β
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).
β
β
Mark Twain
β
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
β
β
George Bernard Shaw
β
The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
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β
Groucho Marx
β
I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
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β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Weβre all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdnessβand call it loveβtrue love.
β
β
Robert Fulghum (True Love)
β
Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Critic As Artist: With Some Remarks on the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything (Green Integer))
β
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
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β
Roald Dahl
β
If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.
β
β
Roald Dahl
β
You cannot find peace by avoiding life.
β
β
Michael Cunningham (The Hours)
β
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
β
β
Plato
β
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.
β
β
Jack Kerouac (The Dharma Bums)
β
What's meant to be will always find a way
β
β
Trisha Yearwood
β
I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.
β
β
David Sedaris (Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays)
β
One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
β
β
Stephen Hawking
β
Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.
β
β
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
β
Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.
β
β
Christopher Paolini (Eragon (Inheritance, #1))
β
I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.
β
β
Katie McGarry (Take Me On (Pushing the Limits, #4))
β
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
β
β
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
β
This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.
β
β
Sylvia Plath
β
The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.
β
β
Ernest Hemingway
β
The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)
β
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
β
β
Henri J.M. Nouwen (Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)
β
but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
β
β
Jane Austen
β
A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.
β
β
Max Lucado
β
Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
β
Find what you love and let it kill you.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.
Then write. If it's good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out of the window.
β
β
William Faulkner
β
Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youβve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you canβt wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid itβs like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didnβt exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long dayβs work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, thereβs no need for continuous conversation, but you find youβre quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that thereβs a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure thatβs so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.
β
β
Mo Willems (Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs)
β
Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
β
β
William Shakespeare (The Passionate Pilgrim (By Shakspere, Marlowe, Barnfield, Griffin, And Other Writers Unknown))
β
Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
β
β
Pablo Neruda
β
Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!
β
β
Emily BrontΓ« (Wuthering Heights)
β
Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.
β
β
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
β
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
β
β
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
β
The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.
β
β
Bette Midler
β
When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
β
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
β
β
T.S. Eliot
β
One day you will kiss a man you can't breathe without, and find that breath is of little consequence.
β
β
Karen Marie Moning (Bloodfever (Fever, #2))
β
Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2))
β
For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea.
β
β
E.E. Cummings (100 Selected Poems)
β
When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.
β
β
Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)
β
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
β
β
Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)
β
I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.
β
β
Benjamin Alire SΓ‘enz (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1))
β
Life isn't finding shelter in the storm. It's about learning to dance in the rain.
β
β
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Acheron (Dark-Hunter, #14))
β
If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she won't be amazing. If she's worth it, you wont give up. If you give up, you're not worthy. ... Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.
β
β
Bob Marley (Bob Marley: Guitar Chord Songbook (Guitar Chord Songbooks))
β
When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (Brida)
β
The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but itβs much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours
β
β
Kinky Friedman
β
You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
β
Let us find the dam snack bar," Zoe said. "We should eat while we can."
Grover cracked a smile. "The dam snack bar?"
Zoe blinked. "Yes. What is funny?"
"Nothing," Grover said, trying to keep a straight face. "I could use some dam french fries."
Even Thalia smiled at that. "And I need to use the dam restroom."
...
I started cracking up, and Thalia and Grover joined in, while Zoe just looked at me. "I do not understand."
"I want to use the dam water fountain," Grover said.
"And..." Thalia tried to catch her breath. "I want to buy a dam t-shirt.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Titanβs Curse (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #3))
β
What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
β
β
Alan Bennett (The Uncommon Reader)
β
My soul will find yours.
β
β
Jude Deveraux (A Knight in Shining Armor (Montgomery/Taggert Family, #13))
β
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives--or to find strength in a very long one.
β
β
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
β
Sometimes you have to lose all you have to find out who you truly are.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks
β
Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.
β
β
Edna St. Vincent Millay
β
A childhood without books β that would be no childhood. That would be like being shut out from the enchanted place where you can go and find the rarest kind of joy.
β
β
Astrid Lindgren
β
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.
β
β
Rebecca West
β
And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utterβ they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
β
A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
β
β
John Muir
β
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
I love mankind, he said, "but I find to my amazement that the more I love mankind as a whole, the less I love man in particular.
β
β
Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)
β
If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity β only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy
β
β
Robert G. Ingersoll
β
Finnick?" I say, "Maybe some pants?"
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown leaving him in just his underwear. "Why? Do you find this" -- he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose -- "distracting?"
I laugh. Boggs looks embarrassed and Finnick looks more like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
β
Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?"
"Of course there are. Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are."
"What about mummies? Do they only hang around Egypt?"
"Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them
β
β
Thomas Merton (No Man Is an Island)
β
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge youβll never walk alone.
...
We leave you a tradition with a future.
The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.
People even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.
Never throw out anybody.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, youβll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Your βgood old daysβ are still ahead of you, may you have many of them.
β
β
Sam Levenson (In One Era & Out the Other)
β
It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
β
But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
β
I don't want tea," said Clary, with muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them."
"Unfortunately," said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien
β
You see, cuckoos are parasites. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the egg hatches, the baby cuckoo pushes the other baby birds out of the nest. The poor parent birds work themselves to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places."
"Enormous?" said Jace. "Did you just call me fat?"
"It was an analogy."
"I am not fat.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
β
Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said..."As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar.
β
β
Cornelia Funke (Inkspell (Inkworld, #2))
β
When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I have something I need to tell you," he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and look back at him. "I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."
"That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."
I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing my ear.
"Maybe I'm already sure," he says, "and I just don't want to frighten you."
I laugh a little. "Then you should know better."
"Fine," he says. "Then I love you.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
β
People come, people go β theyβll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures. Then you find yourself focusing on the new ones, not the ones from the past.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Rescue)
β
Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from themβif you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.
β
β
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
β
You wonβt understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you areβnot smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgivingβand then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how badβor goodβit might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.
β
β
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
β
Weβre all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if youβve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect thereβs no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isnβt until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problemsβthe ones that make you truly who you areβthat weβre ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what youβre looking for. Youβre looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong personβsomeone you lovingly gaze upon and think, βThis is the problem I want to have.β
I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.
β
β
Andrew Boyd (Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe)
β
In time, the hurt began to fade and it was easier to just let it go. At least I thought it was. But in every boy I met in the next few years, I found myself looking for you, and when the feelings got too strong, I'd write you another letter. But I never sent them for fear of what I might find. By then, you'd gone on with your life and I didn't want to think about you loving someone else. I wanted to remember us like we were that summer. I didn't ever want to lose that.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
For what itβs worth: itβs never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. Thereβs no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life youβre proud of. If you find that youβre not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.
β
β
Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay)
β
Dare to Be
When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When youβre feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as youβve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can β
At all times, Dare to be!
β
β
Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
β¨Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.
β
β
Janet Fitch (White Oleander)
β
God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.
β
β
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
β
You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. Youβll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. Sheβs the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? Thatβs the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
Sheβs the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because sheβs kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the authorβs making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyceβs Ulysses sheβs just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
Itβs easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, sheβs going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Sheβll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time sheβs sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasnβt burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then youβre better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
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Rosemarie Urquico
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I was thinking about the first time I ever saw you," he said, "and how after that I couldn't forget you. I wanted to, but I couldn't stop myself. I forced Hodge to let me be the one who came to find you and bring you back to the Institue. And even back then, in that stupid coffee shop, when I saw you sitting on that couch with Simon, even then that felt wrong to me-- I should have been the one sitting with you. The one who made you laugh like that. I couldn't get rid of that feeling. That it should have been me. And the more I knew you, the more I felt it--it had never been like that for me before. I'd always wanted a girl and then gotten to know her and not wanted her anymore, but with you the feeling just got stronger and stronger until that night when you showed up at Renwick's and I knew.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
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Isabelle drifted over, Jace a pace behind her. She was wearing a long black dress with boots and an even longer cutaway coat of soft green velvet, the color of moss. "I can't believe you did it!" she exclaimed. "How did you get Magnus to let Jace leave?"
"Traded him for Alec," Clary said.
Isabelle looked mildly alarmed. "Not permanently?"
"No," said Jace. "Just for a few hours. Unless I don't come back," he added thoughtfully. "In which case, maybe he does get to keep Alec. Think of it as a lease with an option to buy."
Isabelle looked dubious. "Mom and Dad won't be pleased if they find out."
"That you freed a possible criminal by trading away your brother to a warlock who looks like a gay Sonic the Hedgehog and dresses like the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?" Simon inquired. "No, probably not.
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
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Miguel Ruiz
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The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.
Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?
We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.
They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth.
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George R.R. Martin