for Chameleons)
β
Please donβt allow anyone to make you feel less than what you are.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
A secret is a strange thing.
There are three kinds of secrets. One is the sort everyone knows about, the sort you need at least two people for. One to keep it. One to never know. The second is a harder kind of secret: one you keep from yourself. Every day, thousands of confessions are kept from their would-be confessors, none of these people knowing that their never-admitted secrets all boil down to the same three words: I am afraid.
And then there is the third kind of secret, the most hidden kind. A secret no one knows about. Perhaps it was known once, but was taken to the grave. Or maybe it is a useless mystery, arcane and lonely, unfound because no one ever looked for it.
Sometimes, some rare times, a secret stays undiscovered because it is something too big for the mind to hold. It is too strange, too vast, too terrifying to contemplate.
All of us have secrets in our lives. Weβre keepers or keptfrom, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches β thatβs what will be left at the end of it all.
β
β
Maggie Stiefvater (The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2))
β
Never do anything that you can't admit doing, because if you are that ashamed of whatever it is, it's probably wrong.
β
β
Ashly Lorenzana
β
I feel I owe you another explanation Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess...that I rather thought...you had enough responsibility to be going on with."
Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his long silver beard.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
β
The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
In the lives of children, pumpkins turn into coaches, mice and rats turn into men. When we grow up, we realize it is far more common for men to turn into rats.
β
β
Gregory Maguire (Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister)
β
People who talk about their dreams are actually trying to tell you things about themselves theyβd never admit in normal conversation.
β
β
Chuck Klosterman
β
Why can't you say it?" I hardened my voice. "Because I'm telling you, you never have. I'd have remembered."
He stared at me with disbelief. [...]
"Love you? Of course I love you. Baby, I fucking worship you.
β
β
Josh Lanyon (The Dark Tide (The Adrien English Mysteries, #5))
β
We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can't have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we're so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they're not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want. ... Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it'll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you're living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies for just one minute.
β
β
Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)
β
I know my head isn't screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.
β
β
Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
β
Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple βI must,β then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, donβt blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the worldβs sounds β wouldnβt you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
β
β
Rainer Maria Rilke
β
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you.
β
β
Edna St. Vincent Millay
β
Itβs just like the one Scarlet had.β He flipped the gun in his palms, running his thumbs along the barrel. βShe shot me in the arm once.β
This confession was said with as much tenderness as if Scarlet had given him a bouquet of wildflowers rather than a bullet wound.
Cress and the others traded sorrowful looks.
β
β
Marissa Meyer (Winter (The Lunar Chronicles, #4))
β
The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.
β
β
Leo Tolstoy (A Confession)
β
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 timelessnessβin a landscape selected at randomβis 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 concernβto the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.
β
β
Vladimir Nabokov
β
Everyone's moving on without me, into a world I don't understand.
β
β
Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1))
β
There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.
β
β
Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
β
Sometimes I miss them so much, it hurts me right here. It feels like someone is squeezing my heart with the strength of the entire goddamn world.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
β
β
Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
β
When a Satanist commits a wrong, he realizes that is it natural to make a mistakeβand if he is truly sorry about what he has done, he will learn from it and take care not to do the same thing again. If he is not honestly sorry about what he has done, and knows he will do the same thing over and over, he has no business confessing and asking forgiveness in the first place.
β
β
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
β
Tell me something about yourself that no one else knows. Something I can keep for myself.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Confess)
β
I love you. Youβre mine. Iβll kill any bastard who tries to take you from me.
β
β
Samantha Young (On Dublin Street (On Dublin Street, #1))
β
The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
β
β
Aleister Crowley (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography)
β
The strangeness of Time. Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can't see, whose beginning you've forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.
β
β
Joyce Carol Oates (Foxfire: Confessions Of A Girl Gang)
β
I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different. Whether Nature has acted rightly or wrongly in destroying the mould in which she cast me, can only be decided after I have been read.
β
β
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Confessions)
β
A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store. If a man doesnβt fit, you canβt exchange him seven days later for a gorgeous cashmere sweater. And a store always smells good. A store can awaken a lust for things you never even knew you needed. And when your fingers first grasp those shiny, new bagsβ¦
β
β
Sophie Kinsella (Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1))
β
we rarely confide in those who are better than we. Rather, we are more inclined to flee their society. Most often, on the other hand, we confess to those who are like us and who share our weaknesses. Hence we don't want to improve ourselves and be bettered, for we should first have to be judged in default. We merely wish to be pitied and encouraged in the course we have chosen. In short, we should like, at the same time, to cease being guilty and yet not to make the effort of cleansing ourselves.
β
β
Albert Camus
β
My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.
β
β
Anne Fadiman (Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader)
β
Surely everyone is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a wintry fireside; candles at four o'clock, warm hearthrugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies to the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.
β
β
Thomas de Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium Eater)
β
And there is my payment the rubies in your cheeks. Are you properly scandalized by your wicked behavior? If you were Catholic, you'd singe the ears of the priest you confessed to. Do you remember making me swear to repeat all those naughty actions agian, no matter what you said this morning?"
Now that he brought it up, I did recall saying that. Great Betrayed by my own immorality.
"God, Bones...some of that was depraved."
"I'll take that as a compliment." He closed the distance between us."I love you. Don't be ashamed of anything we did, even if your prudery is on life support.
β
β
Jeaniene Frost (One Foot in the Grave (Night Huntress, #2))
β
When you grow up as a girl, it is like there are faint chalk lines traced approximately three inches around your entire body at all times, drawn by society and often religion and family and particularly other women, who somehow feel invested in how you behave, as if your actions reflect directly on all womanhood.
β
β
M.E. Thomas (Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight)
β
MAKING THE LIE MAKE SENSE:
When denial (his or ours) can no longer hold and we finally have to admit to ourselves that weβve been lied to, we search frantically for ways to keep it from disrupting our lives. So we rationalize. We find βgood reasonsβ to justify his lying, just as he almost always accompanies his confessions with βgood reasonsβ for his lies. He tells us he only lied becauseβ¦. We tell ourselves he only lied becauseβ¦. We make excuses for him: The lying wasnβt significant/Everybody lies/Heβs only human/I have no right to judge him.
Allowing the lies to register in our consciousness means having to make room for any number of frightening possibilities:
β’ Heβs not the man I thought he was.
β’ The relationship has spun out of control and I donβt know
what to do
β’ The relationship may be over.
Most women will do almost anything to avoid having to face these truths. Even if we yell and scream at him when we discover that heβs lied to us, once the dust settles, most of us will opt for the comforting territory of rationalization. In fact, many of us are willing to rewire our senses, short-circuit our instincts and intelligence, and accept the seductive comfort of self-delusion.
β
β
Susan Forward (When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal)
β
β¦there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there. It is hard for me to make sense on any given level. Myself is fabricated, an aberration. I am a noncontingent human being. My personality is sketchy and unformed, my heartlessness goes deep and is persistent. My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago (probably at Harvard) if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed. I still, though, hold on to one single bleak truth: no one is safe, nothing is redeemed. Yet I am blameless. Each model of human behavior must be assumed to have some validity. Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do? My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting thisβand I have countless times, in just about every act Iβve committedβand coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothingβ¦.
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Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho)
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Hale, this life . . .' she started slowly, still practically speechless. 'This . . . what we do--what my family does--it looks a lot more glamorous when you choose it.'
'So choose it.' He handed her another envelope. Smaller this time. Thinner.
'What's this?' she asked.
'That, darling, is my full confession. Dates. Times.' Hale leaned against the antique table. 'I thought the crane rental receipt was a particularly nice touch.' Kat looked at him, speechless. 'It's your ticket back into Colgan. If you want it.'
'Hale, I . . .'
But Hale was still moving, shrinking the distance between them. He seemed impossibly close as he whispered. 'And I didn't choose it, Kat. I chose you.
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Ally Carter (Heist Society (Heist Society, #1))
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I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
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Martin Luther King Jr. (Letter from the Birmingham Jail)
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It's not the right word, Eva," he pressed on stubbornly, his lips at my ear. "That's why I haven't said it. It's not the right word for you and what I feel for you."
"Shut up. If you care about me at all, you'll just shut up and go away."
"I've been loved before--by Corinne, by other women...But what the hell do they know about me? What the hell are they in love with when they don't know how fucked up I am? If that's love, it's nothing compared to what I feel for you.
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Sylvia Day (Bared to You (Crossfire, #1))
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Then I realize from the hollow sound of her gun's click that her gun isn't loaded. Apparently she just wants to slap me around with it.
The Girl doesn't move her gun away. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"That's better." The Girl lowers her gun a little. "Time for a few confessions.Were you responsible for the break-in at the Arcadia bank?"
The ten-second place. "Yes."
"Then you must be responsible for stealing sixteen thousand five hundred Notes from there as well."
"You got that right."
"Were you responsible for vandalizing the Department of Intra-Defense two years ago, and destroying the engines of two warfront airships?"
"Yes."
"Did you set fire to a series of ten F-472 fighter jets parked at the Burbank air force base right before they were to head out to the warfront?"
"I'm kinda proud of that one."
"Did assault a cadet standing guard at the edge of the Alta sector's quarantine zone?"
"I tied him up and delivered food to some quarantined families.Bite me.
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Marie Lu (Legend (Legend, #1))
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I am asking you to marry me because I love you,β he said, βbecause I cannot imagine living my life without you. I want to see your face in the morning, and then at night, and a hundred times in between. I want to grow old with you, I want to laugh with you, and I want to sigh to my friends about how managing you are, all the while secretly knowing I am the luckiest man in town.β
βWhat?β she demanded.
He shrugged. βA manβs got to keep up appearances. Iβll be universally detested if everyone realizes how perfect you are.
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Julia Quinn (It's in His Kiss (Bridgertons, #7))
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Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.
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Augustine of Hippo (Confessions)
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Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]
1. Homer β Iliad, Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus β Tragedies
4. Sophocles β Tragedies
5. Herodotus β Histories
6. Euripides β Tragedies
7. Thucydides β History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates β Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes β Comedies
10. Plato β Dialogues
11. Aristotle β Works
12. Epicurus β Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
13. Euclid β Elements
14. Archimedes β Works
15. Apollonius of Perga β Conic Sections
16. Cicero β Works
17. Lucretius β On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil β Works
19. Horace β Works
20. Livy β History of Rome
21. Ovid β Works
22. Plutarch β Parallel Lives; Moralia
23. Tacitus β Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
24. Nicomachus of Gerasa β Introduction to Arithmetic
25. Epictetus β Discourses; Encheiridion
26. Ptolemy β Almagest
27. Lucian β Works
28. Marcus Aurelius β Meditations
29. Galen β On the Natural Faculties
30. The New Testament
31. Plotinus β The Enneads
32. St. Augustine β On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
33. The Song of Roland
34. The Nibelungenlied
35. The Saga of Burnt NjΓ‘l
36. St. Thomas Aquinas β Summa Theologica
37. Dante Alighieri β The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
38. Geoffrey Chaucer β Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
39. Leonardo da Vinci β Notebooks
40. NiccolΓ² Machiavelli β The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
41. Desiderius Erasmus β The Praise of Folly
42. Nicolaus Copernicus β On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
43. Thomas More β Utopia
44. Martin Luther β Table Talk; Three Treatises
45. FranΓ§ois Rabelais β Gargantua and Pantagruel
46. John Calvin β Institutes of the Christian Religion
47. Michel de Montaigne β Essays
48. William Gilbert β On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
49. Miguel de Cervantes β Don Quixote
50. Edmund Spenser β Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
51. Francis Bacon β Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
52. William Shakespeare β Poetry and Plays
53. Galileo Galilei β Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
54. Johannes Kepler β Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
55. William Harvey β On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
56. Thomas Hobbes β Leviathan
57. RenΓ© Descartes β Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
58. John Milton β Works
59. MoliΓ¨re β Comedies
60. Blaise Pascal β The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
61. Christiaan Huygens β Treatise on Light
62. Benedict de Spinoza β Ethics
63. John Locke β Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education
64. Jean Baptiste Racine β Tragedies
65. Isaac Newton β Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz β Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology
67. Daniel Defoe β Robinson Crusoe
68. Jonathan Swift β A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
69. William Congreve β The Way of the World
70. George Berkeley β Principles of Human Knowledge
71. Alexander Pope β Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu β Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
73. Voltaire β Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
74. Henry Fielding β Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
75. Samuel Johnson β The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
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Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading)
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I Choose Love...
No occasion justifies hatred; no injustice warrants bitterness. I choose love. Today I will love God and what God loves.
I Choose Joy...
I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.
I Choose Peace...
I will live forgiven. I will forgive so I may live.
I Choose Patience...
I will overlook the inconveniences of the world. Instead of cursing the one who takes my place, I'll invite him to do so, Rather complain that the wait is to long, I will thank God for a moment to pray. Instead of clenching my fist at new assignments, I will face them with joy and courage.
I Choose Kindness...
I will be kind to the poor, for they are alone. Kind to the rich, for they are afraid. And kind to the unkind, for that is how God has treated me.
I Choose Goodness...
I will go without a dollar before I take a dishonest one. I will be overlooked before I will boast. I will confess before I accuse. I choose goodness.
I Choose Faithfulness...
Today I will keep my promises. My debtors will not regret their trust. My friends will not question my word. And my family will not question my love.
I Choose Gentleness...
Nothing is won by force. I choose to be gentle. If I raise my voice may it only be in praise. If I clench my fist, may it only be in prayer. If I make a demand, may it be only of myself.
I Choose Self-Control...
I refuse to let what will rot, rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ. I choose self-control.
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace. And then when this day is done I will place my head on my pillow and rest.
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Max Lucado
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When a boy⦠discovers that he is more given into introspection and consciousness of self than other boys his age, he easily falls into the error of believing it is because he is more mature than they. This was certainly a mistake in my case. Rather, it was because the other boys had no such need of understanding themselves as I had: they could be their natural selves, whereas I was to play a part, a fact that would require considerable understanding and study. So it was not my maturity but my sense of uneasiness, my uncertainty that was forcing me to gain control over my consciousness. Because such consciousness was simply a steppingstone to aberration and my present thinking was nothing but uncertain and haphazard guesswork.
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Yukio Mishima (Confessions of a Mask)
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Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?...
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)
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Shahrzad,
I've failed you several times. But there was one moment I failed you beyond measure. It was the day we met. The moment I took your hand and you looked at me, with the glory of hate in your eyes. I should have sent you home to your family. But I didn't. There was honesty in your hatred. Fearlessness in your pain. In your honesty, I saw a reflection of myself. Or rather, of the man I longed to be. So I failed you. I didn't stay away. Then later, I thought if I had answers, it would be enough. I would no longer care. You would not matter. So I continued failing you. Continued wanting more. And now I can't find the words to say what must be said. To convey to you the least of what I owe. When I think of you, I can't find the air to breathe. And now, though you are gone, there is no pain or fear. All I am left with is gratitude.
When I was a boy, my mother would tell me that one of the best things in life is the knowledge that your story isn't over yet. Our story may have come to a close, but your story is still yet to be told. Make it a story worthy of you.
I failed you in one last thing. Here is my chance to rectify it. It was never because I didn't feel it. It was because I swore I would never say it, and a man is nothing if he can't keep his promises.
So I write it in the sky-
I love you, a thousand times over. And I will never apologize for it.
Khalid
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RenΓ©e Ahdieh (The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn, #1))
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I waited for him to say something more, but he was quiet.
"Was there something you wanted?" I asked.
He didn't answer right away, but I could feel him struggling, so I waited.
"If I asked you something, would you tell me the truth?"
It was my turn to hesitate. "I don't know everything," I hedged.
"You would know this. When we were walking... me and Jeb... he was telling me some things. Things he thought, but I don't know if he's right."
Melanie was suddenly very in my head.
Jamie's whisper was hard to hear, quieter than my breathing. "Uncle Jeb thinks that Melanie might still be alive. Inside there with you, I mean."
Melanie sighed.
I said nothing to either of them.
"I didn't know that could happen. Does that happen?" His voice broke and I could hear that he was fighting tears. He was not a boy to cry, and here I'd grieved him this deeply twice in one day. A pain pierced through the general region of my chest.
"Does it, Wanda?"
"Why won't you answer me?" Jamie was really crying now but trying to muffle the sound.
I crawled off the bed, squeezing into the hard space between the mattress and the mat, and threw my arm over his shaking chest. I leaned my head against his hair and felt his tears, warm on my neck.
"Is Melanie still alive, Wanda? Please?"
He was probably a tool. The old man could have sent him just for this, Jeb was smart enough to see how easily Jamie broke through my defenses.
Jamie's body shook beside me.
Melanie cried. She battered ineffectually at my control.
But I couldn't blame this on Melanie if it turned out to be a huge mistake. I knew who was speaking now.
"She promised she would come back, didn't she?" I murmured. "Would Melanie break a promise to you?"
Jamie slid his arms around my waist and clung to me for a long time. After a few minutes, he whispered. "Love you, Mel."
"She loves you, too. She's so happy that you're here and safe."
He was silent long enough for the tears on my skin to dry, leaving a fine, salty dust behind.
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Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))