Locks And Key Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Locks And Key. Here they are! All 100 of them:

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He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the story. But I forgot to tell him that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key. He was the one who let me out.
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
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It's a lot easier to be lost than found. It's the reason we're always searching and rarely discovered--so many locks not enough keys.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Do you ever think if people heard our conversations they'd lock us up?" All the time.
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Wendy Mass (Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life)
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Everyone has their weak spot. The one thing that, despite your best efforts, will always bring you to your knees, regardless of how strong you are otherwise.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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We can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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funny how a beautiful song could tell such a sad story
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. We had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, and the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You can't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build your world from it.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
So I placed my heart under lock and key To take some time, and take care of me But I turn around and you're standing here
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Deborah Cox
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Family isn’t something that’s supposed to be static, or set. People marry in, divorce out. They’re born, they die. It’s always evolving, turning into something else.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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The three of you have one solution to every problem. Murder. No key fits every lock.” Cardan gives us all a stern look, holding up a long-fingered hand with my stolen ruby ring still on one finger. β€œSomeone tries to betray the High King, murder. Someone gives you a harsh look, murder. Someone disrespects you, murder. Someone ruins your laundry, murder.
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Holly Black (The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2))
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Only a weak person needed someone else around all the time.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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If you expect the worst, you'll never be disappointed.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Look, the point is there's no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you're left with a choice. Either hope for the best or just expect the worst.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Not everything's perfect, especially in the beginning. And its all right to have a little bit of regret every once in a while. It's when you feel it all the time and can't do anything about it... that's when you get into trouble
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn't happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they're important ones... you might as well hold on to them. You know?
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Every locked door has a key. Every problem has a solution.
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Marie Lu (Warcross (Warcross, #1))
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Isn't it funny how the memories you cherish before a breakup can become your worst enemies afterwards? The thoughts you loved to think about, the memories you wanted to hold up to the light and view from every angle--it suddenly seems a lot safer to lock them in a box, far from the light of day and throw away the key. It's not an act of bitterness. It's an act if self-preservation. It's not always a bad idea to stay behind the window and look out at life instead, is it?
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Ally Condie (First Day)
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I just don't know," I said, my voice sounding bumby, not like mine, "how do you help someone who doesn't want your help. What do you do when you can't do anything?
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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It is better to lock up your heart with a merciless padlock, than to fall in love with someone who doesn't know what they mean to you.
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Michael Bassey Johnson (The Infinity Sign)
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To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.
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Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
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This is exactly what i wanted, as commitments had never really been my thing. And it wasn't like it was hard, either. The only trick was never giving more than you were willing to lose.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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If you didn't always have to choose between turning away for good or rushing in deeper. In the moments that it really counts, maybe it's enough - more than enough, even - just to be there.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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The worst thing you can do if you miss or need someone is let them know it.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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The further you go, the more you have to be proud of. At the same time, in order to come a long way, you have to be behind to begin with. IN the end, though maybe it's not how you reach a place that matters. Just that you get there at all.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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You are mine,I am yours; you may be sure of this. You've been locked inside my heart, the key has been thrown away; within it, you must always stay.
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Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle)
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Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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He was not my boyfriend. On the other hand, he wasn't just a friend either. Instead, our relationship was elastic, stretching between those two extremes depending on who else was around, how much either of us had to drink, and other varying factors. This was exactly what I wanted, as commitments had never really been my thing. And it wasn't like it was hard, either. The only trick was never giving more than you were willing to lose.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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But I forgot to tell him,” I said quietly, opening the door, β€œthat the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key.” β€œOh?” I shrugged. β€œHe was the one who let me out.”.
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Sarah J. Maas
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Total commitment," I said. "You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.
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Richard Bach
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That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Hey, and for what it's worth? Friends don't leave you alone in the woods. Friends are the ones who come and take you out.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different," Sazed said. "Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.
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Brandon Sanderson (The Well of Ascension (Mistborn, #2))
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It was like discovering that some part of you wasn't yours at all. And it made me wonder what else I couldn't claim.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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You are your master. Only you have the master keys to open the inner locks.
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Amit Ray (Meditation: Insights and Inspirations)
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The mold in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it -- made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand.
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C.S. Lewis (The Problem of Pain)
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You have to take risks, he said. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen. Every day, God gives us the sun--and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day, we try to pretend that we haven't perceived that moment, that it doesn't exist--that today is the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if people really pay attention to their everyday lives, they will discover that magic moment. It may arrive in the instant when we are doing something mundane, like putting our front-door key in the lock; it may lie hidden in the quiet that follows the lunch hour or in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. But that moment exists--a moment when all the power of the stars becomes a part of us and enables us to perform miracles.
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Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)
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Like I, of all people, didn't know better than to lead a total stranger to the point where they could hurt me most, knowing how easily they'd be able to find their way back to it.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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We're always contradicting ourselves. We want people to tell us apart.... ...yet we don't want them to be able to. We want people to get to know us... ...but we also want them to keep their distance. We've always longed for someone to accept us... But we never believed there'd be anyone who would accept our twisted ways. That's why we'll stay locked up tight... ...in our own little private world... ...and throw away the key, so that no one can ever hurt us.
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Bisco Hatori (Ouran High School Host Club, Vol. 9 (Ouran High School Host Club, #9))
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The best gifts come from the heart, not the store.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Sure, it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened- good, bad, or anywhere in between- it was always, if nothing else, all your own.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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With my mom, when someone was gone, they were gone. She didn't waste another minute thinking about them, and neither should you.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Sometimes fate or life or whatever you want to call it, leaves a door a little open and you walk through it. But sometimes it locks the door and you have to find the key, or pick the lock, or knock the damn thing down. And sometimes, it doesn't even show you the door, and you have to build it yourself. But if you keep waiting for the doors to be opened for you... I think you'll have a hard time finding single happiness, let alone that double portion.
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Gayle Forman (Just One Year (Just One Day, #2))
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All the time I’ve knowed you, Jack, you kept the door to that heart of yers locked up tight an the key hid away. Looks like she found it. He says nothing. Molly waits. Then: Keys ain’t her style, he says. She kicked the door down.
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Moira Young (Rebel Heart (Dust Lands, #2))
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There is a false saying: β€œHow can someone who can’t save himself save others?” Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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At the same time, though, I was beginning to wonder if this was just how it was supposed to be for me, like perhaps I wasn't capable of having that many people in my life at any one time. My mom turned up, Nate walked away, one door opening as another clicked shut.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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There comes a point when things are undeniable and can't be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Whenever something great happens, you’re always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Too many locks, not enough keys.
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Sarah Dessen
β€œ
Portrait: The Boy with All the Keys in the World with All the Locks
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Jandy Nelson (I'll Give You the Sun)
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We both know the limits of this relationship. It's understood. And as long as we're both comfortablewith that, nobody get's hurt. It's basic.' ~Oliva, pg 374
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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The only trick was never giving more that you were willing to lose.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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When he stopped walking and kissed me a few minutes later, it was like time had stopped, with the air, my heart, and the world all so still. And it was this I remembered every other time I was with Marshall.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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You get what you give, but also what you're willing to take. The night before, I'd offered up my hand. Now, if I held on, there was no telling what it was possible to recieve in return.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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If I try to summon back his face, the sound of his voice, and the sensation in my stomach like a key turning in a lock when he touched me, I lose everything.
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Joyce Carol Oates (First Love: A Gothic Tale)
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Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.
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Julio CortΓ‘zar (Around the Day in Eighty Worlds)
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You don't have to make things harder then they have to be just to prove a point.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Go ahead. You're not going to walk in on anyone. I'm home alone." "The whole night?" Immediately, I realized it might not have been the smartest thing to say. "Dorothea will be coming soon." That was a lie. Dorothea was long gone. It was close to midnight. "Dorothea?" "Our housekeeper. She's old- but strong. Very strong." I tried to squeeze past him. Unsuccessfully. "Sounds frightening," he said, retrieving the key from the lock. He held it out for me. "She can clean a toilet inside and out in under a minute. More like terrifying.
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Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1))
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Don't ever have children, Tyler, unless you're ready to be afraid everyday for the rest of your life.
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Joe Hill (Locke & Key, Vol. 3: Crown of Shadows)
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Like it takes so little not only to change something, but to make you forget the way it once was, as well.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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I am living in hell from one day to the next. But there is nothing I can do to escape. I don't know where I would go if I did. I feel utterly powerless, and that feeling is my prision. I entered of my own free will, I locked the door, and I threw away the key.
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Haruki Murakami
β€œ
Look,” he said, β€œthe point is there’s no way to be a hundred percent sure about anyone or anything. So you’re left with a choice. Either hope for the best, or just expect the worst.” If you expect the worst, you’re never disappointed,” I pointed out. Yeah, but who lives like that?
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Sarah Dessen
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where do all the memories go, the ones we hide away with lock & key yet continue to shape us all the s a m e? "- did it really happen if i can't remember it?
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Amanda Lovelace (The Princess Saves Herself in This One (Women Are Some Kind of Magic, #1))
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Loving someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.
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Fredrik Backman (A Man Called Ove)
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But risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
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William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
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Nate: β€œAnd,” he said, β€œboys at twelve aren’t exactly slick with the ladies.” Ruby: β€œβ€™Slick with the ladies’?” I said. β€œAre you twelve?
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Sarah Dessen
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And the rest is history,' I said. Nah.' He shook his head. 'The rest is now.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.
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Warsan Shire
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Books Fall Open Books fall open, you fall in, delighted where, you've never been. Hear voices not once heard before, Reach world through world, through door on door. Find unexpected keys to things, locked up beyond imaginings…. True books will venture, Dare you out, Whisper secrets, Maybe shout, across the gloom, to you in need Who hanker for a book to read.
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David T.W. McCord
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A lot can change between planning something and actually doing it. But maybe all that really matters is that anything is different at all.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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A man who is of 'sound mind' is one who keeps his inner madman under lock and key.
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Paul ValΓ©ry
β€œ
Theres this other half of him i dont know of, its like he is trying it keep it a secret.... if he would just let me inside so i can help
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. "You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone." Yeah," he said adding some cheese straws to the cart, "but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't." I picked up a box of cheese straws, examining it. "Yeah," I said. "But it's not all about chance, either.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. Each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. What we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. Suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. The fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. All along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. But now you find that it's the key.
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David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
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We all have one idea of what the color blue is, but pressed to describe it specifically, there are so many ways: the ocean, lapis lazuli, the sky, someone's eyes. Our definitions are as different as we are ourselves.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
Still, there was also was something reassuring about working for Commercial, almost hopeful. Like things that were lost could be found again. As we drove away, I always tried to imagine what it would be like to open your door to find something you had given up on.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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In silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and watch how the pattern improves." "You suppose you are the trouble But you are the cure You suppose that you are the lock on the door But you are the key that opens it It's too bad that you want to be someone else You don't see your own face, your own beauty Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours." "Only from the heart Can you touch the sky." "People of the world don't look at themselves, and so they blame one another." "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.
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Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β€œ
Okay. Enough." I got out of the closet, brushing myself off, then turned around to face her. "This is happening. So you need to go downstairs, face your fears, and make the best of it, and everything will be okay." She narrowed her eyes at me. "When did you suddenly become so positive?" "Just get out of there.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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I always tried to imagine what it would be like to open your door to find something you had given up on. maybe it had seen places you never had, been rerouted and passed through so many strange hands, but still somehow found its way back to you, all before the day even began.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
I found something" Simon said as he walked in. He whipped out an old-fashioned key from his pocket and grinned at me. "It was taped to the back of my dresser drawer. What do you think? Buried treasure? Secret passageway? Locked room where they keep crazy old Aunt Edna?" "It probaly unlocks another dresser," Tori said. "One they threw out fifty years ago." "Its tragic, being born without an imagination. Do they hold telethons for that?
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Kelley Armstrong (The Reckoning (Darkest Powers, #3))
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Jealousyβ€”at least as far as he understood it from his dreamβ€”was the most hopeless prison in the world. Jealousy was not a place he was forced into by someone else, but a jail in which the inmate entered voluntarily, locked the door, and threw away the key. And not another soul in the world knew he was locked inside. Of course if he wanted to escape he could do so. The prison, was after all, his own heart. But he couldn't make that decision. His heart was as hard as a stone wall. This was the very essence of jealousy.
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Haruki Murakami (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage)
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I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be one of so many, to have not just parents and siblings but cousins and aunts and uncles, an entire tribe to claim as your own. Maybe you would feel lost in the crowd. Or sheltered by it. Whatever the case, one things was for sure: like it or not, you'd never be alone.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
Each life has a different purpose, and some people can find their purpose more easily than others. The key, the most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that's not your only choice" "No matter why you're here, no matter why any of us are here, you're never tied down to fate. You're never locked in. You make your own choices, Kira, and you can't let anyone ever take that away from you.
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Dan Wells (Partials (Partials Sequence, #1))
β€œ
My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
Closing his eyes, he sent up a prayer to anyone who was listening, asking please, for God's sake, stop sending him signals that they were right for each other. He'd read that book, seen the movie, bought the soundtrack, the DVD, the T-shirt, the mug, the bobble-head, and the insider's guide. He knew every reason they could have been lock and key. But just as he was aware of all that aligned them, he was even clearer on how they were damned to be ever apart.
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J.R. Ward (Lover Mine (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #8))
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He put on his hat and wrapped his scarf around his jaw, but did without the wig and the sunglasses. He clicked his key chain and the car beeped and the doors locked. "That's it?" He looked up. "Sorry?" "Aren't you afraid it might get stolen? We're not exactly in a good part of town." "It's got a car alarm." "Don't you, like, cast a spell or something? To keep it safe?" "No. It's a pretty good car alarm.
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Derek Landy (Skulduggery Pleasant (Skulduggery Pleasant, #1))
β€œ
The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ's words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism - for that is what the words 'one flesh' would be in modern English. And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact - just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument.
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C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)
β€œ
Family," she announced. "They're the people in your life you don't get to pick. The ones that are given to you,as opposed to those you get to choose." "You're bound to them by blood," she continued, her voice flat. "Which, you know, gives you that much more in common. Diseases, genetics, hair, and eye color. It's like they're part of your blueprint. If something's wrong with you, you can usually trace it back to them." I nodded and kept writing. "But," she said, "even though you're stuck with them, at the same time, they're also stuck with you. So that's why they always get the front rows at christenings and funerals. Because they're the ones that are there, you know, from the beginning to the end. Like it or not.
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
β€œ
Now do you understand why I'm interested in you? You're a locked door, sweetheart. You give no one a key and you never answer the door when anyone knocks...Ah, but sometimes, sometimes I get a peek through the keyhole and what I find there...It's like glimpsing you as you're stripping. Underneath all of that darkness is something hungry, something desperate, something, oh, so deliciously vulnerable.
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Tricia Owens (Fearless Leader (Juxtapose City #1))
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What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless. It wasn't just about blood relations or shared chromosomes, but something wider, bigger. Cora was right- we had many families over time. Our family of origin, the family we created, as well as the groups you moved through while all of this was happening: friends, lovers, sometimes even strangers. None of them were perfect, and we couldn't expect them to be. You couldn't make any one person your world. The trick was to take what each could give you and build a world from it. So my true family was not just my mom, lost or found; my dad, gone from the start; and Cora, the only one who had really been there all along. It was Jamie, who took me in without question and gave me a future I once couldn't even imagine; Oliva, who did question, but also gave me answers; Harriet, who, like me, believed she needed no one and discovered otherwise. And then there was Nate. Nate, who was a friend to me before I even knew what a friend was. Who picked me up, literally, over and over again, and never asked for anything in return except for my word and my understanding. I'd given him one but not the other, because at the time I thought I couldn't, and then proved myself right by doing exactly as my mother had, hurting to prevent from being hurt myself. Needing was so easy: it came naturally, like breathing. Being needed by someone else, though, that was the hard part. But as with giving help and accepting it, we had to do both to be made complete- like links overlapping to form a chain, or a lock finding the right key. ~Ruby (pgs 400-401)
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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I was only then, when I knew I was alone, at least for the moment, that I reached under my gown into the pocket of my dress. As I pulled out my key from the yellow house, which I'd kept on my bureau since the day Nate left, I traced the shape one last time before folding my hand tightly around it. Behind me, Cora was calling again. My family was waiting. Looking down at the pond, all I could think was that it is an incredible thing, how a whole world can rise from what seems like nothing at all. I stepped closer to the edge, keeping my eyes on my reflection as I dropped the key into the water, where it landed with a splash. At first, the fish darted away, but as it began to sink they circled back, gathering around. Together, they followed it down, down until it was gone.<3
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Sarah Dessen (Lock and Key)
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Before our white brothers came to civilize us we had no jails. Therefore we had no criminals. You can't have criminals without a jail. We had no locks or keys, and so we had no thieves. If a man was so poor that he had no horse, tipi or blanket, someone gave him these things. We were too uncivilized to set much value on personal belongings. We wanted to have things only in order to give them away. We had no money, and therefore a man's worth couldn't be measured by it. We had no written law, no attorneys or politicians, therefore we couldn't cheat. We really were in a bad way before the white men came, and I don't know how we managed to get along without these basic things which, we are told, are absolutely necessary to make a civilized society.
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John Fire Lame Deer (Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions)
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There is going to come a time when we have to accept who we are without the assistance of religion. That will be the dawn of true faith. We leave the big decisions to invisible consultants and pray we get the answers we are looking for. The late great George Carlin once said he gave up praying to God and started praying to Joe Pesci because his prayers to Joe Pesci were answered with as much accuracy and frequency as those to God. [...] If we as people are still looking for answers, we should turn our eyes away from the heavens and look to each other. I know we do not play well together - hell, some of us do not even like being in the same room with each other - but the divine lies in all of us. We are miracles. We are "god." If we shared a little more, we would not be left feeling less. We hold the keys to our own destinies. It is time we started looking for the locks.
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Corey Taylor (Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good)
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When I was in college, a teacher once said that all women live by a β€˜rape schedule.’ I was baffled by the term, but as she went on to explain, I got really freaked out. Because I realized that I knew exactly what she was talking about. And you do too. Because of their constant fear of rape (conscious or not), women do things throughout the day to protect themselves. Whether it’s carrying our keys in our hands as we walk home, locking our car doors as soon as we get in, or not walking down certain streets, we take precautions. While taking precautions is certainly not a bad idea, the fact that certain things women do are so ingrained into our daily routines is truly disturbing. It’s essentially like living in a prison – all the time. We can’t assume that we’re safe anywhere: not on the streets, not in our homes. And we’re so used to feeling unsafe that we don’t even see that there’s something seriously fucked up about it.
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Jessica Valenti (Full Frontal Feminism)
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I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.' Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.
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Jackson Katz (The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help (How to End Domestic Violence, Mental and Emotional Abuse, and Sexual Harassment))
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Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
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John Fire Lame Deer
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Late in the afternoon, thunder growling, that same old green pickup rolled in and he saw Jack get out of the truck, beat up Resistol tilted back. A hot jolt scalded Ennis and he was out on the landing pulling the door closed behind him. Jack took the stairs two and two. They seized each other by the shoulders, hugged mightily, squeezing the breath out of each other, saying, son of a bitch, son of a bitch, then, and easily as the right key turns the lock tumblers, their mouths came together, and hard, Jack’s big teeth bringing blood, his hat falling to the floor, stubble rasping, wet saliva welling, and the door opening and Alma looking out for a few seconds at Ennis’s straining shoulders and shutting the door again and still they clinched, pressing chest and groin and thigh and leg together, treading on each other’s toes until they pulled apart to breathe and Ennis, not big on endearments, said what he said to his horses and his daughters, little darlin.
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Annie Proulx (Brokeback Mountain)