“
I love you. I hate you. I like you. I hate you. I love you. I think you’re stupid. I think you’re a loser. I think you’re wonderful. I want to be with you. I don’t want to be with you. I would never date you. I hate you. I love you…..I think the madness started the moment we met and you shook my hand. Did you have a disease or something?
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings towards Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's flying so badly."
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
If you have feelings for someone, let them know. It doesn’t matter if they can be in your life or not. Maybe, it is just enough for both of you to release the truth, so healing can occur. The opposite is true, as well. If you don’t have feelings for someone then never let another person suggest that you do. Protect your reputation and be responsible for the wrong information spread about you. Never allow anyone to live with a false belief or unfounded hope about you. An honorable person sets the record straight, so that person can move on with their life.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Don't you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?" [Hermione] asked.
"No," said Ron and Harry together.
Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.
"Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's been flying so badly."
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode."
"Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have," said Hermione nastily, picking up her her quill again.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
Twenty years was a long time. But Tengo knew that if he were to meet Aomame in another twenty years, he would feel the same way he did now. Even if they were both over fifty, he would still feel the same mix of excitement and confusion in her presence. His heart would be filled with the same joy and certainty.
”
”
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
“
Well, this is how I feel: I want to live by the ocean but also in the forest but also in the mountains but also in a big city but also in the countryside. Do you understand me?
”
”
Anonymous
“
The reason a lot of women can't move on from a relationship or people they love is because they need to know why. Why did this happen? Why did you do this? Why don't you care? Why did you hurt me? Why do you believe this about me? Why did you send me mixed signals? Why are these other people in your life acting like you care? Men have it all wrong. Insecurity is not why a lot of women don't let go. Women have a difficult time letting go because men don't communicate why at the level that women require. They don't back up their words with actions that are not confusing or could be misinterrupted as something else. Until, men learn that their actions and their friends and families reactions can create a questionable doubt about how they feel, they will forever have to deal with the drama they create for themselves.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Sometimes I can't tell the difference between living and dead. Sometimes I look at a pretty little girlie and I think to myself, Is she a living, breathing thing? Or is she just a doll? Are those actualy tears she's crying? Are those real creams coming out of her mouth? And it's like a fog in my mind, like I get all confused and frustrated and mixed up, so I start doing things. Start small at first, like maybe with the ears or the lips or the toes. And then move on to the bigger things, and there's blood, so I keeping going and my hands are wet and my mouth is warm and I keep going and then something magical happens, Jasper. It's real magical and special and beautiful. See, they stop moving. They stop struggiling. All the fight just goes away and that's when it's all clear to me: She's dead. And if she's dead, then that means that she used to be alive. So then I know: This was a living one, a real one. And I feel good after that 'cause I figured it out.
”
”
Barry Lyga (I Hunt Killers (I Hunt Killers, #1))
“
She feels a great pang of loss, an unexpected welling of sorrow mixed with confusion.
”
”
Julianna Baggott (Fuse (Pure, #2))
“
Affection is only one ingredient of love. To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients -- care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication. [...] When we feel deeply drawn to someone, we cathect with them; that is, we invest feelings or emotions in them. That process of investment wherein a loved one becomes important to us is called "cathexis." In his book, [M. Scott] Peck rightly emphasizes that most of us "confuse cathecting with loving." We all know how often individuals feeling connected to someone through the process of cathecting insist that they love the other person even if they are hurting or neglecting them. Since their feeling of that of cathexis, they insist that what they feel is love.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18) I came from a family of wonderful people who nevertheless struggled with how to be happy. There were many things we didn't know about living in peace. We mixed our love with fear. What I experienced in my childhood family seemed to color my life with confusion. I joined the Church at nineteen. Though my conversion was real, many of my emotions continued to be out of harmony with gospel teachings, and I didn't know what to do about them. I was not at rest. As a young mother I felt that I was only barely keeping my distress from leaking out. But it did leak out. I struggled to be cheerful at home. I was too often tense with my children, especially as their behavior reflected negatively on me. I was perfectionistic. I was irritable and controlling. But I was also loving, patient, appreciative, happy; I frequently felt the Spirit of the Lord, and I did many parenting things well, but so inconsistently. Sooner or later the crisis comes for good people who live in ignorance and neglect of spiritual law. The old ways don't work anymore, and it may feel as though the foundations of life are giving way. If we don't learn consistent, mature love in our childhood homes we often struggle to learn it when we become marriage partners and parents.
”
”
M. Catherine Thomas
“
In fact, I had time to be maddened by Christopher generally. He would keep calling me "Grant" in that superior way, and there were times when I wanted to hit him for it, or shout that it was only my alias, or - anyway he really annoyed me. Then he would say something that doubled me up with laughter and I discovered I liked him again. It was truly confusing.
”
”
Diana Wynne Jones (Conrad's Fate (Chrestomanci, #5))
“
This mix of love and hate, this blend of trust and hurt I have for him is so confusing even I can't understand it.
He leaves, and I break.
”
”
Tammy Faith (Broken Heart)
“
And it was in that moment of distress and confusion that the whip of terror laid its most nicely calculated lash about his heart. It dropped with deadly effect upon the sorest spot of all, completely unnerving him. He had been secretly dreading all the time that it
would come - and come it did.
Far overhead, muted by great height and distance, strangely thinned and wailing, he heard the crying voice of Defago, the guide.
The sound dropped upon him out of that still, wintry sky with an effect of dismay and terror unsurpassed. The rifle fell to his feet. He stood motionless an instant, listening as it were with his whole body, then staggered back against the nearest tree for support, disorganized hopelessly in mind and spirit. To him, in that moment, it seemed the most shattering and dislocating experience he had ever known, so that his heart emptied itself of all feeling whatsoever as by a sudden draught.
'Oh! oh! This fiery height! Oh, my feet of fire! My burning feet of fire...' ran in far, beseeching accents of indescribable appeal this voice of anguish down the sky. Once it called - then silence through all the listening wilderness of trees.
And Simpson, scarcely knowing what he did, presently found himself running wildly to and fro, searching, calling, tripping over roots and boulders, and flinging himself in a frenzy of undirected pursuit after the Caller. Behind the screen of memory and emotion with which experience veils events, he plunged, distracted and half-deranged, picking up false lights like a ship at sea, terror in his eyes and heart and soul. For the Panic of the Wilderness had called to him in that far voice - the Power of untamed Distance - the Enticement of the Desolation that destroys. He knew in that moment all the pains of someone hopelessly and irretrievably lost, suffering the lust
and travail of a soul in the final Loneliness. A vision of Defago, eternally hunted, driven and pursued across the skyey vastness of those ancient forests fled like a flame across the dark ruin of his thoughts...
It seemed ages before he could find anything in the chaos of his disorganized sensations to which he could anchor himself steady for a moment, and think...
The cry was not repeated; his own hoarse calling brought no response; the inscrutable forces of the Wild had summoned their victim beyond recall - and held him fast.
("The Wendigo")
”
”
Algernon Blackwood (Monster Mix)
“
Again, dove into each other. This time the hug, a mix of I miss you and who are you and I'm confused and I'm cracking and I don't know what the hell to do or where the hell to go. My father's hand gripped my back as I did my best to bury myself in his armpit, to get lost in the new and strangely familiar feeling of fatherhood.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (Long Way Down)
“
Mixed feelings were confusing feelings, and I didn’t feel confused except as to why it was so hard for everyone to understand that I existed. Living this way felt like discovering your shoe was nailed to the floor, but only one of them, so that you paced, always, a circle of possibility, defined by the limited imaginations of others.
”
”
Alexander Chee (How to Write an Autobiographical Novel)
“
Tucked in the back of one of the shelves is a small bottle, rounded with a short neck and closed with a matching glass stopper. He picks it up carefully. It is heavier than he had expected. Removing the stopper, he is confused, for at first the scent and the sensation do not change. Then comes the aroma of caramel, wafting on the crisp breeze of an autumn wind. The scent of wool and sweat makes him feel as though he is wearing a heavy coat, with the warmth of a scarf around his neck. There is the impression of people wearing masks. The smell of a bonfire mixes with the caramel. And then there is a shift, a movement in front of him. Something grey. A sharp pain in his chest. The sensation of falling. A sound like howling wind, or a screaming girl.
”
”
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
“
A plain, brown paper-wrapped package came in the mail recently. Upon opening it, I saw that it was a patchwork quilt about four feet by five feet. Many little scraps of cloth, carefully joined by loving hands. Two squares have suggestions of a black cassock and Roman white collar. The maker of the quilt states, “In its variety, I feel it denotes confusion and the world “mixed” up. There are dark spots for the dark times and bright squares, so, hopefully, some good and brightness will come in the future. The other pieces of cloth were of happy times, mothers and children, peaceful settings, happy things.” A note inside stated that she felt we were “scraps,”—the “scraps” that the abusive priests treated us like. They would use us as a scrap is used and then simply toss us aside. I was moved to tears. Holding it in my hands, I could almost feel others' pain and suffering, as I touched each panel. It is a magnificent work, worthy of a prize. I was deeply humbled by the receipt of the quilt. This woman got it; she really got it. This woman got it; she really got it. She has a deeper understanding of what we have gone through. It is rare.
”
”
Charles L. Bailey Jr. (In the Shadow of the Cross: The True Account of My Childhood Sexual and Ritual Abuse at the Hands of a Roman Catholic Priest)
“
Be honest with yourself. You were at your lowest and broken down. You were unsure and lost hope. You were hiding your fears until you showed them on your sleeve. You felt like everything and everyone was the hammer and you were the nail as they were beating down on you, and it was never-ending. Their empty threats had you scared and you were always running because your weakness was exposed. You were their prey. You didn’t know who to believe because of their mixed signals.
You might not see it now, but you are stronger than you can ever imagine.
You cannot become comfortable in your pain. You have to let the pain that you feel turn you into a rose without thorns. There are sixteen pieces on the chessboard. The king is the most important piece, but the difference is that the queen is the most powerful piece!
You are a queen, you can maneuver around your opponents; they do not have the power over your life, your mind or soul. You might think you’ve been a prisoner, but that is your past’. Look in the now and work your way to how you want your future to be. Exercise your thoughts into a pattern of letting go, and think positively about more of what you want than what you do not want.
Queen!
You are a queen! As a matter of fact, you are the queen! Act as if you know it!
You are powerful, determined, strong, and you can make the biggest and most extravagant move and put it into action.
Lights, camera, strike a pose and own it!
It is yours to own!
Yes, you loved and loved so much. You also lost as well, but you lost hurt, pain, agony, and confusion. You’ve lost interest in wanting to know answers to unanswered questions. You’ve lost the willingness to give a shit about what others think. You’ve surrendered to being fine, that you cannot change the things you have no control over.
You’ve lost a lot, but you’ve gained closure. You are now balanced, centered, focused, and filled with peace surrounding you in your heart, mind, body, and soul.
Your pride was hurt, but you would rather walk alone and be more willing to give and learn more about the queen you are.
You lost yourself in the process, but the more you learn about the new you, the more you will be so much in love with yourself. The more you learn about the new you, the more you will know your worth. The more you learn about the new you, the happier you are going to be, and this time around you will be smiling inside and out!
The dots are now connecting. You feel alive!
You know now that all is not lost. Now that you’ve cut the cord it is time to give your heart a second chance at loving yourself.
Silence your mind. Take a deep breath and close your eyes. As you open your eyes, look at your reflection in the mirror. Aren’t you beautiful, Queen? Embrace who you are. Smile, laugh, welcome the new you and say, “My world is just now beginning.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (A Woman's Love Is Never Good Enough)
“
Yeah, I know. I’m weird. I’m a mixture of a red-blooded Latino from my Chilean mother and cold-hearted Viking from my dad, but in reality, I feel like a confused mouse most of the time. Perhaps a mouse mixed with a bit of a sneaky fox. Because I do have my moments, and I can be confident and sassy when I need to be. That is all my parents’ fault – my parents who are full-grown, twenty-four-hour naturists.
”
”
Sophia Soames (The Naked Cleaner)
“
Using the dagger next to him on the nightstand, Dante scored a fresh line on his wrist. He pressed the bleeding cut to Tess’s lips, waiting to feel her respond, wanting to curse to the rafters when her mouth remained unmoving, his blood dripping down, useless, onto her chin.
“Come on, angel. Drink for me.” He stroked her cool cheek, brushed a tangle of her honey-blond hair from her forehead. “Please live, Tess . . . drink, and live.”
A throat cleared awkwardly from the area near the bedroom doorjamb. “I’m sorry, the uh . . . the door was open.”
Chase. Just fucking great. Dante couldn’t think of anyone he’d like to see less right now. He was too entrenched in what he was doing—in what he was feeling—to deal with another interruption, particularly one coming from the Darkhaven agent. He’d hoped the bastard was already long gone from the compound, back to where he came from—preferably with one of Lucan’s size-fourteens planted all the way up his ass. Then again, maybe Lucan was saving the privilege for Dante instead.
“Get out,” he growled.
“Is she drinking at all?”
Dante scoffed, low under his breath.
“What part of ‘get out’ did you fail to understand, Harvard? I don’t need an audience right now, and I sure as hell don’t need any more of your bullshit.”
He pressed his wrist to Tess’s lips again, parting them with the fingers of his blood by mild force. It wasn’t happening. Dante’s eyes stung as he stared down at her. He felt wetness streaking his cheeks. Tasted the salt of tears gathering at the corner of his mouth.
“Shit,” he muttered, wiping his face into his shoulder in a strange mix of confusion and despair.
He heard footsteps coming up near the bed. Felt the air around him stir as Chase reached out his hand. “It might work much better if you tilt her head, like th—”
“Don’t . . . touch her.” The words came out in a voice Dante hardly recognized as his own, it was so full of venom and deadly warning. He swiveled his head around and met the agent’s eyes, his vision burning and sharp, his fangs having stretched long in an instant.
The protective urge boiling through him was fierce, utterly lethal, and Chase evidently understood at once.
”
”
Lara Adrian (Kiss of Crimson (Midnight Breed, #2))
“
The sun, through the filter of the trees, glints green off the cells of her suit, outlines her soft curves. I’m overcome with visions of my father poring over his books, and the wet, verdant forest floor, and newts pausing over toxic yellow candy, and leaves flying up from the impact of Bryan’s body hitting the ground. Another, confused part of me hears my father’s voice calling the refs scum, trash, slime. With flashes of fury at Marisa, mixed with a sad, all-consuming longing that feels dangerously like love, I pluck her hands from my face and push her away. -from Fireseed One
”
”
Catherine Stine
“
On the Dangers of Confusing Saga with History The Four Loves (From Chapter II, “Likings and Loves for the Sub-human”) THE ACTUAL HISTORY OF EVERY COUNTRY IS FULL OF shabby and even shameful doings. The heroic stories, if taken to be typical, give a false impression of it and are often themselves open to serious historical criticism. Hence a patriotism based on our glorious past is fair game for the debunker. As knowledge increases it may snap and be converted into disillusioned cynicism, or may be maintained by a voluntary shutting of the eyes. But who can condemn what clearly makes many people, at many important moments, behave so much better than they could have done without its help? I think it is possible to be strengthened by the image of the past without being either deceived or puffed up. The image becomes dangerous in the precise degree to which it is mistaken, or substituted, for serious and systematic historical study. The stories are best when they are handed on and accepted as stories. I do not mean by this that they should be handed on as mere fictions (some of them are after all true). But the emphasis should be on the tale as such, on the picture which fires the imagination, the example that strengthens the will. The schoolboy who hears them should dimly feel—though of course he cannot put it into words—that he is hearing saga. Let him be thrilled—preferably ‘out of school’—by the ‘Deeds that won the Empire’; but the less we mix this up with his ‘history lessons’ or mistake it for a serious analysis—worse still,
”
”
C.S. Lewis (The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds Through Others' Eyes)
“
As we mature, our brain develops the ability to mix things together, to hold different perceptions, senses, thoughts, feelings, and impulses all at the same time without becoming confused in thinking or paralyzed in action. This is the capacity I called “integrative functioning”. Reaching this point in development has a tremendous transforming and civilizing effect on personality and behavior. The attributes of childishness, like impulsiveness and ego-centrism, fade away and a much more balanced personality begins to emerge. One cannot teach the brain to do this; the integrative capacity must be developed, grown into. The ancient Romans had a word for this kind of mix: temper. That verb now means “to regulate” or “to moderate,” but originally referred to the mingling of different ingredients to make clay.
”
”
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
“
Listening to him, her stomach lifting and her expression properly rapt, Starling
wondered how long Crawford had known he'd use her on this case, how hungry for a
chance he had wanted her to be. He was a leader, with a leader's frank-and-open bullshit,
all right.
"You think about him enough, you see where he's been, you get a feel for him,"
Crawford went on. "You don't even dislike him all the time, hard as that is to believe.
Then, if you're lucky, out of all the stuff you know, part of it plucks at you, tries to get
your attention. Always tell me when something plucks, Starling.
"Listen to me, a crime is confusing enough without the investigation mixing it up.
Don't let a herd of policemen confuse you. Live right behind your eyes. Listen to
yourself. Keep the crime separate from what's going on around you now. Don't try to
impose any pattern or symmetry on this guy. Stay open and let him show you.
”
”
Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter, #2))
“
Her disillusionment with the business had intensified as the need to simplify her stories increased. Her original treatments for Blondie of the Follies and The Prizefighter and the Lady had much more complexity and many more characters than ever made it to the screen, and adapting The Good Earth had served as a nagging reminder of the inherent restraints of film. Frances found herself inspired by memories of Jack London, sitting on the veranda with her father as they extolled the virtues of drinking their liquor “neat,” and remembered his telling her that he went traveling to experience adventure, but “then come back to an unrelated environment and write. I seek one of nature’s hideouts, like this isolated Valley, then I see more clearly the scenes that are the most vivid in my memory.” So she arrived in Napa with the idea of writing the novel she started in her hospital bed with the backdrop of “the chaos, confusion, excitement and daily tidal changes” of the studios, but as she sat on the veranda at Aetna Springs, she knew she was still too close to her mixed feelings about the film business.48 As she walked the trails and passed the schoolhouse that had served the community for sixty years, she talked to the people who had lived there in seclusion for several generations and found their stories “similar to case histories recorded by Freud or Jung.” She concentrated on the women she saw carrying the burden in this community and all others and gave them a depth of emotion and detail. Her series of short stories was published under the title Valley People and critics praised it as a “heartbreak book” that would “never do for screen material.” It won the public plaudits of Dorothy Parker, Rupert Hughes, Joseph Hergesheimer, and other popular writers and Frances proudly viewed Valley People as “an honest book with no punches pulled” and “a tribute to my suffering sex.
”
”
Cari Beauchamp (Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood)
“
As we mature, our brain develops the ability to mix things together, to hold different perceptions, senses, thoughts, feelings, and impulses all at the same
time without becoming confused in thinking or paralyzed in action. This is the capacity I called “integrative functioning” when, just above, I mentioned the preschooler syndrome. Reaching this point in development has a tremendous transforming and civilizing effect on personality and behavior. The attributes of childishness, like impulsiveness and egocentrism, fade away and a much more balanced personality begins to emerge. One cannot teach the brain to do this; the integrative capacity must be developed, grown into. The ancient Romans had a
word for this kind of mix: temper. That verb now means “to regulate” or “to moderate,” but originally referred to the mingling of different ingredients to
make clay. (...) Being untempered—unable to tolerate mixed feelings at the same time—is the hallmark of the immature.
”
”
Gordon Neufeld
“
FROM THE
WAVERLEY KITCHEN JOURNAL Angelica - Will shape its meaning to your need, but it is particularly good for calming hyper children at your table. Anise Hyssop - Eases frustration and confusion. Bachelor’s Button - Aids in finding things that were previously hidden. A clarifying flower. Chicory - Conceals bitterness. Gives the eater a sense that all is well. A cloaking flower. Chive Blossom - Ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings. Dandelion - A stimulant encouraging faithfulness. Frequent side effects are blindness to flaws and spontaneous apologies. Honeysuckle - For seeing in the dark, but only if you use honeysuckle from a brush of vines at least two feet thick. A clarifying flower. Hyacinth Bulb - Causes melancholy and thoughts of past regrets. Use only dried bulbs. A time-travel flower. Lavender - Raises spirits. Prevents bad decisions resulting from fatigue or depression. Lemon Balm - Upon consumption, for a brief period of time the eater will think and feel as he did in his youth. Please note if you have any former hellions at your table before serving. A time-travel flower. Lemon Verbena - Produces a lull in conversation with a mysterious lack of awkwardness. Helpful when you have nervous, overly talkative guests. Lilac - When a certain amount of humility is in order. Gives confidence that humbling yourself to another will not be used against you. Marigold - Causes affection, but sometimes accompanied by jealousy. Nasturtium - Promotes appetite in men. Makes women secretive. Secret sexual liaisons sometimes occur in mixed company. Do not let your guests out of your sight. Pansy - Encourages the eater to give compliments and surprise gifts. Peppermint - A clever method of concealment. When used with other edible flowers, it confuses the eater, thus concealing the true nature of what you are doing. A cloaking flower. Rose Geranium - Produces memories of past good times. Opposite of Hyacinth Bulb. A time-travel flower. Rose Petal - Encourages love. Snapdragon - Wards off the undue influences of others, particularly those with magical sensibilities. Squash and Zucchini Blossoms - Serve when you need to be understood. Clarifying flowers. Tulip - Gives the eater a sense of sexual perfection. A possible side effect is being susceptible to the opinions of others. Violet - A wonderful finish to a meal. Induces calm, brings on happiness, and always assures a good night’s sleep.
”
”
Sarah Addison Allen (Garden Spells (Waverly Family #1))
“
In the ending, we lose or let go of our old outlook, our old reality, our old attitudes, our old values, our old self-image.2 We may resist this ending for a while. We may try to talk ourselves out of what we are feeling, and when we do give in, we may be swept by feelings of sadness and anger. Why is this happening to me? My friends aren't troubled by such things! •Next, we find ourselves in the neutral zone between the old and new—yet not really being either the old nor the new. This confusing state is a time when our lives feel as though they have broken apart or gone dead. We get mixed signals, some from our old way of being and some from a way of being that is still unclear to us. Nothing feels solid. Everything is up for grabs. Yet for that very reason, it is a time when we sometimes feel that anything is possible. So the in-between time can be a very creative time too. •Finally, we take hold of and identify with some new outlook and some new reality, as well as new attitudes and a new self-image. When we have done this, we feel that we are finally starting a new chapter in our lives. No matter how impossible it was to imagine a future earlier, life now feels as though it is back on its track again. We have a new sense of ourselves, a new outlook, and a new sense of purpose and possibility.
”
”
William Bridges (The Way Of Transition: Embracing Life's Most Difficult Moments)
“
Carl picked me up right on time. He has always been prompt. He has also always been mysterious. He didn’t give me any kind of hint as to where we were going, so I didn’t know how to dress or anything. As we drove along, I was trying to see what part of town we were heading for to get some clue as to what was up. I was surprised when we pulled into the driveway of a private home. Carl walked me to the door and opened it.
Inside, his mother was just putting supper on the table. Without any other word of introduction Carl said to his mother, “Fix this girl a plate. She’s the one I’m going to marry.” With a nervous laugh I tried to acknowledge that he had made a little joke. But something in his voice told me he hadn’t. In all my life, I have never felt such an odd combination of emotions. First, I was shocked that he wanted to marry me, since he had never given me any indication that he cared that much for me. Second, I was astounded. I remember thinking, “Who the hell does this guy think he is?” I felt flattered, outraged, touched, turned on, scared to death, and completely confused. The boy back home who had bought the house was not even this presumptuous. At least he had said he loved me at some point.
There I was, feeling as mixed up as a road lizard in a spin dryer, and having to act sociable while trying to keep my dinner down. I somehow got through the meal and worked things out in my own mind enough to keep seeing Carl.
”
”
Dolly Parton (Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business)
“
As the conference continued it occurred to me finally that it wasn't really about Indian history as it was written, but really about rewriting it by taking a fresh look at race, ethnicity, gender, and a mix of sociocultural questions...
I just couldn't believe how far along the desi scene was, not just socially but intellectually, how many people were out there thinking about it. This whole event so far rocked my world, muddled me still more, and delivered a series of tiny epiphanies, all at the same time. To be honest, I was quite intimidated by the dialogue going on, as well as by the passion and conviction of these people on so many subjects which I, frankly, had never really even thought about.
...A history of a people in transit -- what could that be card catalogued under? And the history of the ABCD. Everyone seemed to know about this ABCD thing -- that didn't seem very confused to me! And it was a relatively new phenomenon; it had never occurred to me that things going on now could have a history already. The moments that made up my life in the present tense seemed so fleetingly urgent and self-contained to me: I'd always felt my life had very little to do with my parents' and especially their parents' histories...and that it would have very little effect on anything to come.
But the way these people were talking -- about desis in Hollywood; South Asian Studies departments; the relatively new Asian Indian slot on the census -- was hummingly sculpting the air, as if they were making history as they spoke. Making it, messily but surely, even simply by speaking. I was feeling it, too -- a sense of history in the making. But where did I fit in to any of it?
And how come no one had told me?
”
”
Tanuja Desai Hidier (Born Confused (Born Confused #1))
“
To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of a knowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, and traces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome may still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken revelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society; but Dorothea had no such defence against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense, and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained through her after-years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and in certain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina.
Not that this inward amazement of Dorothea's was anything very exceptional: many souls in their young nudity are tumbled out among incongruities and left to "find their feet" among them, while their elders go about their business. Nor can I suppose that when Mrs. Casaubon is discovered in a fit of weeping six weeks after her wedding, the situation will be regarded as tragic. Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
”
”
George Eliot (Middlemarch)
“
Every time she meets him, she feels like he was a new paper ready to be drawn. And she could clearly remember how the first time she met him, he was like a sketch paper filled with grey and blue and black, all mixed up together forming a confusing storm,
”
”
Basma Salem (The Art Of Black)
“
One fallacy continues and that fallacy is that because you are, you think you know who you are. You feel that you are, but you don’t know who you are. Just a confused feeling, a mixed feeling, a shadowy feeling that you are, is not enough. It should become crystal clear. It should become an unwavering light within you.
”
”
Osho (Nirvana: The Last Nightmare: Learning to Trust in Life)
“
this in-between period is not a literal space between one job and the next but a psychological zone in which we are truly between selves, with one foot still firmly planted in the old world and the other making tentative steps toward an as-yet undefined new world. Whether a person is working two jobs at once, finishing a lame-duck period, in outplacement, or taking an extended time to reflect on what comes next, the experience that June described as “living inside a hurricane” is common. It is a time rife with anticipation, confusion, fear, and all sorts of other mixed feelings.
”
”
Herminia Ibarra (Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career)
“
So it was quite a confusing mix of feelings to feel.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (The Ministry for the Future)
“
A part of me needed my mother to be sorry. I wanted to hear those words so much; I was just 17-years-old, all alone in the world, and without guidance. I wanted a parent. My feelings were very mixed up and confused where my mother was concerned. I hated her for what she had put me through; however, she was still my mother, and I needed at least to try and forgive her. Maybe, just maybe, time had changed her, and she would be very sorry. Well, there was only one way to find out.
”
”
D.G. Torrens (Amelia's Story (Box Set The Complete Series Books 1 & 2))
“
I might have asked for her number. I could have told her my visit had been extended, something like that. She was too young, but I liked the way she made me feel. She provoked a confusing mix of emotions: affinity based on the shared experiences of mixed blood and childhood bereavement; a paternalistic urge to protect her from the mistakes she was going to make; a sad sexual longing that was like an elegy for Midori.
”
”
Barry Eisler (A Lonely Resurrection (John Rain #2))
“
of taking advantage of you even when you had their back; of good days and bad days all mixed together; of understanding their histories and having compassion for them but still having them rage at you; of simultaneously struggling with duty, loyalty, and disliking people you believe you are “supposed” to like, such as your parents and family. When you are narcissistically abused you are told how to feel and what to think, so you lose all sense of who you are and what you are about, which magnifies the confusion
”
”
Ramani Durvasula (It's Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People)
“
An anonymous gray-asexual panromantic person’s perspective on the gray areas: “Imagine full sexuality as a glass of soda and asexuality as a glass of water. To the person with the water, it tastes like plain water, and they’re happy with that as long as soda-drinkers don’t insist they should like soda. Likewise, the people with various flavors of soda will be happy with them and be able to identify them as soda, even though some of them might be ‘mixed flavors’ of varying percentages that are hard to pick out. Some may even have some ice melted in them, but as long as it’s not much, well, it’s still a soda. But my case is like having a glass of water with a little bit of soda poured into it. When I taste it, I can’t really tell what’s off about it. It doesn’t seem like just water, but it’s definitely not a cup of soda. I might not even be able to identify the off taste as soda. Maybe it’s not! Some-times I think I taste it more than others. But I’m not sure I like the taste of it. It’s confusing, and it might be easier if I just had a glass of plain water, but I don’t really have any control over that. But overall, I still feel like what I have is much more like water than soda, especially since I can’t always even identify the added ingredient as soda. So I’ll call it water. Just not plain water.
”
”
Julie Sondra Decker (The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality)
“
Dang, spiders like Slinger are scary things... I heard the Glitch spider’s feet drumming around inside its cobblestone coffin. It hissed again. I think I heard it clack its fangs desperately against the stone. What a terrible way to go, I thought. “We should move on, my lord,” Skonathan said. “We’ve made a good bit of noise. Others may come.” I turned to look at the other side of the crisscrossing tunnel. It was also a dead end. This area was all there was to secure in between the Sleeping City and the bottom tunnels. “This area is clear,” I said. “Let’s go, but be careful. There are five or six Glitch mobs down there, at least. I remember zombies, a skeleton—maybe more than one—and at least one spider. I can’t remember if there were any creepers...” “Let’s do it the same way,” UltimateSword5 said. “Let’s be quick and quiet, and handle them one or two at a time.” “Good idea, if it works,” I replied. “Now, down there, there’s a gravel column I made leading up. I’ll have to make some stairs...” We moved on down the tunnel. The trapped Glitch mobs struggled and made noises on the other side of their cobblestone prisons behind us. Eventually, we stood at the edge of the big hole leading down into the open cavern where I built my way out of darkness with gravel before. I was feeling more confident, but looking down at that hole, seeing the bedrock in the cavern floor below, a cold dread started filling my bones. Soon, we would hear the low, dark moaning of the crimson portal—a lot like a Nether portal, but even more evil, if that was possible... My mind began wondering what lay on the other side of that gateway to another world. Another server, a strange voice echoed in my head. Had I heard that somewhere before? Server?? Where’d that word come from? These mixed-up memories were so confusing sometimes... I shook my skull, and pulled out some cobblestone. Reaching out carefully, I quickly built a crude staircase leading down for us to use instead of messing around with the gravel. “You’re good at that,” UltimateSword5 said. “Like ... you were a Minecraftian once or something.” I laughed. We slowly and quietly stepped down into the terrible tunnels. As soon as I set my bony foot on the hard bedrock floor, I heard the hiss of another spider, then, I remembered the creature that tried to chase me up the gravel last time I was here. As I pinpointed the glowing crimson arachnid eyes coming at me from a dark corner of the cavern, a chill fluttered up my bones when I remember that I had dropped gravel on that spider in my escape. It had glitched. There was another spider around here somewhere... “Spider!” I snapped quietly. Ulti ran down the stairs and stood next to me. As the red-eyed arachnid on the other side of the cavern charged at me, its clawed feet tearing at the stone and bedrock floor, Skonathan leapt down to stand in front of me! I suddenly
”
”
Skeleton Steve (Diary of Skeleton Steve, the Noob Years, Season 3 (Diary of Skeleton Steve, the Noob Years #13-18))
“
Those in the orbit of this benevolently narcissistic person may feel confused, since a mixed message is always projected: “I can do it all” and “you never do enough.” When others do not come through for her, she grows resentful and angry, quietly judging the other. Seething with resentment but unwilling to admit it, she ignores her own needs. Cut off from her heart, she becomes hardhearted, and in so doing may become cruel, manipulative, aggressive, and vindictive.
”
”
Chuck DeGroat (When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community From Emotional and Spiritual Abuse)
“
Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.
”
”
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
“
I thought I could control my drinking and drug use- I can stop anytime I want, I kept telling myself- but the last thing on my mind was quitting because by this point my drug use was all mixed up with feelings of inadequacy and confusion about who I was and who I wanted to be.
”
”
William Cope Moyers (Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption)
“
When we make the writer's acquaintance, we feel foolishly disappointed at not finding, in each moment of his presence, that essence and impeccable speech that we have become accustomed to designating by his name. So that's what he does with his time? So that's the ugly house he lives in? And these are his friends, the woman with whom he shares his life? These, his mediocre concerns? But all this is only reverie—or even envy and secret hate. One admires as one should only after having understood that there are not any supermen, that there is no man who does not have a man's life to live, and that the secret of the woman loved, of the writer, or of the
painter, does not lie in some realm beyond his empirical life, but is so mixed in with his mediocre experiences, so modestly confused with his perception of the world, that there can be no question of meeting it face to face apart from his life.
”
”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Signs)
“
Kevin awoke, not with the slow realization that came from regaining consciousness, nor with the startled gasp of a man having a nightmare, nor even the groan that was stereotypical of anime characters when they wake up—no, when Kevin woke up, it was to the feeling of a hand being shoved down his throat. His eyes snapped wide open. However, he still couldn’t see anything. His eyes perceived nothing beyond the amalgam of blurred colors, mixing and matching and morphing and changing, a sickening compendium that his mind couldn’t comprehend. Images flashed past his vision. A walk on the beach. Red hair. A swell. A raging torrent, an infinite tide of water rising into the sky, cresting against the heavens. He tried to cough, to hack, to something, but it was no use. The hand remained shoved firmly down his throat. And then it was gone. Kevin gagged, and then coughed out what must have been several gallons of water. Each cough wracked his body with pain. Each breath caused his ribs to creak. Even the slightest movement hurt. Something appeared in front of him. It was a blurry green object. What… the… heck? “I’m glad to see that you’re awake,” the shape said. Kevin blinked. “Tell me, how many fingers am I holding up?” “Fingers…” Was what he meant to say. “Fssshrrsss…” Was what he said. “Hmm, it seems your eyesight is a bit unfocused. Here, let me fix that for you.” Kevin would have asked what this object—person? — meant, but he never got the chance—because something smacked him in the head. Hard. “Ouch!” Kevin covered his face with his hands. Gods that hurt! What the hell was he just hit with? A mallet? “What the heck was that for, you crazy coot?!” “Ho? Can you see me now? How many fingers am I holding up?” Kevin was about to answer, but words fled when he realized who—no, what stood before him. Scaly green skin covered a small, squat body, clothed in a plain brown robe. This… thing stood with a stoop. It had a hunch of some kind, and Kevin was certain that the robe was covering something big attached to its back. A really long neck protruded from the robes, which was attached to a reptilian and very bald head. It was holding up three fingers. Mainly because it only had three fingers. “Holy crap, it’s a Ninja Turtle!” The “Ninja Turtle” twitched. “I am not a Ninja Turtle!” It shouted. “Don’t confuse those sea turtle rejects with me!” “Holy crap, it talks!” More twitching. “Of course I talk, you idiot!
”
”
Brandon Varnell (A Fox's Vacation (American Kitsune, #5))
“
He gave the illusion of being a gentleman, so friendly, yet he had not released her or moved even an inch to allow her to get by him. He inhaled, dragged her scent into his lungs. Suddenly his entire demeanor changed. His body stiffened. His fingers dug into her arm. White teeth gleamed a predator’s flash of warning. “Why did you not answer me when I spoke to you?” His words were low and menacing. The suave stranger was frightening.
“Let go of me.” She kept her voice even, her mind working at top speed, looking for a way out. He seemed to hold all the cards, but…
“Tell me who you are,” he demanded.
“Let go of me now.” She lowered her voice, pitched it to a soft, hypnotic melody. “You want to let me go.”
The stranger shook his head, his eyes narrowing, recognizing the hint of compulsion in her voice. He inhaled a second time, drinking in her fragrance. At once his face seemed to go still. “I recognize that scent. Jacques. He is dead these seven years, yet his blood runs in your veins.” His voice crawled with deadly threat.
For a moment she was frozen with fear. Was this the betrayer Jacques had spoken of? Shea swung her head sideways to remove his fingers from her chin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Let go of me now!”
Byron let out his breath in a low, venomous hiss. “If you wish to see another night, you will tell me what you have done with him.”
“You’re hurting me.” He was drawing closer, leaning toward her neck, bending her backward like a bow as she tried to elude him. His breath was hot on her throat, and Shea gasped as she felt needle-sharp teeth pierce her skin. With a low cry she jerked sideways, her heart pounding.
Without warning he caught at the neckline of her shirt to examine the bruises at her throat. She could feel his puzzlement, his confusion. Shea took advantage of his momentarily distraction. As hard as she was able, she brought up her knee and screamed for all she was worth. Byron looked so shocked, she nearly laughed. He had been absolutely certain she wouldn’t want attention drawn to her. His hiss, a deadly promise of retaliation, was the last thing she heard before he melted away.
And he literally melted away. Shea never saw him move. One moment he was there, his body trapping hers against the wall, and then he was gone. A fine mist was mixing with the layers of fog covering the ground to about knee level.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
I don’t move, feeling disoriented by the rapid shift of events that have taken place over the last few minutes. Embarrassment, anger, hurt, and confusion swirl and mix with the remnants of lust.
”
”
C.W. Farnsworth (Four Months, Three Words (Months, Words, Decisions, Duty, #1))