“
Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
”
”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“
Love is a verb, not a noun. It is active. Love is not just feelings of passion and romance. It is behavior. If a man lies to you, he is behaving badly and unlovingly toward you. He is disrespecting you and your relationship. The words “I love you” are not enough to make up for that. Don’t kid yourself that they are.
”
”
Susan Forward (When Your Lover Is a Liar: Healing the Wounds of Deception and Betrayal)
“
I believe in love the verb, not the noun.
”
”
Greg Behrendt (He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys)
“
Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek.
”
”
Terry Tempest Williams (Leap)
“
This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me. What can i do?"
"The feeling isn't there anymore?" I asked.
"That's right," he reaffirmed. "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?"
"love her," I replied.
"I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore."
"Love her."
"You don't understand. the feeling of love just isn't there."
"Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."
"But how do you love when you don't love?"
"My friend , love is a verb. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
Love as a verb. Love as a commitment.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Love the One You're With)
“
And what is a kiss, specifically? A pledge properly sealed, a promise seasoned to taste, a vow stamped with the immediacy of a lip, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love.' A kiss is a message too intimate for the ear, infinity captured in the bee's brief visit to a flower, secular communication with an aftertaste of heaven, the pulse rising from the heart to utter its name on a lover's lip: 'Forever.
”
”
Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac)
“
The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet al the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
how can I say 'I love you', if I know the love is you .. the word 'love' either as a verb or a noun would be destroyed in front of you
”
”
Jacques Derrida
“
The French verb aimer has two meanings. And that’s why he liked her, and loved her. She spoke to him in a language that, no matter how hard you studied it, could not be completely understood.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Love is not a state of enthusiasm. It's a verb. It implies action, demonstration, ritual, practices, communication, expression. It's the ability to take responsibility of one's own behavior. Responsibility is freedom.
”
”
Natasha Lunn (Conversations on Love)
“
El verbo leer, como el verbo amar y el verbo soñar, no soporta ‘el modo imperativo’. Yo siempre les aconsejé a mis estudiantes que si un libro los aburre lo dejen; que no lo lean porque es famoso, que no lean un libro porque es moderno, que no lean un libro porque es antiguo. La lectura debe ser una de las formas de la felicidad y no se puede obligar a nadie a ser feliz.
The verb reading, like the verb to love and the verb dreaming, doesn't bear the imperative mode. I always advised to my students that if a book bores them leave it; That they don't read it because it's famous, that they don't read a book because it's modern, that they don't read a book because it's antique. The reading should be one of the ways of happiness and nobody can be obliged to be happy.
”
”
Jorge Luis Borges
“
English loves to stay out all night dancing with other languages, all decked out in sparkling prepositions and irregular verbs. It is unruly and will not obey—just when you think you have it in hand, it lets down its hair along with a hundred nonsensical exceptions.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Fairyland, #4))
“
Evident in every small act of kindness, it was love as a verb. Love that made me feel more complete than I had ever felt in my glamorous, Jimmy Choo filled past.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Blue (Darcy & Rachel, #2))
“
A kiss, when all is told, what is it? An oath taken a little closer, a promise more exact. A wish that longs to be confirmed, a rosy circle drawn around the verb 'to love'. A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear, a moment of infinity humming like a bee, a communion tasting of flowers, a way of breathing in a little of the heart and tasting a little of the soul with the edge of the lips!
”
”
Edmond Rostand (Cyrano de Bergerac)
“
...and love, as an act, lacks a verb
”
”
Joseph Brodsky (Collected Poems in English)
“
I have always thought of love as more than just a feeling. To me love is a verb, an action you engage in every day through the things you do for those you cherish.
”
”
Jenny Sanford (Staying True)
“
This is not the time to be passive. This is the time to shape, sculpt, paint, participate… the time to get sweaty, to get dirty, to fall in love, to forgive, to forget, to hug, to kiss… this is the time to experience, participate and live your life as a verb.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
Badassery: 1. (noun) the practice of knowing one’s own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one’s own accomplishments and gifts and celebrating one’s own accomplishments and gifts; 2. (noun) the practice of living life with swagger : SWAGGER (noun or verb) a state of being that involves loving oneself, waking up “like this” and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks about you. Term first coined by William Shakespeare.
”
”
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
“
Every romantic knows that love was never a noun; it is a verb.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Love is not a noun.
Love is something you do.
Something you prove.
Something you work hard to create.
Love is not something that simply exists because you say it.
Love it not a noun.
Love is a verb.
”
”
Jay McLean (Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet, #1))
“
Can verbs be made up? I'll tell you one. I heaven you, so my wings will open wide to love you boundlessly.
”
”
Frida Kahlo
“
I learned that love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive.
”
”
J.T. Geissinger (Pen Pal)
“
Love is a choice I've made. A verb. And that, because I believe in it, because I act on it is real. Love is a very real thing to me.
”
”
Cynthia Hand (The Last Time We Say Goodbye)
“
They waited for the elevator. " Most people love butterflies and hate moth," he said. "But moths are more interesting - more engaging."
"They're destructive."
"Some are, a lot are, but they live in all kinds of ways. Just like we do." Silence for one floor.
"There's a moth, more than one in fact, that lives only on tears," he offered. "That's all they eat or drink."
"What kind of tears? Whose tears?"
"The tears of large land mammals, about our size.
The old definition of moth was, 'anything that gradually, silently eats, consumes, or wages any other thing.'
It was a verb for destruction too. . . .
”
”
Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs (Hannibal Lecter, #2))
“
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas
where we would dive for pearls. My lover’s words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer’s hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -
I hold him in the casket of my widow’s head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
- Anne Hathaway
”
”
Carol Ann Duffy (The World's Wife)
“
...she had always known under her mind and now she confessed it: her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the word 'we' - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End)
“
My relationship stays strong because I serenade her with my actions and I write poetry in her heart with my deeds. My endless love is expressed with more than just my words; my love is lived as a verb.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
“
I," she [the Holy Spirit] opened her hands to include Jesus and Papa, "I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb! I am alive, dynamic, ever active and moving. I am a being verb. And as my very essence is a verb, I am more attuned to verbs than nouns. Verbs such as confessing, repenting, living, loving, responding, growing, reaping, changing, sowing, running, dancing, singing, and on and on. Humans, on the other hand, have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun or principle that reeks of rules. Nouns exist because there is a created universe and physical reality, but the universe is only a mass of nouns, it is dead. Unless 'I am' there are no verbs and verbs are what makes the universe alive.
”
”
William Paul Young (The Shack)
“
After the verb "to love,", "to help" is the most beautiful verb in the world.
”
”
Bertha von Suttner
“
Refrain from feeling sorry for the abuser as this is not love. Love is a verb. Love acts as love is.
”
”
Kelly Markey (Don't Just Fly, SOAR: The Inspiration and tools you need to rise above adversity and create a life by design)
“
Love is a word that is constantly heard,
Hate is a word that is not.
Love, I am told, is more precious that gold.
Love, I have read, is hot.
But hate is the verb that to me is superb,
And love but a drug on the mart.
Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,
But hating, my boy, is an art.
”
”
Ogden Nash (The Best of Ogden Nash)
“
My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive. But most of all, love means sacrifice. Whatever love asks of you must be given, no matter the price.
”
”
J.T. Geissinger (Pen Pal)
“
Proactive people make love a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a newborn into the world... Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions. Proactive people subordinate feeling to values. Love, the feeling, can be recaptured.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
In my old age, I have come to believe that love is not a noun but a verb. An action. Like water, it flows to its own current. If you were to corner it in a dam, true love is so bountiful it would flow over. Even in separation, even in death, it moves and changes. It lives within memory, in the haunting of a touch, the transience of a smell, or the nuance of a sigh. It seeks to leave a trace like a fossil in the sand, a leaf burning into baking asphalt.
”
”
Alyson Richman (The Lost Wife)
“
and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead.
”
”
Bram Stoker
“
Love won’t allow you to bear burdens alone. — Tina Givens —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, unending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues—it is a continuum. It is a verb, not a noun. And why do we reduce the beauty of relating to relationship? Why are we in such a hurry? Because to relate is insecure, and relationship is a security. Relationship has a certainty; relating is just a meeting of two strangers, maybe just an overnight stay and in the morning we say goodbye. Who knows what is going to happen tomorrow? And we are so afraid that we want to make it certain, we want to make it predictable. We would like tomorrow to be according to our ideas; we don’t allow it freedom to have its own say. So we immediately reduce every verb to a noun. You
”
”
Osho (Love, Freedom, and Aloneness: On Relationships, Sex, Meditation, and Silence)
“
The word "seek" is a verb. Are you treating it as such in your life? If you seek change, success, or love, DO it - BE it!
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
Sean Chercover (The Trinity Game (Daniel Byrne #1))
“
Je pense que je t'aime, she'd said numerically--'I think that I like you.' Or, 'I think that I love you.' The French verb aimer has two meanings. And that's why he liked her, and loved her. She spoke to him in a language that, no matter how hard you studied it, could not be completely understood.
”
”
John Green (An Abundance of Katherines)
“
Listen to them again: ‘I love you.’ Subject, verb, object: the unadorned, impregnable sentence. The subject is a short word, implying the self-effacement of the lover. The verb is longer but unambiguous, a demonstrative moment as the tongue flicks anxiously away from the palate to release the vowel. The object, like the subject, has no consonants, and is attained by pushing the lips forward as if for a kiss. ‘I love you.’ How serious, how weighted, how freighted it sounds.
”
”
Julian Barnes (A History of the World in 10½ Chapters)
“
You can all supply your own favorite, most nauseating examples of the commodification of love. Mine include the wedding industry, TV ads that feature cute young children or the giving of automobiles as Christmas presents, and the particularly grotesque equation of diamond jewelry with everlasting devotion. The message, in each case, is that if you love somebody you should buy stuff. A related phenomenon is the ongoing transformation, courtesy of Facebook, of the verb 'to like' from a state of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse: from a feeling to an assertion of consumer choice. And liking, in general, is commercial culture's substitution for loving.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (Farther Away)
“
The ones we love often don’t need our judgment—they need our prayers. — Dianne Fraser —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Music was never a noun for you, it was always a verb. The only verb. You music-ed through the days and nights of your life.
”
”
Jandy Nelson (When the World Tips Over)
“
Love helps those that are hard to pray for turn into people who are easy to pray for. — Donna Collins Tinsley —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Gratitude was never a noun; it's secretly a verb. It is not a place you accept defeat, settle in for broken dreams or call it the best life will get. Gratitude is getting out of laziness, self pity, denial and insecurity, in order to walk through that door God has been holding open for you this entire time.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Love is a choice, not a feeling. Feelings come and go, and if we choose to base our most important relationships on how we feel at any particular moment, we are in for a rough and rocky journey. Love is a verb, not a noun. Love is something we do, not something that happens to us.
”
”
Matthew Kelly (The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved)
“
When we honor someone we give that person a highly respected position in our lives. Honor goes hand in glove with love, a verb whose very definition is doing worthwhile things for someone who is valuable to us.
”
”
Gary Smalley
“
Love is not a verb. Love is a noun. Love’s activity is people breathing, cells dividing, a dove taking a flight.
This grammar of life not all can see.
”
”
Mohit Parikh (Manan)
“
God loves you—as a person and as a unique individual. — Susan Campbell —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling. They’re driven by feelings.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
P.S. A typo? No, Winnow. I simply forgot to add a footnote, which should have read as: *outshine: transitive verb a. to shine brighter than b. to excel in splendor or showiness You remember how you said that word to me in the infirmary, post-trenches? You believed I had come to the Bluff to outshine you. And I would speak this word back to you now, but only because I would love to see you burn with splendor. I would love to see your words catch fire with mine.
”
”
Rebecca Ross (Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2))
“
The man he was now, the personality his friends knew, had begun to grow strong during adolescence, during the years when he was always consciously or unconsciously conjugating the verb "to love"-- in society and solitude, with people, with books, with the sky and open country, in the lonesomeness of crowded city streets.
”
”
Willa Cather (The Professor's House)
“
Of course we get hurt in love.
We have this immense need to immerse
violence into love.
As if a love that doesn't devastate is less of a verb.
As if a rain that doesn't drown wouldn't make the trees grow.
”
”
Akif Kichloo
“
Love was a verb with a certain amount of energy attached to it - a daily quota - and you had to choose on whom you wanted to spend this energy. That was love. That was why people had to pray for it. If it were not finite, no one would pine for love in their lives - they would just wait to receive or learn to give.
”
”
Alice Pung (Her Father's Daughter)
“
Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.
”
”
Barbara De Angelis
“
You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.
”
”
John F. Kennedy (Profiles in Courage)
“
If love was magic you wouldn't be amazed, you much rather look at reality in a daze. see love is merely a four letter phrase, It's here It's there it may never change. For love is a verb an action, a zing, It is never a person place or thing.
”
”
Aja Taylor
“
In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. —Isaiah 11:6
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Loving she realises is a verb. It is an act. It is not enough to say you love someone, and then forget about them, or trust a relationship will stay strong simply because you share a house or children or a life.
Loving requires acts of love. It requires thinking of your spouse, doing things for them to make them happy. It requires acting in loving ways, even when you are tired, or bogged down with work, or so stressed you are waking up every night with a jaw sore from grinding your teeth.
They forgot to do that, she now knows. They forgot to love each other. They expected love to continue, without putting any work into it, and today she knows this is why her marriage failed.
”
”
Jane Green (Dune Road)
“
At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death;
the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena in submarine gardens;
the laughter that sets on fire the rules and the holy commandments;
the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page;
the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses,
for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-sorrow desert;
the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipation of the self;
the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors;
the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the
garden of Epicurus, and the garden of Netzahualcoyotl;
the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the cave of thought;
the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands;
the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language;
the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid: the love in love.
”
”
Octavio Paz
“
Love is a verb. One demonstrates one's love through one's actions. And a person can only feel loved when someone else shows their love with kisses, hugs, caresses, and gifts. A lover will always promote the physical and emotional well-being of the person he loves.
”
”
Laura Esquivel (Swift as Desire)
“
Even the smallest actions of a friend can make a big difference. — Zeta Davidson —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
I stopped speaking when I realized I was no longer using any verbs or nouns, or making any sense
”
”
Jenny Han (To All the Boys I've Loved Before (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #1))
“
Never underestimate the value of the ministry you have in the place where God has called you—even if it’s “only” among your family and friends. — Jenni Davenport —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
A true friend cares more about what is right than about pleasing you.
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Sometimes we forget that parenting, like love, is a verb.
”
”
Jessica Joelle Alexander (The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids)
“
We have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. —1 Peter 1:4
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
Just as love is a verb, so is faith.
”
”
Nannie Helen Burroughs (Twelve Things The Negro Must Do: With Special Commentary By Karen Hunter)
“
...evident in every small act of kindness. It was love as a verb, as Rachel used to say. Love that made me more patient, more loyal, and stronger. Love that made me feel more complete than I had ever felt in my glamorous, Jimmy Choo-filled past.
”
”
Emily Giffin (Something Blue (Darcy & Rachel, #2))
“
Love is not a noun. Love is something you do. Something you prove. Something you work hard to create. Love is not something that simply exists because you say it. Love is not a noun. Love is a verb.
”
”
Jay McLean
“
There Comes the Strangest Moment
There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free--
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.
Skin's gone pale, your brain is shedding cells;
you question every tenet you set down;
obedient thoughts have turned to infidels
and every verb desires to be a noun.
I want--my want. I love--my love. I'll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what's here to never go away.
I'll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast…
Your heart's in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You'd have sworn no one knew you more than you.
How many people thought you'd never change?
But here you have. It's beautiful. It's strange.
”
”
Kate Light
“
I do love him you know."
"Love is a verb, Phoebe, not a noun. You need to show that action, not spout it off so easily. For one syllable, that's a powerful word, one that has the power to make or break you.
”
”
Leigh Ann Lunsford (Brisé)
“
The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return. To express that fundamental notion most Europeans can utilize a word derived from the Greek (nostalgia, nostalgie) as well as other words with roots in their national languages: añoranza, say the Spaniards; saudade, say the Portuguese. In each language these words have a different semantic nuance. Often they mean only the sadness caused by the impossibility of returning to one's country: a longing for country, for home. What in English is called "homesickness." Or in German: Heimweh. In Dutch: heimwee. But this reduces that great notion to just its spatial element. One of the oldest European languages, Icelandic (like English) makes a distinction between two terms: söknuour: nostalgia in its general sense; and heimprá: longing for the homeland. Czechs have the Greek-derived nostalgie as well as their own noun, stesk, and their own verb; the most moving, Czech expression of love: styska se mi po tobe ("I yearn for you," "I'm nostalgic for you"; "I cannot bear the pain of your absence"). In Spanish añoranza comes from the verb añorar (to feel nostalgia), which comes from the Catalan enyorar, itself derived from the Latin word ignorare (to be unaware of, not know, not experience; to lack or miss), In that etymological light nostalgia seems something like the pain of ignorance, of not knowing. You are far away, and I don't know what has become of you. My country is far away, and I don't know what is happening there. Certain languages have problems with nostalgia: the French can only express it by the noun from the Greek root, and have no verb for it; they can say Je m'ennuie de toi (I miss you), but the word s'ennuyer is weak, cold -- anyhow too light for so grave a feeling. The Germans rarely use the Greek-derived term Nostalgie, and tend to say Sehnsucht in speaking of the desire for an absent thing. But Sehnsucht can refer both to something that has existed and to something that has never existed (a new adventure), and therefore it does not necessarily imply the nostos idea; to include in Sehnsucht the obsession with returning would require adding a complementary phrase: Sehnsucht nach der Vergangenheit, nach der verlorenen Kindheit, nach der ersten Liebe (longing for the past, for lost childhood, for a first love).
”
”
Milan Kundera (Ignorance)
“
I want to love. I want to love indiscriminately - people, places, and things. But not just those. I want to love verbs. Adjectives. I want to love beyond category. Because, in my heart, I know that's what I was born to do. And life? Life is just the time I have to figure out how to do it well.
”
”
David Levithan (Someday (Every Day, #3))
“
Respect the verbs in your life.
Life is a verb. Live is a verb.
Live Life. Action verbs
bring life to writing.
Love is a verb. Be is a verb.
Be in Love
Believe, love, give,
receive,tag,
Believing in love,
giving love, receiving love,
love tag(you are it)
dance, prance, pounce,
smile, try,
trying to smile,
dancing and prancing,
pounce!
laugh, do, go, grow, feel, touch,
touching, feeling, growing, doing,
going, laughing,
sing, walk, run, cook, look,
see, eat, meet, greet, smell,
hear,
look and see the cooking,
singing and then walking
into the kitchen to eat,
eating the yummy food.
running to see,
seeing the food,
meeting and greeting others;
smelling the cooking,
hearing the laughter;
seeing the runners;
touching the icing.
licking the icing. tasting
the licking of the spoon
discover, realize, live,
respect.
discover life, realizing truth,
living, respecting everyone
under the sun,
even all the universe
love and respect all
”
”
Jerriann Wayahowl Law
“
She had always known under her mind and now she confessed it: her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the work “we” - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (Some Do Not ... & No More Parades (Parade's End #1-2))
“
The greatest relationships are those in which love is not treated as a noun, but as a verb; with romance not viewed as a burden, but lived as a poem.
”
”
Steve Maraboli
“
Investing in friendship and love always brings great returns. — Edie Melson —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Well, love don't count one rass unless it's a verb.
”
”
Margaret Cezair-Thompson (The True History of Paradise)
“
Loving others sometimes requires a love far greater and purer than our own. — Dawn Lilly
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. —Psalm 94:19
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
In my old age, I have come to believe that love is not a noun but a verb. An action. Like water, it flows to it's own current.
”
”
Alyson Richman (The Lost Wife)
“
love, even if you can’t feel it at the moment. — Joseph Compaine —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Often little blessings bring big benefits. — Caitlin M. Vukorpa
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
The word em refers to the little brother or little sister in a family;
or the younger of two friends; or the woman in a couple.
I like to think that the word em is the homonym of the verb aimer, “to love,” in French, in the imperative: aime.
”
”
Kim Thúy (Em)
“
Badassery: 1. (noun) the practice of knowing one’s own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one’s own accomplishments and gifts and celebrating one’s own accomplishments and gifts; 2. (noun) the practice of living life with swagger : SWAGGER (noun or verb) a state of being that involves loving oneself, waking up “like this” and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks about you. Term first coined by William Shakespeare.
”
”
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
“
I speak without knowing it. I speak with my body and I do so unbeknownst to myself. Thus I always say more than I know.
This is where I arrive at the meaning of the word "subject" in analytic discourse. What speaks without knowing it makes me "I," subject of the verb. That doesn't suffice to bring me into being. That has nothing to do with what I am forced to put in — enough knowledge for it to hold up, but not one drop more.
”
”
Jacques Lacan (On Feminine Sexuality, the Limits of Love and Knowledge: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XX: Encore)
“
I always enjoyed studying languages and I learned from my Master that He wanted humans to be called Human Beings to continually remind them that they are really verbs and that their soul purpose is to BE. I think they tend to forget about this, they are so busy being nouns doing things that won't matter tomorrow.
”
”
Kate McGahan (Jack McAfghan: Return from Rainbow Bridge: A Dog's Afterlife Story of Loss, Love and Renewal (Jack McAfghan Pet Loss Series Book 3))
“
{Yogananda on the death of his dear friend, the eminent 20th century scientist, Luther Burbank}
His heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice. His little home amid the roses was austerely simple; he knew the worthlessness of luxury, the joy of few possessions. The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in an empty boast.
I was in New York when, in 1926, my dear friend passed away. In tears I thought, 'Oh, I would gladly walk all the way from here to Santa Rosa for one more glimpse of him!' Locking myself away from secretaries and visitors, I spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion...
His name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. Listing 'burbank' as a transitive verb, Webster's New International Dictionary defines it: 'To cross or graft (a plant). Hence, figuratively, to improve (anything, as a process or institution) by selecting good features and rejecting bad, or by adding good features.'
'Beloved Burbank,' I cried after reading the definition, 'your very name is now a synonym for goodness!
”
”
Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi)
“
Lee’s hand shook as he filled the delicate cups. He drank his down in one gulp. “Don’t you see?” he cried. “The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in ‘Thou shalt,’ meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’—that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.’ Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I see. I do see. But you do not believe this is divine law. Why do you feel its importance?”
“Ah!” said Lee. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time. I even anticipated your questions and I am well prepared. Any writing which has influenced the thinking and the lives of innumerable people is important. Now, there are many millions in their sects and churches who feel the order, ‘Do thou,’ and throw their weight into obedience. And there are millions more who feel predestination in ‘Thou shalt.’ Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. But “Thou mayest’! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” Lee’s voice was a chant of triumph.
Adam said, “Do you believe that, Lee?”
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, ‘I couldn’t help it; the way was set.’ But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man. A cat has no choice, a bee must make honey. There’s no godliness there. And do you know, those old gentlemen who were sliding gently down to death are too interested to die now?”
Adam said, “Do you mean these Chinese men believe the Old Testament?”
Lee said, “These old men believe a true story, and they know a true story when they hear it. They are critics of truth. They know that these sixteen verses are a history of humankind in any age or culture or race. They do not believe a man writes fifteen and three-quarter verses of truth and tells a lie with one verb. Confucius tells men how they should live to have good and successful lives. But this—this is a ladder to climb to the stars.” Lee’s eyes shone. “You can never lose that. It cuts the feet from under weakness and cowardliness and laziness.”
Adam said, “I don’t see how you could cook and raise the boys and take care of me and still do all this.”
“Neither do I,” said Lee. “But I take my two pipes in the afternoon, no more and no less, like the elders. And I feel that I am a man. And I feel that a man is a very important thing—maybe more important than a star. This is not theology. I have no bent toward gods. But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed—because ‘Thou mayest.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
The Word 'Repulse': I hate this word. I believe 'repel' is a perfectly good word, and 'repulsion' is the noun, as well as the title of an excellent Dinosaur Jr. song. A compulsion compels you; an impulse impels you. Nobody ever says 'compulse' or 'impulse' as a verb. So why would you ever say 'repulse'? This word haunts me in my sleep, like a silver dagger dancing before my eyes. Renee looked it up and I was wrong. But I still kind of think I'm right.
”
”
Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)
“
The word hug, as a verb, feels inherently lonely: you can hug someone who doesn't hug you back. But the same word as a noun implies mutual participation.
”
”
David Arnold (I Loved You in Another Life)
“
Love is the action verb of life, and of the heart.
”
”
Chris Vonada (The Wellspring Of Life)
“
Love is not a thought; it is an action verb. It is not a thing, but an expression. You can’t love in a vacuum; love demands an object. It demands a relationship. “N
”
”
Joel Salatin (The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs: Respecting and Caring for All God's Creation)
“
What if your art could provide everything you ever needed or wanted in life?
”
”
Patti Digh (Creative Is a Verb: If You're Alive, You're Creative)
“
I know we were conjugating the verb love like two maniacs trying to fuck through an iron gate.
”
”
Henry Miller (Tropic of Capricorn (Tropic, #2))
“
I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb
”
”
Bram Stoker
“
True Christianity does more than feel empathy for those in need. True Christianity meets that need. — James Stuart Bell —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. —Galatians 5:22–23
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Love in a way that those who don’t know God will see your kindness and know Him because of you. — Jill Thompson
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
My love for you is more athletic than a verb, agile as a star the tents of sun absorb.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Collected Poems)
“
I am a verb, not a noun.
”
”
Tirza Schaefer (Poetry From The Heart: A Spiritual Evolution In Poetic Expression)
“
Someone will complete you some day and that day will never be late. Those nouns and verbs are above wonderful and never ending .
”
”
Bikash Bhandari
“
Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. —Psalm 17:7
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
All children are charming as an adjective, but you’re charming as a verb.
”
”
Ben Philippe (Charming as a Verb)
“
Love, love is a verb
Love is a doing word
”
”
Massive Attack
“
Love is a verb. When it becomes a noun, it's over."
from "The God Patent" by Ransom Stephens
”
”
Ransom Stephens (The God Patent)
“
Love is a verb; an action word. Its not a noun or an adjective.
”
”
Carolyn Miles
“
It is easy to give without loving yet DIFFICULT TO LOVE without GIVING.
After all Love is a Verb, it must be demonstrated genuinely.
”
”
Robert Junior
“
...Love is a verb—it's an action. Can you tell me what he did to show you he loved you? Anyone can say the words, but they need to prove it.
”
”
Corinne Michaels (Beloved (Salvation, #1; The Belonging Duet, #1))
“
In a sermon early in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. quoted Jesus’ words from Mark 10 about servanthood. Then he said, “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. . . . You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.
”
”
Our Daily Bread Ministries (Our Daily Bread - January / February / March 2014 - Enhanced Edition)
“
And she knew too: she had always known under her mind and now she confessed it; her agony had been, half of it, because one day he would say farewell to her, like that, with the inflexion of a verb. As, just occasionally, using the word 'we' - and perhaps without intention - he had let her know that he loved her.
”
”
Ford Madox Ford (Parade's End)
“
Taste” is a noun and a verb: We all have it and we all do it. But we don’t all have a language or a system for understanding and expressing that experience… I knew chocolate was something I didn’t want to lose, but I didn’t have the words to communicate why it was so important to me, or the knowledge on how best to save it. Now I do.
”
”
Preeti Simran Sethi (Bread, Wine, Chocolate: The Slow Loss of Foods We Love)
“
I have always wanted to be able to express music and love and the things that I have felt in their own proper language – not like this, not like this with the procession of particular English verbs, adjectives, adverbs, nouns and prepositions that rolls before you now towards this full-stop and the coming paragraph of yet more words.
”
”
Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)
“
So often when we say 'I love you' we say it with a huge 'I' and a small 'you'. We use love as a conjunction instead of it being a verb implying action. It's no good just gazing out into open space hoping to see the Lord; instead we have to look closely at our neighbour, someone whom God has willed into existence, someone whom God has died for. Everyone we meet has a aright to exist, because he has value in himself, and we are not used to this. The acceptance of otherness is a danger to us, it threatens us. To recognise the other's right to be himself might mean recognising his right to kill me. But if we set a limit to this right to exist, it's no right at all. Love is difficult. Christ was crucified because he taught a kind of love which is a terror for men, a love which demands total surrender: it spells death.
”
”
Anthony Bloom (Beginning to Pray)
“
Badassery: 1. (noun) the practice of knowing one’s own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one’s own accomplishments and gifts and celebrating one’s own accomplishments and gifts; 2. (noun) the practice of living life with swagger : SWAGGER (noun or verb) a state of being that involves loving oneself, waking up “like this” and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks about you.
”
”
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
“
When the ego is finally aligned with the Self, we awaken from its abstract constructions and directly experience the present moment, unmediated by mental concepts about ourselves. Life itself becomes a verb, a continuous unfolding, rather than a static noun.
”
”
Laura Patryas (Awaken To Love: Reclaiming Wholeness through Embodied Nonduality with Jungian Wisdom, Psychosynthesis & Internal Family Systems)
“
I think you forgot that love is as much a verb as it is a noun,
It demands an action as much as it makes us swoon under its feeling.
And if not you, I'm sure I have no need for a wedding gown,
Running back to you and finding an escape in your memories will always be more thrilling.
”
”
Namrata Gupta (Lost Love Late Love)
“
Every form is an image. Every image is a name. Every name is an attribute, every attribute a verb. Every verb forms the sentence to be read on Judgement Day, from the very Qur’aanulQariim that is found within the breastplate of all that is ‘created’ in the form of humankind. Every object be it animated or non-animated is an image!!
”
”
AainaA-Ridtz
“
The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
I learned that love means nothing unless it’s acted upon. Love isn’t real without intent. It’s a verb. It isn’t passive. But most of all, love means sacrifice
”
”
J.T. Geissinger (Pen Pal)
“
God knows just when we need a friend. — Dawn Lilly —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
we must love those with whom we live and work, and love them for all their failings, manifest and manifold though they be.
”
”
Alexander McCall Smith (At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (Portuguese Irregular Verbs, #3))
“
Love is a noun as well as a verb, a treacherous construct.
”
”
Chloe Thurlow (Katie in Love)
“
Oh, Phil," I teased. "You know what happens when you assume."
"Yes. Someone makes an overdone, tripe joke about the spelling of a commonly used verb.
”
”
Megan Squires (Love Like Crazy)
“
After the verb “to love,” “to help” is the most beautiful verb in the world. Bertha Von Suttner
”
”
Anonymous (NKJV, The Woman's Study Bible, eBook: Second Edition)
“
You’ll move on, too,” I said. “Everybody’s looking for love.
”
”
Matthew Johnson (Irregular Verbs and Other Stories)
“
May God teach us to enjoy serving others as a sign of our love for Him. — Pat Stockett Johnston —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Through love, God paves the way to reconciliation. — Deb Wuethrich —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Your example is a witness—of God’s love and yours. — James Hopkins —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. —Luke 7:13
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
When we have needs, we can turn to the One whose compassion is unending. — Jenni Davenport —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
The earth is a loving God’s gift to us, and we show our love for His work by practicing good stewardship. — Janet Graham
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
It’s too easy to complain. A heart of love finds the good, and, if necessary, helps change the bad things. — Zach Davidson —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? —Luke 6:41
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. —Philippians 1:3
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
May we serve as God’s messengers through love in action. — Nora Peacock —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
No matter our limitations, God has a great purpose for our lives. — Nora Peacock —
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love Is a Verb Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations to Bring Love Alive)
“
Mother is a verb as well as a noun. We all, male and female, have the capacity to mother others.
And each of can, always, mother ourselves.
”
”
Orna Ross (Circle of Life: Inspirational Poetry for Mothers and Other Carers)
“
from the Latin verb amare, “to love,” referred to a person who loved what he was doing. Similarly a “dilettante,” from the Latin delectare, “to find delight in,
”
”
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
“
She says love like its a verb, something you chose to do. In my experience you either love someone or you don’t. Love boils under your skin like fire. Even when you don’t want it to.
”
”
Katie French (The Breeders (Breeders, #1))
“
I once asked her if she was happy. “That depends on what I am able to get done today,” she said, laughing. She told me that the completion of her daily tasks was the only thing she felt she had control over. They were a form of meditation, of salve. Kept busy, she had no time to ruminate and no time for opinions, certainly not feminist ones. I pressed her: “I mean, are you happy with your life, Rajima?” “I don’t know,” she said uncomfortably, as if she’d never really considered such a question. “When there is little you can do, you do what you can.” Happiness for my grandmother seemed to be a verb rather than a noun. She had so little control over her own life. Yet she took control, out of thin air for herself, when she could.
”
”
Padma Lakshmi (Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir)
“
I grieve to think that closeness requires some measure of distance as its preserver, if only as a safety measure, because it certainly seems as if connection, in a deeper sense, introduces a specter of estrangement; for to come into contact with someone is to change her—there is that certainty; it reminds me of a game that Robin told me about told me about one day after school, as we were walking down Annatta Road certainly twenty years ago: find a word, a familiar word, on a page, and then stare at it for a while, just let your eyes linger upon it; and soon enough, sometimes after no more than a few seconds, the word comes to look misspelled, or badly transcribed, or as if there are other things wrong with it; so I tried it once, with the most familiar word there is: love, first verb in the Latin primer, the word known to all men; and after no more than five seconds I could swear that it wasn't the same word I had always known: it looked odd, misshapen, and as if it had all kinds of different pronunciations, except the one I had always believed was correct, and had always used; and so there was dissonance...
”
”
Evan Dara (The Lost Scrapbook)
“
ometimes in life we take a chance on someone. That decision makes the stomach tilt and our hands a little shaky. We don't have to do it, no one will know if we don't, and our lives would continue the same as always. But when we start to love, not only as a tentative experiment but also lavishly, our lives are changed forever. When we love generously, we receive unforgettable rewards. And sometimes, that caring touches not only the other person but has a ripple effect, creating an "extended family" that becomes an experience of true community that we all long for.
”
”
Gary Chapman (Love is a Verb: Stories of What Happens When Love Comes Alive)
“
But prior to about the year 1600, the verb “believe” had a very different meaning within Christianity as well as in popular usage. It did not mean believing statements to be true; the object of the verb “believe” was always a person, not a statement. This is the difference between believing that and believing in. To believe in a person is quite different from believing that a series of statements about the person are true. In premodern English, believing meant believing in and thus a relationship of trust, loyalty, and love. Most simply, to believe meant to belove.11
”
”
Marcus J. Borg (Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary – A Bible Scholar's Perspective on Bridging Literalists and Progressives)
“
What Hero loved most wasn’t the cadre names people chose, but the word kasama itself: kasama, pakikisama. In Ilocano, the closest word was kadwa. Kadwa, makikadwa. Companion, but that English word didn’t quite capture its force. Kasama was more like the glowing, capacious form of the word with: with as verb, noun, adjective, and adverb, with as a way of life. A world of with-ing.
”
”
Elaine Castillo (America Is Not the Heart)
“
Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition. The word “love” is most often defined as a noun, yet all the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb. I spent years searching for a meaningful definition of the word “love,” and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Explaining further, he continues: “Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.” Since the choice must be made to nurture growth, this definition counters the more widely accepted assumption that we love instinctually.
”
”
bell hooks (All About Love: New Visions)
“
At the teasing penetration, my hips jerk upward. Wes chuckles and eases his finger deeper, until the pad of it is stroking my prostate. My entire body trembles. Tingles. Burns. He spends a maddeningly long time torturing me with his mouth and finger—no, fingers. He’s got two inside me now, rubbing that sensitive place and bringing white dots to my eyes. “Wes,” I murmur. He raises his head. His gray eyes are smoky with desire. “Hmmm?” he says lazily. “Stop fucking teasing me and start fucking fucking me,” I rasp. “Fucking fucking you? Did you really need two fuckings?” “One’s an adverb and one’s a verb.” My voice is as tight as every muscle in my body. I’m about to go up in flames if he doesn’t make me come. His laughter warms my thigh. “I love the English language, dude. It’s so creative.” “Are we really having this conversation right now?” I growl when his teeth sink into my inner thigh. His fingers are still lodged inside me, but no longer moving.
”
”
Sarina Bowen (Us (Him, #2))
“
... authentic love. It’s some kind of empathy I haven’t experienced before, more like a verb than a noun, not an act of calculated wisdom, but nurtured long-term in a shared act of becoming one soul.
”
”
Eleni Cay (The Love Virus)
“
At the risk of seeming like a Christian, or a Che Guevara poster, love is bigger, huger, more complex, and more ultimate than petty fucked-up desirability politics. We all deserve love. Love as an action verb. Love in full inclusion, in centrality, in not being forgotten. Being loved for our disabilities, our weirdness, not despite them. Love in action is when we strategize to create cross-disability access spaces. When we refuse to abandon each other. When we, as disabled people, fight for the access needs of sibling crips. I’ve seen able-bodied organizers be confused by this. Why am I fighting so hard for fragrance-free space or a ramp, if it’s not something I personally need? When disabled people get free, everyone gets free. More access makes everything more accessible for everybody.
”
”
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice)
“
Because this painting has never been restored there is a heightened poignance to it somehow; it doesn’t have the feeling of unassailable permanence that paintings in museums do.
There is a small crack in the lower left, and a little of the priming between the wooden panel and the oil emulsions of paint has been bared. A bit of abrasion shows, at the rim of a bowl of berries, evidence of time’s power even over this—which, paradoxically, only seems to increase its poetry, its deep resonance. If you could see the notes of a cello, when the bow draws slowly and deeply across its strings, and those resonant reverberations which of all instruments’ are nearest to the sound of the human voice emerge—no, the wrong verb, they seem to come into being all at once, to surround us, suddenly, with presence—if that were made visible, that would be the poetry of Osias Beert.
But the still life resides in absolute silence.
Portraits often seem pregnant with speech, or as if their subjects have just finished saying something, or will soon speak the thoughts that inform their faces, the thoughts we’re invited to read. Landscapes are full of presences, visible or unseen; soon nymphs or a stag or a band of hikers will make themselves heard.
But no word will ever be spoken here, among the flowers and snails, the solid and dependable apples, this heap of rumpled books, this pewter plate on which a few opened oysters lie, giving up their silver.
These are resolutely still, immutable, poised for a forward movement that will never occur. The brink upon which still life rests is the brink of time, the edge of something about to happen. Everything that we know crosses this lip, over and over, like water over the edge of a fall, as what might happen does, as any of the endless variations of what might come true does so, and things fall into being, tumble through the progression of existing in time.
Painting creates silence. You could examine the objects themselves, the actors in a Dutch still life—this knobbed beaker, this pewter salver, this knife—and, lovely as all antique utilitarian objects are, they are not, would not be, poised on the edge these same things inhabit when they are represented.
These things exist—if indeed they are still around at all—in time. It is the act of painting them that makes them perennially poised, an emergent truth about to be articulated, a word waiting to be spoken. Single word that has been forming all these years in the light on the knife’s pearl handle, in the drops of moisture on nearly translucent grapes: At the end of time, will that word be said?
”
”
Mark Doty (Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy)
“
As a writer, you must truly possess a love for words."
"Yes, that's right," I agreed.
"I've noticed that some authors favor particular words, making frequent use of them. Do you have a favorite?"
I nodded assuredly and shared my answer. "BECAUSE."
My interviewer looked surprised, as though he'd expected an impressive adjective or some rare verb. "That's your favorite word? Why?"
I tried not to smirk. "Because.
”
”
Richelle E. Goodrich
“
It’s just that without wanting to or trying to—and for years I was deliberately trying not to—I held on to love. Or it held on to me. Not active love; not love, the verb form. It was more just there, a small, unshakable thing, leftover, useless, as vestigial as wisdom teeth or a tailbone, but still potent enough so that when I heard his voice on the phone, my heart gave a tiny jump of hope that made me want to slap it.
”
”
Marisa de los Santos (The Precious One)
“
I love the word 'fashion.' That's why I'm using it in the title of this book. Fashion is about change and about creating clothes within a historical context. To me, dismissing fashion as silly or unimportant seems like a denial of history and frequently a show of sexism—as if something that's traditionally a concern of women isn't valid as a field of academic inquiry. When the Parsons fashion department was founded in 1906, it was called 'costume design,' because fashion was then a verb: to fashion. But the word 'fashion' has evolved to mean something much more profound, and those who resist it seem to me to be on the wrong side of history.
”
”
Tim Gunn (Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible)
“
Because what my gradmother did with her fine coat (the loveliest thing she would ever own) is what all women of that generation (and before) did for their families and their husbands and their children. They cut up the finest and proudest parts of themselves and gave it all away. They repatterned what was theirs and shaped it for others. They went without. They were the last ones to eat at supper, and they were the first ones to get up every morning, warming the cold kitchen for another day spent caring for everyone else. This was the only thing they knew how to do. This was their guiding verb and their defining principle of life: They gave.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)
“
Badassery: 1. (noun) the practice of knowing one’s own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one’s own accomplishments and gifts and celebrating one’s own accomplishments and gifts; 2. (noun) the practice of living life with swagger : SWAGGER (noun or verb) a state of being that involves loving oneself, waking up “like this” and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks about you. Term first coined by William Shakespeare. Wonder
”
”
Shonda Rhimes (Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person)
“
Whether we like it or not, if we are to pursue a career in science, eventually we have to learn the “language of nature”: mathematics. Without mathematics, we can only be passive observers to the dance of nature rather than active participants. As Einstein once said, “Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.” Let me offer an analogy. One may love French civilization and literature, but to truly understand the French mind, one must learn the French language and how to conjugate French verbs. The same is true of science and mathematics. Galileo once wrote, “[The universe] cannot be read until we have learnt the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to understand a single word.
”
”
Michio Kaku (Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos)
“
In my old age, I have come to believe that love is not a noun but a verb. An action. Like water, it flows to its own current. If you were to corner it in a dam, true love is so bountiful it would flow over. Even in separation, even in death, it moves and changes. It lives within memory, in the haunting of a touch, the transience of a smell, or the nuance of a sigh. It seeks to leave a trace like a fossil in the sand, a leaf burned into baking asphalt.
”
”
Alyson Richman (The Lost Wife)
“
In that light, philosophy is not so much--or not simply--'the love of wisdom,' but instead marks the passage from wonder as a noun to wonder as a verb. Philosophy is the love of wisdom to the extent that it remains an incitement to it.
”
”
Michael Munro
“
Love her,” he told the man.
“I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore,” the man replied.
“Love her,” Covey replied.
“You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there,” repeated the man.
“Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.”
“But how do you love when you do not love?” asked the man.
Covey replied: “My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are
you willing to do that?”
Love is a feeling, yes, but a feeling that is created out of action. The fourth chakra sits
neatly above the third chakra will. Love is a daily, even hourly, conscious commitment to
behave in a loving and caring fashion toward ourselves and others. When the feeling fades, it is our responsibility to find ways to create a new love. Like a garden that is carefully tended, the rewards are well worth the effort.
”
”
Anodea Judith (Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self)
“
An iceberg means it’s tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you’re offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you’re using the word calve as a verb.)
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
I wanted to be a sex goddess. And you can laugh all you want to. The joke is on me, whether you laugh or not. I wanted to be one -- one of them. They used to laugh at Marilyn when she said she didn't want to be a sex-goddess, she wanted to be a human being. And now they laugh at me when I say, "I don't want to be a human being; I want to be a sex-goddess." That shows you right there that something has changed, doesn't it? Rita, Ava, Lana, Marlene, Marilyn -- I wanted to be one of them. I remember the morning my friend came in and told us that Marilyn had died. And all the boys were stunned, rigid, literally, as they realized what had left us. I mean, if the world couldn't support Marilyn Monroe, then wasn't something desperately wrong? And we spent the rest of the goddamned sixties finding out what it was. We were all living together, me and these three gay boys that adopted me when I ran away, in this loft on East Fifth Street, before it became dropout heaven -- before anyone ever said "dropout" -- way back when "commune" was still a verb? We were all -- old-movie buffs, sex-mad -- you know, the early sixties. And then my friend, this sweet little queen, he came in and he passed out tranquilizers to everyone, and told us all to sit down, and we thought he was just going to tell us there was a Mae West double feature on somewhere -- and he said -- he said -- "Marilyn Monroe died last" -- and all the boys were stunned -- but I -- I felt something sudden and cold in my solar plexus, and I knew then what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be the next one. I wanted to be the next one to stand radiant and perfected before the race of man, to shed the luminosity of my beloved countenance over the struggles and aspirations of my pitiful subjects. I wanted to give meaning to my own time, to be the unattainable luring love that drives men on, the angle of light, the golden flower, the best of the universe made womankind, the living sacrifice, the end! Shit!
”
”
Robert Patrick (Kennedy's Children)
“
Love requires openness. The point is to be changed by, and to witness change in, one another. Slowly, this back-and-forth transforms the shared reality we call the world. Love is less noun than verb: not a thing to get, but a process to set in motion.
”
”
Moira Weigel (Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating)
“
It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it’s tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you’re offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you’re using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world’s fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman’s shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit’s cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black.
”
”
Maria Semple (Where'd You Go, Bernadette)
“
At one seminar where I was speaking on the concept of proactivity, a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you’re saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feelings for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?” “The feeling isn’t there anymore?” I asked. “That’s right,” he reaffirmed. “And we have three children we’re really concerned about. What do you suggest?” “Love her,” I replied. “I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore.” “Love her.” “You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there.” “Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.” “But how do you love when you don’t love?” “My friend, love is a verb. Love—the feeling—is a fruit of love, the verb. So love her. Serve her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?” *** In the great literature of all progressive societies, love is a verb. Reactive people make it a feeling.
”
”
Stephen R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change)
“
I love you.’ ‘Bravely said – though I had to screw it out of you like a cork out of a bottle. Why should that phrase be so difficult? I – personal pronoun, subjective case; L – O – V – E, love, verb, active, meaning – Well, on Mr Squeers’s principle, go to bed and work it out.’
”
”
Dorothy L. Sayers (Busman's Honeymoon (Lord Peter Wimsey, #13))
“
The ladies egged him on; in Eve's name, they dared him; so he made love with discreet verbs and light nouns, delicate conjunctions. They begged; they defied him to define...define everything. They could not be scandalized—impossible, they said. Indecent prepositions such as in, on, up, merely made them smile, and the roundest exclamation broke upon them like a bubble's kiss, a butterfly's. Smooth and creamy adjectives enabled them to lick their lips upon the crudest story. How charmingly you speak, Reverend Furber, how much you've seen of this wicked world, and how alive you are to it, they said.
”
”
William H. Gass (Omensetter's Luck)
“
THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLY
is not silent, it is a speaking-
out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,
a voice is *saying* it
as you read. It's the writer's words,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of *your* voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer wrote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally- some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows...
And "barn" is only a noun- no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.
~~-Thomas Lux
”
”
Thomas Lux
“
I have written various words, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and bits of dismantled sentences, fragments of expressions and descriptions and all kinds of tentative combinations. Every now and again I pick up one these particles, these molecules of texts, hold it up to the light and examine it carefully, turn it in various directions, lean forward and rub or polish it, hold it up to the light again, rub it again slightly, then lean forward and fit it into the texture of the cloth I am weaving. Then I stare at it from different angles, still not entirely satisfied, and take it out again and replace it with another word, or try to fit it into another niche in the same sentence, then remove, file it down a tiny bit more, and try to fit it in again, perhaps at a slightly different angle. Or deploy it differently. Perhaps farther down the sentence. Or at the beginning of the next one. Or should I cut it off and make it into a one-word sentence on its own?
I stand up. Walk around the room. Return to the desk. Stare at it for a few moments or longer, cross out the whole sentence or tear up the whole page. I give up in despair. I curse myself aloud and curse writing in general and the language as a whole, despite which I sit down and start putting the whole thing together all over again. [p.268]
”
”
Amos Oz (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
“
You cannot edit your life, and even if I was today offered the chance to never meet her, and so not leave the city I loved, I would decline, for life is a verb, life swerves and lurches no matter how cautious and careful your driving, and I would not be who I am, surrounded by those I love most in this world, had I not left Chicago when I did.
”
”
Brian Doyle
“
When describing both the act of defecating and the substance of fecal matter itself, biologists prefer to use the scientific term "poop." It's both a noun and a verb. A popular field of biology called scatology is the study of scat, which is not to be confused with mere poop. Although technically they're the same, we call it "scat" if we are studying it to learn something about the health and diet of an animal. When the animal has pooped on us or has ruined something with his pooping, we tend to use the term "shit," as in, "Oh, man, he just shit down the back of my neck." So if it's on the ground, it's poop. If it's under your microscope, it's scat. If it's running down your neck, it's shit.
”
”
Stacey O'Brien (Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl)
“
It’s terrible to confirm that a system born to rescue human dignity has resorted to rewards, glorification, the encouragement of denunciations, and feeds on everything that is humanly vile. I feel the nausea rise in my throat when I hear people say: they’ve shot M., they’ve shot P., shot, shot, shot. The words, after hearing them so much, lose their meaning. The people say them with greater calm, as if they were saying: we’re going to the theater. I, who lived these years in fear and felt the compulsion to denounce (I confess so with terror, but without any feeling of guilt), have lost in my mind the brutal semantics of the verb ‘to shoot’ … I feel that we’ve reached the end of justice on earth, the limits of human dignity.
”
”
Leonardo Padura (The Man Who Loved Dogs)
“
The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the beginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that? These things are called “separable verbs.” The German grammar is blistered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab—which means departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English: “The trunks being now ready, he de- after kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair, had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, parted.” However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six—and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.
”
”
Mark Twain (A Tramp Abroad)
“
The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.)
Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62).
Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good.
Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27).
Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. …
We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20).
(Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).
”
”
Brad Wilcox
“
These are the terms amateur and dilettante. Nowadays these labels are slightly derogatory. An amateur or a dilettante is someone not quite up to par, a person not to be taken very seriously, one whose performance falls short of professional standards. But originally, “amateur,” from the Latin verb amare, “to love,” referred to a person who loved what he was doing. Similarly a “dilettante,” from the Latin delectare, “to find delight in,” was someone who enjoyed a given activity.
”
”
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)
“
At present, computers are spectacular at number crunching and data processing. We can code programmes that feel as though computers are interacting with us, and that's fun, but in fact they aren't interacting in a way that we expect a human being to interact. But what will happen when a programme that has self-developed, that has its own version of what we call consciousness - realises, in the human sense of the verb 'to realise', exactly what/who is on the other side of the screen?
”
”
Jeanette Winterson (Frankissstein: A Love Story)
“
I have raised you to respect every human being as singular, and you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is particular, specific enslaved woman, whose mind is active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast as your own; who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddies in a nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks too loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dressmaking and knows, inside herself, that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. 'Slavery' is this same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and inscribes this love in its essential texts, a world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when this woman peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved. she can hope for more. But when she dies, the world - which is really the only world she can ever know - ends. For this woman, enslavement is not a parable. It is damnation. It is the never-ending night. And the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains - whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
You must struggle to truly remember this past in all its nuance, error, and humanity. You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance - not matter how improved - as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this. Perhaps our triumphs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
Run. Eat. Drink. Eat more. Don't throw up. Instead, take a piss. Then take a crap. Wipe your butt. Make a phone call. Open a door. Rid your bik. Ride in a car. Ride in a subway. Talk. Talk to people. Read. Read maps. Make maps. Make art. Talk about your art. Sell your art. Take a test. Get into a school. Celebrate. HAve a party. Write a thank-you note to someone. Hug your mom. Kiss your dad. Kiss your little sister. Make out with Noelle. Make out with her more. Touch her. HOld her hand. Take her out somewhere. Meet her friends. Run down a street with her. Take her on a picnic. Eat with her. See a movie with her. See a move with Aaron. Heck, see a movie with Nia, once you're cool with her. Get cool with more people.. Drink coffee in little coffee-drinking places. Tell people your story. Volunteer. Go back to Six North. Walk in as a volunteer and say hi to everyone who waited on you as a patient. Help people. Help people like Bobby. Get people books and music that they want when they're in there. Help people like Muqtada. Show them how to draw. Draw more. Try drawing a landscape. Try drawing a person. Try drawing a naked person. Try drawing Noelle naked. Travel. Fly. Swim. Meet. Love. Dance. Win. Smile. Laugh. Hold. Walk. Skip. Okay, it's gay, whatever, skip.
Ski. Sled. Play basketball. Jog. Run. Run. Run. Run home. Run home and enjoy. Enjoy. Take these verbs and enjoy them. They're yours, Craig. You deserved them because you chose them. You could have left the all behind but you chose to stay here.
So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live.
Live.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Truth About Love"
I apologize for not being Gandhi or Tom
the mailman who is always kind.
He makes his way every day no matter
the mood of the sky with our words
in a sack and Gandhi made the English
give India back without
taking a gun for a wife. My contribution
to the common good is playing
with the alphabet in a little room
while the world goes foraging
for food. I’m a better poet than man
and it’s well known how little
my verbs are worth. I am my only subject,
being the god of my horizons.
What saves me is that just beyond my skin
the world of yours is where
I’d rather live. The AMA says you’ve added
seven point six years to my life.
In a phrase, love is a transfer of wealth.
This is why Adam Smith gave up
romantic verse. In trying to say what can’t
be said I’ll take the Dragnet
approach. Just the facts. I’d be dead
sooner without you, you’ll die faster
for being a Mrs., raw deal can’t be more
clearly defined. To make amends
I offer ten percent more kisses each year.
Or do I do more harm the closer
we become? If yes, leaving would be love
and a better man might. But my thrills
are selfishly domestic. I like sweeping words
into piles and whispering good night.
”
”
Bob Hicok (Insomnia Diary (Pitt Poetry Series))
“
With all this “Work for yourself! It’s better than whatever you’re doing now!” messaging out there, people often end up falling in love with the idea of working for themselves without understanding the actual day-to-day work required to be their own boss. Or as Austin Kleon cleverly puts it, “People want to be the noun without doing the verb.” They want the job title of founder or CEO, or a business card and a fancy website with a new logo, but they forget or overlook the daily rigors of running a business of their own. Having a brilliant idea or a passion to build a successful business is not enough. Ideas and dreams are nice, but they’re also cheap and meaningless if you don’t take action and do the work to make them happen.
”
”
Paul Jarvis (Company Of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business)
“
The very terms “split infinitive” and “split verb” are based on a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split a verb because it consists of a single word, such as amare, “to love.” But in English, the so-called infinitive to write consists of two words, not one: the subordinator to and the plain form of the verb write, which can also appear without to in constructions such as She helped him pack and You must be brave.23 Similarly, the allegedly unsplittable verb will execute is not a verb at all but two verbs, the auxiliary verb will and the main verb execute. There is not the slightest reason to interdict an adverb from the position before the main verb, and great writers in English have placed it there for centuries.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century)
“
We're in her bedroom,and she's helping me write an essay about my guniea pig for French class. She's wearing soccer shorts with a cashmere sweater, and even though it's silly-looking, it's endearingly Meredith-appropriate. She's also doing crunches. For fun.
"Good,but that's present tense," she says. "You aren't feeding Captain Jack carrot sticks right now."
"Oh. Right." I jot something down, but I'm not thinking about verbs. I'm trying to figure out how to casually bring up Etienne.
"Read it to me again. Ooo,and do your funny voice! That faux-French one your ordered cafe creme in the other day, at that new place with St. Clair."
My bad French accent wasn't on purpose, but I jump on the opening. "You know, there's something,um,I've been wondering." I'm conscious of the illuminated sign above my head, flashing the obvious-I! LOVE! ETIENNE!-but push ahead anyway. "Why are he and Ellie still together? I mean they hardly see each other anymore. Right?"
Mer pauses, mid-crunch,and...I'm caught. She knows I'm in love with him, too.
But then I see her struggling to reply, and I realize she's as trapped in the drama as I am. She didn't even notice my odd tone of voice. "Yeah." She lowers herself slwoly back to the floor. "But it's not that simple. They've been together forever. They're practically an old married couple. And besides,they're both really...cautious."
"Cautious?"
"Yeah.You know.St. Clair doesn't rock the boat. And Ellie's the same way. It took her ages to choose a university, and then she still picked one that's only a few neighborhoods away. I mean, Parsons is a prestigious school and everything,but she chose it because it was familiar.And now with St. Clair's mom,I think he's afraid to lose anyone else.Meanwhile,she's not gonna break up with him,not while his mom has cancer. Even if it isn't a healthy relationship anymore."
I click the clicky-button on top of my pen. Clickclickclickclick. "So you think they're unhappy?"
She sighs. "Not unhappy,but...not happy either. Happy enough,I guess. Does that make sense?"
And it does.Which I hate. Clickclickclickclick.
It means I can't say anything to him, because I'd be risking our friendship. I have to keep acting like nothing has changed,that I don't feel anything ore for him than I feel for Josh.
”
”
Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1))
“
There’s also the human urge to make things, to paint cave walls and doodle in the margins of to-do lists. Doi once said, “I have to keep on working, otherwise nothing will be brought into existence.” But sometimes I feel like the paper is better before we get ahold of it, when it is still wood. Other times, I love the marks we leave. They feel like gifts and signs, like trail markers in the wilderness. I know we’ve left scars everywhere, and that our obsessive desire to make and have and do and say and go and get—six of the seven most common verbs in English—may ultimately steal away our ability to be, the most common verb in English. Even though we know that none of our marks will truly last, that time is coming not just for all of us but for all we make, we can’t stop scribbling, can’t stop seeking relief wherever we can find it.
”
”
John Green (The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet)
“
The truth is that all humans are always seeing something, paying attention to something, learning something. Perhaps, we are learning every sort of sexual innuendo known to man by watching endless reruns of Friends. Perhaps, we are learning how to fit in socially and politically by spending hours and hours on social media. Perhaps we are paying attention, day and night, to what we don't have, wasting our time on Earth in envy, frustration, and discontent. We are paying attention to something. Maybe it isn't verb tenses, or the periodic table of elements, or the Great Books, but we are all being educated by our loves. Recognizing that maybe what we love is unworthy is the first step in being truly educated. What is worthy of this love I have? What is worthy of my time and attention? Let me tell you a secret. Education is free. It is simply a matter of opening your eyes and acknowledging the 'I don't know.
”
”
Cindy Rollins (Beyond Mere Motherhood: Moms Are People Too)
“
What I finally came to as I walked and prayed for you is the old, old story of getting the gospel clear in your own hearts and minds, making it clear to others, and doing it with only one motive — the glory of Christ. Getting the glory of Christ before your eyes and keeping it there — is the greatest work of the Spirit that I can imagine. And there is no greater peace, especially in the times of treadmill-like activity, than doing it all for the glory of the Lord Jesus. Think much of the Savior's suffering for you on that dreadful cross, think much of your sin that provoked such suffering, and then enter by faith into the love that took away your sin and guilt, and then give your work your best. Give it your heart out of gratitude for a tender, seeking, and patient Savior. Then every event becomes a shiny glory moment to be cherished — whether you drink tea or try to get the verb forms of the new language.
”
”
C. John Miller (The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller)
“
Even the phrase we are ridiculed for, “live, laugh, love,” fits into the criteria of literal retail therapy, where we would wear it and hang it all around us to be reminded of how to feel good. When you think about how widely ridiculed that phrase is, it almost makes you forget how it represents three of the most standard and important verbs of our existence: to be alive, to enjoy oneself, to love or be loved. What people forget about the commercialization of the phrase is that it peaked between 2008 and 2012, the era when many millennials postrecession were left picking up the pieces of the world we grew up expecting to inherit imploding before our eyes. We weren’t educated enough to diagnose our own depression in a financial one, so sue us for doubling down on whimsical driftwood decor. Therapy for us at the time was painted makeshift traffic signs in our homes reminding us to experience three basic human emotions.
”
”
Kate Kennedy (One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In)
“
Ten Rules for the Novelist:
1. The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.
2. Fiction that isn’t an author’s personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money.
3. Never use the word then as a conjunction—we have and for this purpose. Substituting then is the lazy or tone-deaf writer’s non-solution to the problem of too many ands on the page.
4. Write in third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.
5. When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.
6. The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more autobiographical story than The Metamorphosis.
7. You see more sitting still than chasing after.
8. It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
9. Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.
10. You have to love before you can be relentless.
”
”
Jonathan Franzen (The End of the End of the Earth: Essays)
“
Having studied workplace leadership styles since the 1970s, Kets de Vries confirmed that language is a critical clue when determining if a company has become too cultish for comfort. Red flags should rise when there are too many pep talks, slogans, singsongs, code words, and too much meaningless corporate jargon, he said. Most of us have encountered some dialect of hollow workplace gibberish. Corporate BS generators are easy to find on the web (and fun to play with), churning out phrases like “rapidiously orchestrating market-driven deliverables” and “progressively cloudifying world-class human capital.” At my old fashion magazine job, employees were always throwing around woo-woo metaphors like “synergy” (the state of being on the same page), “move the needle” (make noticeable progress), and “mindshare” (something having to do with a brand’s popularity? I’m still not sure). My old boss especially loved when everyone needlessly transformed nouns into transitive verbs and vice versa—“whiteboard” to “whiteboarding,” “sunset” to “sunsetting,” the verb “ask” to the noun “ask.” People did it even when it was obvious they didn’t know quite what they were saying or why. Naturally, I was always creeped out by this conformism and enjoyed parodying it in my free time. In her memoir Uncanny Valley, tech reporter Anna Wiener christened all forms of corporate vernacular “garbage language.” Garbage language has been around since long before Silicon Valley, though its themes have changed with the times. In the 1980s, it reeked of the stock exchange: “buy-in,” “leverage,” “volatility.” The ’90s brought computer imagery: “bandwidth,” “ping me,” “let’s take this offline.” In the twenty-first century, with start-up culture and the dissolution of work-life separation (the Google ball pits and in-office massage therapists) in combination with movements toward “transparency” and “inclusion,” we got mystical, politically correct, self-empowerment language: “holistic,” “actualize,” “alignment.
”
”
Amanda Montell (Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism—Understanding the Social Science of Cult Influence)
“
PEER GYNT
L'âme, souffle et lumière du verbe, te viendra
plus tard, ma fille Quand, en lettres d'or, sur le
fond rose de l'Orient, apparaîtront ces mots :
Voici le jour, alors commenceront les leçons ; ne crains rien, tu seras instruite. Mais je serais un sot de vouloir, dans le calme de cette tiède nuit,me parer de quelques baillons d'un vieux savoir usé, pour te traiter en maître d'école. Après tout, le principal, quand on y réfléchit, ce n'est point l'âme, c'est le cœur.
ANITRA
Parle seigneur. Quand tu parles, il me semble
voir comme des lueurs d'opale.
PBER GYNT
La raison poussée à l'excès est de la bêtise. La
poltronnerie s'épanouit en cruauté. L'exagération de la vérité, c'est de la sagesse à l'envers. Oui, mon enfant, le diable m'emporte s'il n'y a pas de par le monde des êtres gavés d'âme qui n'en ont que plus de peine à voir clair. J'ai connu un individu de cette sorte, une vraie perle pourtant, qui a manqué son but et perdu la boussole.
Vois-tu ce désert qui entoure l'oasis? Je n'aurais qu'à agiter mon turban pour que les flots de l'Océan en comblassent toute l'étendue. Mais je serais un imbécile de créer ainsi des continents et des mers nouvelles. Sais-tu, ce que c'est que de vivre?
ANITRA
Enseigne-le-moi.
PEER GYNT
C'est planer au-dessus du temps qui coule, en
descendre le courant sans se mouiller les pieds, et sans jamais rien perdre de soi-même. Pour être celui qu'on est, ma petite amie, il faut la force de l'âge! Un vieil aigle perd son piumage, une vieille rosse son allure, une vieille commère ses dents. La peau se ride, et l'âme aussi. Jeunesse ! jeunesse ! Par toi je veux régner non sur les palmes et les vignes de quelque Gyntiana, mais sur la pensée vierge d'une femme dont je serai le sultan ardent et vigoureux. Je t'ai fait, ma petite, la grâce de te séduire, d'élire ton cœur pour y fonder un kalifat nouveau. Je veux être le maître de tes soupirs. Dans mon
royaume, j'introduirai le régime absolu. Nous
séparer sera la mort... pour toi, s'entend. Pas une fibre, pas une parcelle de toi qei ne m'appartienne. Ni oui, ni non, tu n'auras d'autre volonté que la mienne. Ta chevelure, noire comme la nuit, et tout ce qui, chez toi, est doux à nommer, s'inclinera devant mon pouvoir souverain. Ce seront mes jardins de Babylone.
”
”
Henrik Ibsen (Peer Gynt)
“
9:36a ἰδὼν δὲ τούς ὄχλους ἐσπλαγχνίσθη πεϱὶ αὐτῶν seeing the crowds, his insides were moved with pity for them THE JEWS AND THE GREEKS could not succeed in making pity and compassion into a purely mental act. It sounds archaic, hardly short of embarrassing, to say that “Jesus saw the crowds and felt pity for them in his bowels.” But, in fact, any translation that omits compassion’s element of viscerality (for σπλάγχνα, the root of the verb here, means “viscera”, “bowels”, “womb”) has already betrayed the depth of Jesus’ divine and human pity. We all know how the strongest emotions—whether sorrow, fear, joy, or desire—are all initially registered in the abdominal region, and this physiological reaction is one of the proofs of the authenticity of our emotions. The same teacher, herald, and healer who surpassed all others in these crafts finally reveals himself in utter silence and inactivity in his deepest nature: the Compassionate One who is affected by suffering more elementally than the sufferers he sees around him. If Mary’s womb was proclaimed blessed for having borne such a Child, we now see in the Son the Mother’s most precious quality: wide-wombed compassion. When we allow ourselves to be moved in this way, we are already hopelessly involved with the object of our pity: no possibility here of a distanced display of “charity” that refuses to become tainted by contact with the stench of human misery. Jesus looks at the crowds, then, and is viscerally moved. What power in the gaze of a Savior who pauses in the midst of his activity in order to take into himself the full, wounded reality about him! Jesus never protects himself against the claims of distress. He is not content with emanating the truth, joy, and healing power that are his: he must become a fellow sufferer. His loving gaze is like an open wound that filters out no sorrow. He has already done so much for them; but as long as he sees misery, nothing is enough; and so he wonders what else remains to be done. His contemplative sorrow becomes a stimulant to his creative imagination. He nestles all manner of plight within his person, and every human need becomes a churning in his inward parts. He interiorizes the chaos of the surrounding landscape, but, by entering him, it becomes contained, comprehended, embraced and saved.
”
”
Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 1)