Rebels In Love Quotes

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He drew a circle that shut me out- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him In!
Edwin Markham
Ireland is a land of poets and legends, of dreamers and rebels. All of these have music woven through and around them. Tunes for dancing or for weeping, for battle or for love.
Nora Roberts (Tears of the Moon (Gallaghers of Ardmore, #2))
You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They've known each other since childhood...…..The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn't matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions - Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time. - Delalieu
Tahereh Mafi (Defy Me (Shatter Me, #5))
Accomplishments don’t erase shame, hatred, cruelty, silence, ignorance, discrimination, low self-esteem or immorality. It covers it up, with a creative version of pride and ego. Only restitution, forgiving yourself and others, compassion, repentance and living with dignity will ever erase the past.
Shannon L. Alder
Rebellion cannot exist without a strange form of love.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.
Clint Eastwood (Wild Open Spaces: Why We Love Westerns)
If you have to say or do something controversial, aim so that people will hate that they love it and not love that they hate it.
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
The rebel in me loves to throw dirt in the face of decorum.
Tricia Levenseller (The Shadows Between Us)
Jin always smiled at me like we were both about to be in big trouble and he loved it. The prince smiled like he was forgiving you for it.
Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1))
Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God's ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.
Rob Bell (Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived)
There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution
Aldous Huxley
Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution. It is the universe's way of saying stop, slow down, you move too fast. Listen to the music. Whoa whoa, listen to the music. Because music makes the people come together, it makes the bourgeois and the rebel. So come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody try to love one another. Because what the world needs now is love, sweet love. And I know that love is a battlefield, but boogie on reggae woman because you're gonna make it after all. So celebrate good times, come on. I've gotta stop I've gotta come to my senses, I've been out riding fences for so long... oops I did it again... um... What I'm trying to say is, if you leave tonight and you don't remember anything else that I've said, leave here and remember this: Procrastinate now, don't put it off.
Ellen DeGeneres
Those who love, friends and lovers, know that love is not only a blinding flash, but also a long and painful struggle in the darkness for the realization of definitive recognition and reconciliation.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching.
Libba Bray (Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, #2))
Love is quite like reading, I expect. Once you know how, you can’t ever imagine not doing it.
Kerrigan Byrne (The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1))
We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth." "I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven." "True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more." "He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks. "Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.
Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)
Once there was a boy from the sea who fell in love with a girl from the desert. [...] But he wondered if a boy from the sea and a girl from the desert could ever survive together. He feared that she might burn him alive or that he might drown her. Until finally he stopped fighting it and set himself on fire for her.
Alwyn Hamilton (Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands, #3))
Will you walk with me out on the wire, cuz baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels... I want to know love is wild, babe, I want to know love is real.
Bruce Springsteen
They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!
Kamand Kojouri
The sea loved the moon When she was supposed to love the shore. The moon knew And hence made his intentions known. That she should love the shore Who was destined for her. Yet his protests seemed weak. And even when he pushed her towards the shore- She always retreated back. To want, to need, to love the moon For all she's worth. Everyone said, it wasn't meant to happen. Yet, the Tsunami rose that night for their union.
Saiber (Stardust and Sheets)
I've looked over my shoulder for a decade,' I whisper, 'wondering what it was that was missing in my life. Turns out, all this time, it was you.
Marie Lu (Rebel (Legend, #4))
Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. We want love to last and we know that it does not last; even if, by some miracle, it were to last a whole lifetime, it would still be incomplete. Perhaps, in this insatiable need for perpetuation, we should better understand human suffering, if we knew that it was eternal. It appears that great minds are, sometimes, less horrified by suffering than by the fact that it does not endure. In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day. One morning, after many dark nights of despair, an irrepressible longing to live will announce to us the fact that all is finished and that suffering has no more meaning than happiness.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
If by doing some work which the undiscerning consider 'not spiritual work' I can best help others, and I inwardly rebel, thinking it is the spiritual for which I crave, when in truth it is the interesting and exciting, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Amy Carmichael (If)
Where the world is full of a thousand colors for those who love books, I suspect it is simply black and gray to everyone else.
Michelle Moran (Rebel Queen)
I had the strength to rebel, but I did not have the strength to let go.
bell hooks (Communion: The Female Search for Love (Love Song to the Nation, #2))
They drew a line that shut me out, Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout! But love and I had the wit to win We drew a circle and brought them in.
Edwin Markham
Originals cost more than imitations.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
Sebastian's eyes were the color of smoke and silver. His pale skin, raven hair, and naturally dark red lips, paired with a rebel attitude and a poet's soul, pulled me in like a dark, magnetic force.
Kelly Keaton (A Beautiful Evil (Gods & Monsters, #2))
You were born an original work of art. Stay original always. Originals cost more than imitations.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
A person who is truly cool is a work of art. And remember, original works of art cost exponentially higher than imitations. Just take a look at the the coolest people in history. They will always be a part of history for being extremely original individuals, not imitations.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
I think people fall in love with the idea of it, but lust is what you fall into, and love can only grow from that,
River Savage (Incandescent (Knights Rebels MC, #1))
I’m sick of everyone thinking I’m Miss Goody Two-shoes, with my perfect grades, and days of the week panties. You know what? I have my Wednesdays on today—it’s Saturday—and that’s a pretty sad way of rebelling, huh?
Kendall Ryan (Hard to Love (Hard to Love, #1))
What? Who are you marrying?” His jaw tightened.“Princess Cleiona Bellos.” Lucia could not believe her ears. “This has been arranged.” Magnus gave her a look.“Oh, not at all. Since helping to take her father's kingdom and destroy her life,I couldn’t help but fall madly in love with her. Yes,obviously it was arranged.
Morgan Rhodes (Rebel Spring (Falling Kingdoms, #2))
Deep-fried Oreos were sent from heaven to prove God loves us.
Rachel Hawkins (Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle, #2))
To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.
Alice Walker
Of course it's all-consuming, but love- real love- doesn't destroy or smother. It's the very opposite of a weakness. Love strengthens. It liberates. It molds itself to every fiber of your being and fortifies you where where you may be broken.
Kerrigan Byrne (The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1))
Some love stories burn hot and fast, but you two are more low and slow,” she said. “It’s a strong and steady kind of love.
Lyla Sage (Done and Dusted (Rebel Blue Ranch, #1))
We can help pave the roads of those around us, but we can't choose their direction.
Michelle Moran (Rebel Queen)
And suddenly, the once-nameless boy knew he didn't want a stolen name, tarnished with use. What he wanted desperately was a name good enough to give to this girl.
Alwyn Hamilton (Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2))
Every decision you make in life will stem from one of two options: love or fear. Choose love.
Ross Caligiuri
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance; commits his body To painful labor, both by sea and land; To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe; And craves no other tribute at thy hands But love, fair looks, and true obedience- Too little payment for so great a debt. Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband; And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And no obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her loving lord? I asham’d that women are so simple ‘To offer war where they should kneel for peace, Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, When they are bound to serve, love, and obey. Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions, and our hearts, Should well agree with our external parts?
William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew)
A rebel she was, but not of the kind he understood—a rebel who desired, not a wider dwelling-room, but equality beside the man she loved.
E.M. Forster (A Room with a View)
If you have ever met someone who rarely reads, then you will understand the blank look Moti gave me. For nonreaders, life is simply what they touch and see, not what they feel when they open the pages of a play and are transported to the Forest of Arden or Illyria. Where the world is full of a thousand colors for those who love books, I suspect it is simply black and gray to everyone else. A tree is a tree to them; it is never a magical doorway to another world populated with beings that don’t exist here.
Michelle Moran (Rebel Queen)
Yes, go on. Leave. You're always coming and going. The rest of us are stuck here. Do you think he'd still love you if he knew who you are? He doesn't really care—only when it suits him.
Libba Bray (Rebel Angels (Gemma Doyle, #2))
Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently. It's a shocking message: Careful obedience to God's law may serve as a strategy for rebelling against God.
Timothy J. Keller (The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith)
Here’s to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here’s to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here’s to the janitors who don’t understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here’s to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here’s to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here’s to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here’s to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here’s to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here’s to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here’s to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on.
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Questions for Ada)
Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples. Since it is a system that denies men full access to their freedom of will, it is difficult for any man of any class to rebel against patriarchy, to be disloyal to the patriarchal parent, be that parent female or male.
bell hooks (The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love)
Obedience is the virtue that determines whether a person is either a servant or a rebel. Life of integrity is built on obedience of God's statutes and nothing else.
Israelmore Ayivor
Emmy Ryder might have been in like with me, but it was then that I knew I was falling in love with her.
Lyla Sage (Done and Dusted (Rebel Blue Ranch, #1))
Even if we don't know where we'll go in the future, perhaps our lives were always meant to collide again and again. Perhaps we are forever meant to be each other's catalysts.
Marie Lu (Rebel (Legend, #4))
An original is worth more than a copy.
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
To struggle against the weight of sleep as reality eclipses the moon of your dreams is the purest sign of true love.
Ross Caligiuri (Dreaming in the Shadows)
You're wrong, you know. I'm not with you because of who you became. I fell in love with you when I was bleeding under a counter at the dead end of the desert and you saved my life. Back when we were both who we used to be.
Alwyn Hamilton (Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands, #3))
Love is not words. Love is feeling
River Savage (Incandescent (Knights Rebels MC, #1))
In her enthusiasms she had always looked for something tangible: she had always loved church for its flowers, music for its romantic words, literature for its power to stir the passions and she rebelled before the mysteries of faith just as she grew ever more restive under discipline, which was antipathetic to her nature.
Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary)
The good news of the kingdom is not freedom from hardship, suffering, and loss. It is the news of a Redeemer who has come to rescue me from myself. His rescue produces change that fundamentally alters my response to these inescapable realities. The Redeemer turns rebels into disciples, fools into humble listeners. He makes cripples walk again. In him we can face life and respond with faith, love, and hope. And as he changes us, he allows us to be a part of what he is doing in the lives of others. As you respond to the Redeemer’s work in your life, you can learn to be an instrument in his hands.
Paul David Tripp (Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change (Resources for Changing Lives))
Life shouldn’t be about constantly trying to prove that we’re safe from getting hurt. Life should be about living with uncertainty while we watch beautiful sunsets with the people we love.
Vi Keeland (Rebel Heart (Rush Duet, #2))
I wanted Ole Miss to feel special, but mostly I felt that the Ole Miss crowd looked at me like I was just white trash from a town full of trailers.… All was not lost. I saw the movie All The President’s Men, mostly because Robert Redford was the star. The fast-paced world of the Washington Post…captivated me. Sitting in a dark theater that afternoon, I fell in love with the idea of becoming a reporter. That was the movie that clinched my plan to major in journalism and political science…. I'd started Ole Miss as a Lady Rebel but left more rebellious than ladylike.
Karen Hinton (Penis Politics: A Memoir of Women, Men and Power)
Gale didn't say, "Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up," or even "whoever she can't live without." Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person "I can't survive without." There's not the least indication that love, desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I'll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It's a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken or exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
Her smile faded to a more serious expression. "Is everything okay? With Callum?" "Fine," I said, taking a bite of meat and avoiding her eyes. "He's crazy about you, you know," she said softly, like I hadn't just told her things were fine. "I see other girls looking at him sometimes, and he doesn't even notice. He only sees you.
Amy Tintera (Rebel (Reboot, #2))
The individual who rebels against the arrangements of society is ostracized, branded, stoned. So be it. I am willing to take the risk; my principles are very pagan. I will live my own life as it pleases me. I am willing to do without your hypocritical respect; I prefer to be happy. The inventors of the Christian marriage have done well, simultaneously to invent immortality. I, however, have no wish to live eternally. When with my last breath everything as far as Wanda von Dunajew is concerned comes to an end here below, what does it profit me whether my pure spirit joins the choirs of angels, or whether my dust goes into the formation of new beings? Shall I belong to one man whom I don't love, merely because I have once loved him? No, I do not renounce; I love everyone who pleases me, and give happiness to everyone who loves me. Is that ugly? No, it is more beautiful by far.
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (Venus in Furs)
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her.?Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Thomas Paine (Common Sense)
I love your brother and your father more than I love myself. I would die for them. Fight for them until the bitter end. Go against the whole world for them. But you…” She dragged her face up to look at me. Her eyes were full of tears. “I’ve always loved you just a tiny bit more. My regal, rebel boy. My legendary hellraiser, my sad prince, my unlikely savior, my beautiful, broken Knight.
L.J. Shen (Broken Knight (All Saints High, #2))
God travels wonderful ways with human beings, but he does not comply with the views and opinions of people. God does not go the way that people want to prescribe for him; rather, his way is beyond all comprehension, free and self-determined beyond all proof. Where reason is indignant, where our nature rebels, where our piety anxiously keeps us away: that is precisely where God loves to be. There he confounds the reason of the reasonable; there he aggravates our nature, our piety—that is where he wants to be, and no one can keep him from it. Only the humble believe him and rejoice that God is so free and so marvelous that he does wonders where people despair, that he takes what is little and lowly and makes it marvelous. And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas)
You do love him," I said, and she swung her gaze back to me. "I do." She smoothed her hand over her thighs, flattening imaginary wrinkles from the linen. "Even though he's not your family." Saylor laughed, a surprisingly husky sound. "Don't you love people who aren't your family, Harper Jane?" "Of course I do. But you love him for more than the whole Oracle thing. You love him because he's David.
Rachel Hawkins (Rebel Belle (Rebel Belle, #1))
I know,” Aren says. “But I wanted to apologize. I don’t want Taltrayn to convince you I’m the bad guy.” At that, I give a short laugh. “You are the bad guy, Aren.” He frowns, and I realize he’s taking my words the wrong way. “What I mean is you’re the . . . well, the rebel. Kyol’s the good guy. He’s made mistakes, yes, but he loves me.” He cocks his head to the side. His gaze makes my skin tingle. The step he takes toward me is hesitant, careful, and when his silver eyes peer down at me, I stop breathing. His lips are so close. I remember the way they felt pressed against mine. I remember his taste, the heat of his edarratae. The smallest distance separates us when he whispers, “You don’t think I’m in love with you?” “I . . .
Sandy Williams (The Shadow Reader (Shadow Reader, #1))
Teachers dread nothing so much as unusual characteristics in precocious boys during the initial stages of their adolescence. A certain streak of genius makes an ominous impression on them, for there exists a deep gulf between genius and the teaching profession. Anyone with a touch of genius seems to his teachers a freak from the very first. As far as teachers are concerned, they define young geniuses as those who are bad, disrespectful, smoke at fourteen, fall in love at fifteen, can be found at sixteen hanging out in bars, read forbidden books, write scandalous essays, occasionally stare down a teacher in class, are marked in the attendance book as rebels, and are budding candidates for room-arrest. A schoolmaster will prefer to have a couple of dumbheads in his class than a single genius, and if you regard it objectively, he is of course right. His task is not to produce extravagant intellects but good Latinists, arithmeticians and sober decent folk. The question of who suffers more acutely at the other's hands - the teacher at the boy's, or vice versa - who is more of a tyrant, more of a tormentor, and who profanes parts of the other's soul, student or teacher, is something you cannot examine without remembering your own youth in anger and shame. yet that's not what concerns us here. We have the consolation that among true geniuses the wounds almost always heal. As their personalities develop, they create their art in spite of school. Once dead, and enveloped by the comfortable nimbus of remoteness, they are paraded by the schoolmasters before other generations of students as showpieces and noble examples. Thus the struggle between rule and spirit repeats itself year after year from school to school. The authorities go to infinite pains to nip the few profound or more valuable intellects in the bud. And time and again the ones who are detested by their teachers are frequently punished, the runaways and those expelled, are the ones who afterwards add to society's treasure. But some - and who knows how many? - waste away quiet obstinacy and finally go under.
Hermann Hesse (Beneath the Wheel)
Until there was a girl. A girl called the Blue-Eyed Bandit, who had been made in the sands and sharpened by the desert and who burned with all of its fire. And for the first time the Foreign Prince understood what it was that his brother loved in this desert.
Alwyn Hamilton (Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands #2))
A true romantic will break the rules for the right reasons. He will not conform to the ideals bestowed upon him by society. Instead he will fight for a climate of freedom that allows him to pursue and obtain his heart's true yearning. He will appear incorrect in his upright form, but such perception only through the eyes of those travelling under the hypnotic notion of social paradigms. Do not judge he who is breaking the rules, rather try to understand his motivations. If his intent is pure then his fight is not in vain.
Nicole Bonomi
Even after centuries of human interacting, children still continue to rebel against their parents and siblings. Young marrieds look upon their in-laws and parents as obstacles to their independence and growth. Parents view their children as selfish ingrates. Husbands desert their wives and seek greener fields elsewhere. Wives form relationships with heroes of soap operas who vicariously bring excitement and romance into their empty lives. Workers often hate their bosses and co-workers and spend miserable hours with them, day after day. On a larger scale, management cannot relate with labour. Each accuses the other of unreasonable self-interests and narrow-mindedness. Religious groups often become entrapped, each in a provincial dogma resulting in hate and vindictiveness in the name of God. Nations battle blindly, under the shadow of the world annihilation, for the realization of their personal rights. Members of these groups blame rival groups for their continual sense of frustration, impotence, lack of progress and communication. We have obviously not learned much over the years. We have not paused long enough to consider the simple truth that we humans are not born with particular attitudinal sets regarding other persons, we are taught into them. We are the future generation's teachers. We are, therefore, the perpetrators of the confusion and alienation we abhor and which keeps us impotent in finding new alternatives. It is up to us to diligently discover new solutions and learn new patterns of relating, ways more conducive to growth, peace, hope and loving coexistence. Anything that is learned can be unlearned and relearned. In this process called change lies our real hope.
Leo F. Buscaglia (Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships)
Ahmed looked shocked, his hands digging into my arms. 'But you love him,' he said softly. 'You love him, and you should save him. That' what people do with those they love, Amani -- they save them.' No iT wasn't. Sam had taught me that. Great love stories ended in death. All stories ended in death sooner or later. Ours was ending sooner.
Alwyn Hamilton (Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands, #3))
We all knew the stories. Djinn who fell in love with worthy princesses and gave them all of their hearts’ wishes. Pretty girls who lured Nightmares straight onto men’s blades. Brave merchants’ daughters who caught Buraqi and rode them to the ends of the earth. They were drawn to us, but also vulnerable to us. We could turn them into flesh and blood.
Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1))
That I love you,” I whisper. “That I’ve been in love with you for years, even when we were separated. Especially then. I’ve lived with you in my life, and I’ve lived without you. No matter what kind of fear I feel in the possibility of us being together, the fear of being away from you is something I don’t think I can bear.” I look down, shy to meet her gaze now. “I have nightmares of losing you again. All the time.
Marie Lu (Rebel (Legend, #4))
The system loves resistance. Resistance is often creative and it feeds on creativity until the subversive becomes just another pre-packaged lifestyle on special offer. So Cease to Resist. Relax and enjoy the PandaemonAeon. Believe everything and anything. Seek not proof, but take pleasure in your choice of belief. Wipe that superior sneer of your face and try smiling (if only inwardly) at the people/institutions/beliefs that you've waged your personal war against. Wouldn't it be more fun if you didn't run around quite so hard trying to be an individual, or fighting to prove or uphold your chosen belief-system?
Phil Hine (Rebels & Devils; A Tribute to Christopher S. Hyatt)
I don’t know that they always fell in love, exactly. Paris seldom let them spend that much time alone. But they were always drawn together. It was obvious, every time he put them in the same room, they were like”—Delalieu claps his hands—“magnets.” “You don’t understand, you don’t understand, you don’t understand,” he cries, shaking his head. “You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don’t know. You don’t know. You don’t know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They’ve known each other since childhood.
Tahereh Mafi (Defy Me (Shatter Me, #5))
Dance me slowly along a moonlit path, Soaked with light from moon and stars above, Hold my hand and whistle a tune, Dance me slowly to the edge of Love. Waltz here with me on forest grass, Soft ballet pirouettes round sun dappled trees, Hold my hand and hum a tune, Catch my freshly blown kiss off the breeze.
Michelle Geaney (Under These Rebel Skies)
Social media is basically standing at a bucket filled with other people’s vomit and you suck the vomit through a straw, and gag and wince at the unbearable taste of other people’s vomit. Yet strangely we continue to suck through the straw as if we’ve never tasted such lovely vomit. And then before you know it you’re old and you’re grey. And that’s the end of you. A lonely death. Your gravestone is marked with the six saddest words: Social Media Drained My Soul Away And they all mourn your loss at a budget funeral service while updating their social media statuses on mobile phones apps. And in years to come nobody remembers any of your updates; even those updates that you deep-down believed were going to bring about world peace. The Digital Age is more disposable than nappies and just as full of shit.
Rupert Dreyfus (The Rebel's Sketchbook)
Oliver's boardroom was actually a library. A good library. A library where books looked worn-out and well read and loved on. The library was two stories tall with a balcony wrapped around the top level. The big window on the top floor was propped half open. A rebel beam of sunlight pushed through the clouds, shining through the rain beads stuck to the screen and glass. And then that strange, golden rain light shone warm and pretty over Oliver's books. I wondered if the sun had missed the books, had waited as long as it possibly cold to shine over those spines again. I knew how that felt, to love a story so much you didn't just want to read it, you wanted to feel it.
Natalie Lloyd (A Snicker of Magic)
I hurried out of the lobby and turned the corner into the English hall, so I didn’t see the guy in front of me until it was too late. “Oh!” I exclaimed as we bumped shoulders. “Sorry!” Then I realized who I’d bumped into, and I immediately regretted my apologetic tone. If I’d known it was David Stark, I would have tried to hit him harder, or maybe stepped on his foot with the spiky heel of my new shoes for good measure. I did my best to smile at him, though, even as I realized my stomach was jumping all over the place. He must have scared me more than I’d thought. David scowled at me over the rims of his ridiculous hipster glasses, the kind with the thick black rims. I hate those. I mean, it’s the 21st century. There are fashionable options for eyewear. “Watch where you’re going,” he said. Then his lips twisted in a smirk. “Or could you not see through all that mascara?” I would’ve loved nothing more than the tell him to kiss my ass, but one of the responsibilities of being a student leader at The Grove is being polite to everyone, even if he is a douchebag who wrote not one, but three incredibly unflattering articles in the school paper about what a crap job you’re doing as SGA president. And you especially needed to be polite to said douchebag when he happened to be the nephew of Saylor Stark, President of the Pine Grove Junior League, head of the Pine Grove Betterment Society, Chairwoman of the Grove Academy School Board, and, most importantly, Founder and Organizer of Pine Grove’s Annual Cotillion. So I forced myself to smile even bigger at David and said, “Nope, just in a hurry. Are you, uh… are you here for the dance?” He snorted. “Um, no. I’d rather slam my testicles in a locker door. I have some work to do on the paper.
Rachel Hawkins (Rebel Belle (Rebel Belle, #1))
If a child sees something in a parent that the child aspires to, he or she will copy that parent and be content. If a children feel that a parent is living a life that shows compassion and understanding, patience and love, that child will not have to reach a stage of rebellion against that parent. Why rebel against someone who has listened to you and wants to help you fufill your dreams? A parent who has proven time and again that growth and happiness of his or her children is priority number one does not have to worry about where these children are heading in life. They will be sensitive and productive members of society for as long as they live.
Alice Ozma (The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared)
The Black homosexual is hard pressed to gain audience among his heterosexual brothers; even if he is more talented, he is inhibited by his silence or his admissions. This is what the race has depended on in being able to erase homosexuality from our recorded history. The "chosen" history. But the sacred constructions of silence are futile exercises in denial. We will not go away with our issues of sexuality. We are coming home. It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator, or rebel. Whom did he love? It makes a difference. I can't become a whole man simply on what is fed to me: watered-down versions of Black life in America. I need the ass-splitting truth to be told, so I will have something pure to emulate, a reason to remain loyal.
Essex Hemphill (Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry)
She felt safe here in the arms of this dangerous man. It was like returning to a home that had been destroyed and rebuilt. The same bones, same structure, but a new core that felt more foreign than if you hadn't ever known it from before. Walls and obstacles constructed by hands that were not her own. But it didn't matter to her. She'd learn this man he'd become, renovate with her love what could be improved upon, and accept and adapt to what she could not repair.
Kerrigan Byrne (The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1))
Stories never told, disappeared in the dawn mist and sunset blaze. Like a movie kiss, not real, but still overwhelms and entices lustfulness, turns me into pleasure and a connoisseur of love. Flying to the heavens above followed by the yearning hope that you will always be close to me, that you will not disperse when we revel in​ one another. Secrets to be kept in one of these terracotta walls that fade away through the dusk, feeling the scented candles of musk, just you and I, two rebels of love, that challenge the logic, the meaning, ​and sense.
Tatjana Ostojic (Baghdad Nights)
I am banished from the patient men who fight. They smote my heart to pity, built my pride. Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side, They trudged away from life's broad wealds of light. Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight They went arrayed in honour. But they died,-- Not one by one: and mutinous I cried To those who sent them out into the night. The darkness tells how vainly I have striven To free them from the pit where they must dwell In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and riven By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel. Love drives me back to grope with them through hell; And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.
Siegfried Sassoon (The War Poems)
She looked up at him with those eyes, and Dougan experienced a pang of love so intense and ferocious it felt as though it didn't belong in this holy room. He began the incantation he remembered from watching once from behind his mother's skirts when he was young. 'Ye are blood of my blood, and bone of my bone. I give ye my body, that we two might be one. I give ye my spirit, 'til our life shall be done.' Farah needed a bit of prompting to remember all the words, but she said them with such fervency that Dougan was touched. Slipping a ring of a willow herb vine onto her finger, he recited the sacred olde vows with perfect clarity, but translated them into English for her sake. 'I made ye my heart At the rising of the moon. To love and honor, Through all our lives. May we be reborn, May our souls meet and know. And love again. And remember.' She looked lost and mystified for a moment, then announced, "Me, too.
Kerrigan Byrne (The Highwayman (Victorian Rebels, #1))
The Byronic hero, incapable of love, or capable only of an impossible love, suffers endlessly. He is solitary, languid, his condition exhausts him. If he wants to feel alive, it must be in the terrible exaltation of a brief and destructive action. To love someone whom one will never see again is to give a cry of exultation as one perishes in the flames of passion. One lives only in and for the moment, in order to achieve "the brief and vivid union of a tempestuous heart united to the tempest" (lermontov). The threat of mortality which hangs over us makes everything abortive. Only the cry of anguish can bring us to life; exaltation takes the place of truth. To this extent the apocalypse becomes an absolute value in which everything is confounded—love and death, conscience and culpability. In a chaotic universe no other life exists but that of the abyss where, according to Alfred Le Poittevin, human beings come "trembling with rage and exulting in their crimes" to curse the Creator.
Albert Camus (The Rebel)
Every fairy tale offers the potential to surpass present limits, so in a sense the fairy tale offers you freedoms that reality denies. In all great works of fiction, regardless of the grim reality they present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life, an essential defiance. The affirmation lies in the way the author takes control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the ugliness and shabiness of the subject matter. This is why we love "Madame Bovary" and cry for Emma, why we greedily read "Lolita" as our heart breaks for its small, vulgar, poetic and defiant orphaned heroine.
Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books)
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you - that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, 'Doesn't he look peaceful?' It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old.
Robertson Davies (The Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels / What's Bred in the Bone / The Lyre of Orpheus)
Well, surely you know. Didn’t you rebel? Don’t you? Why, Leon said of you there is a core in you which no one touches." "Nonsense. I merely know and accept everything. There is no resistance." "But how can it be?" "Beauty, you must learn it. You must accept and yield, and then you shall see everything is simple." "I would not be here with you if I yielded because of the Prince..." "Yes, you could be here with me. I adore my Queen and I am here with you. I love you both. I yield to that entirely as well as everything else and even the knowledge I may be punished. And when I am punished, I shall dread it, and suffer it and understand it and accept it. Beauty, when you accept you will flower in the pain, you will flower in your suffering.
Anne Rice (The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (Sleeping Beauty, #1))
Rising up, rising down! History shambles on! What are we left with? A few half-shattered Greek stelae; Trotsky's eyeglasses; Gandhi's native-spun cloth, Cortes' pieces of solid gold (extorted from their original owner, Montezuma); a little heap of orange peels left on the table by the late Robespierre; John Brown's lengthily underlined letters; Lenin's bottles of invisible ink; one of Di Giovanni's suitcases, with an iron cylinder of gelignite and two glass tubes of acid inside; the Constitution of the Ku Klux Klan; a bruised ear (Napoleon pinched it with loving condescension)... And dead bodies, of course. (They sing about John Brown's body.) Memoirs, manifestoes, civil codes, trial proceedings, photographs, statues, weapons now aestheticized by that selfsame history - the sword of Frederick the Great, and God knows what else. Then dust blows out of fresh graves, and the orange peels go grey, sink, wither, rot away. Sooner or later, every murder becomes quaint. Charlemagne hanged four and a half thousand "rebels" in a single day, but he has achieved a storybook benevolence. And that's only natural: historiography begins after the orange has been sucked,; the peeler believes in the "great and beautiful things," or wants to believe; easy for us to believe likewise, since dust reduced truth and counterfeit to the same greyness - caveat emptor. But ends remain fresh, and means remain inexplicable. Rising up and rising down! And whom shall I save, and who is my enemy, and who is my neighbor?
William T. Vollmann
Your call is clear, cold centuries across; You bid me follow you, and take my cross, And daily lose myself, myself deny, And stern against myself shout ‘Crucify’. My stubborn nature rises to rebel Against your call. Proud choruses of hell Unite to magnify my restless hate Of servitude, lest I capitulate. The world, to see my cross, would pause and jeer. I have no choice, but still to persevere To save myself – and follow you from far, More slow than Magi-for I have no star. And yet you call me still. Your cross Eclipses mine, transforms the bitter loss I thought that I would suffer if I came To you- into immeasurable gain. I kneel before you, Jesus, crucified, My cross is shouldered and my self denied; I’ll follow daily, closely, not refuse For love of you and man myself to lose.
John R.W. Stott (Basic Christianity (IVP Classics))
Whispers of a forgotten shore When I die, throw my ashes to the wind… Let it carry me along as my heart will lead my soul, to the places that took my breath away. Let it blow me about to return to those places.. That I swore were so magical I would return, But have not, Let those forgotten shores, forgotten places, Be reunited with my eyes, The splendour and the overwhelming feeling of sheer happiness, Etch into my soul as I pass through one heaven into the next Where I shall live for eternity Knowing I made a promise and kept it, I forgot nothing, I left nothing behind, My loved ones will greet me or follow me, My broken promises were fixed, And the screams in my ears of a conscience I couldn’t escape, Faded to whispers, Till one day I shall return to Earth in a new vessel, Reborn to live and suffer and wish this wish of mine all over again, Knowing the fulfillment of being forever free….
Michelle Geaney (Under These Rebel Skies)
A person does not reach the pinnacle of self-realization without relentlessly exploring the parameters of the self, exhausting their psychic energy coming to know oneself. Without society to rebel against and to sail away from, there would be no advances in civilization; there would be no need for healers and mystics, priests and artist, or shaman and writers. It is our curiosity and refusal to be satisfied with the status quo that compels us to challenge ourselves to learn and continue to grow. We only establish inner peace of mind with acceptance of the world, with the recognition of our connection to the entirety of the universe, and understanding that chaos and change are inevitable. We must also love because without love there are no acts of creation. Without love, humankind is a spasmodic pool of brutality and suffering. Love is a balm. It cures human aches and pains; it unites couples, families, and cultures. Love is a creative force, without love there is no art or religion. Art expresses thought and feelings, an articulation of adore and reverence.
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
Are you going to hand me over to him?" "I haven't decided yet," I teased, and he smiled again, erasing his momentary seriousness. "So, where'd you get the suit?" "Believe it or not, that lovely friend of yours, Willa," Loki said. "She brought me a whole slew of clothes last night. When I asked her why she was being so generous, she said it was out of fear that I would run around naked." I smiled. "That does sound like something you would do. Why are you wearing all black, though? Didn't you know you were going to a wedding?" "On the contrary," he said, doing his best to look unhappy. "I'm in mourning over the wedding." "Oh, because it's too late?" I asked. "No, Wendy, it's never too late." His voice was light, but his eyes were solemn. "May I cut in?" the best man asked. "No, you may not," Loki said. I'd started to move away from him, but he held fast. "Loki," I said, and my eyes widened. "I'm still dancing with her," Loki said, turning to look at him. "You can have her when I'm done." "Loki," I said again, but he was already twirling me away. "You can't do that." "I just did." He grinned. "Oh, Wendy, don't look so appalled. I'm already the rebel Prince of thine enemy. I can't do much more to tarnish my image." "You can certainly tarnish mine," I pointed out. "Never," Loki said, and it was his turn to look appalled. "I'm merely showing them how it's done." He began spinning me around the dance floor in grand arcs, my gown swirling around me. He was a brilliant dancer, moving with grace and speed. Everyone had stopped to watch us, but I didn't care. This was the way a Princess was supposed to dance on her wedding day. The song ended, switching to something by Mozart, and he slowed, almost to a stop, but he kept me in his arms. "Thank you." I smiled. My skin felt flushed from dancing, and I was a little out of breath. "That was a wonderful dance." "You're welcome," he said, staring intently at me. "You are so beautiful." "Stop," I said, looking away as my cheeks reddened. "How can you blush?" Loki asked, laughing gently. "People must tell you how beautiful you are a thousand times a day." "It's not the same," I said. "It's not the same?" Loki echoed. "Why? Because you know they don't mean it like I do?" We did stop dancing them, and neither of us said anything. Garrett came up to us. He smiled, but his eyes didn't appear happy. "Can I cut in?" Garrett asked. "Yes," Loki said, shaking off the intensity he'd had a moment ago, and grinned broadly at Garrett. "She's all yours, good sir. Take care of her." He patted Garrett on the arm once for good measure and gave me a quick smile before heading back over to the refreshment table.
Amanda Hocking (Ascend (Trylle, #3))
Many people, after spending a long weekend being stealthily seduced by this grand dame of the South, mistakenly think that they have gotten to know her: they believe (in error) that after a long stroll amongst the rustling palmettoes and gas lamps, a couple of sumptuous meals, and a tour or two, that they have discovered everything there is to know about this seemingly genteel, elegant city. But like any great seductress, Charleston presents a careful veneer of half-truths and outright fabrications, and it lets you, the intended conquest, fill in many of the blanks. Seduction, after all, is not true love, nor is it a gentle act. She whispers stories spun from sugar about pirates and patriots and rebels, about plantations and traditions and manners and yes, even ghosts; but the entire time she is guarded about the real story. Few tourists ever hear the truth, because at the dark heart of Charleston is a winding tale of violence, tragedy and, most of all, sin.
James Caskey (Charleston's Ghosts: Hauntings in the Holy City)
The idea of humanity becomes more and more of a power in the civilized world, and, owing to the expansion and increasing speed of means of communication, and also owing to the influence, still more material than moral, of civilization upon barbarous peoples, this idea of humanity begins to take hold even of the minds of uncivilized nations. This idea is the invisible power of our century, with which the present powers — the States — must reckon. They cannot submit to it of their own free will because such submission on their part would be equivalent to suicide, since the triumph of humanity can be realized only through the destruction of the States. But the States can no longer deny this idea nor openly rebel against it, for having now grown too strong, it may finally destroy them. In the face of this fainful alternative there remains only one way out: and that is hypocrisy. The States pay their outward respects to this idea of humanity; they speak and apparently act only in the name of it, but they violate it every day. This, however, should not be held against the States. They cannot act otherwise, their position having become such that they can hold their own only by lying. Diplomacy has no other mission. Therefore what do we see? Every time a State wants to declare war upon another State, it starts off by launching a manifesto addressed not only to its own subjects but to the whole world. In this manifesto it declares that right and justice are on its side, and it endeavors to prove that it is actuated only by love of peace and humanity and that, imbued with generous and peaceful sentiments, it suffered for a long time in silence until the mounting iniquity of its enemy forced it to bare its sword. At the same time it vows that, disdainful of all material conquest and not seeking any increase in territory, it will put and end to this war as soon as justice is reestablished. And its antagonist answers with a similar manifesto, in which naturally right, justice, humanity, and all the generous sentiments are to be found respectively on its side. Those mutually opposed manifestos are written with the same eloquence, they breathe the same virtuous indignation, and one is just as sincere as the other; that is to say both of them are equally brazen in their lies, and it is only fools who are deceived by them. Sensible persons, all those who have had some political experience, do not even take the trouble of reading such manifestos. On the contrary, they seek ways to uncover the interests driving both adversaries into this war, and to weigh the respective power of each of them in order to guess the outcome of the struggle. Which only goes to prove that moral issues are not at stake in such wars.
Mikhail Bakunin
They were supposed to be the ones who would help us eighteen-year-olds to make the transition, who would guide us into adult life, into a world of work, of responsibilities, of civilized behaviour and progress – into the future. Quite often we ridiculed them and played tricks on them, but basically we believed in them. In our minds the idea of authority – which is what they represented – implied deeper insights and a more humane wisdom. But the first dead man that we saw shattered this conviction. We were forced to recognize that our generation was more honourable than theirs; they only had the advantage of us in phrase-making and in cleverness. Our first experience of heavy artillery fire showed us our mistake, and the view of life that their teaching had given us fell to pieces under that bombardment. While they went on writing and making speeches, we saw field hospitals and men dying: while they preached the service of the state as the greatest thing, we already knew that the fear of death is even greater. This didn’t make us into rebels or deserters, or turn us into cowards – and they were more than ready to use all of those words – because we loved our country just as much as they did, and so we went bravely into every attack. But now we were able to distinguish things clearly, all at once our eyes had been opened. And we saw that there was nothing left of their world. Suddenly we found ourselves horribly alone – and we had to come to terms with it alone as well.
Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front)
My five Upstart sons are all bloody and brave I’ve got one on the gallows, and two in the grave One is your prisoner, and none is your slave “Pish,” said Gormalin. “That’s a war song!” I’ve got one in the hills that you never have met And though he is young, he will murder you yet For the hour is coming you’ll answer your debt “That song’s illegal!” he protested, and right he was. It’s the very song that got Kellan na Falth hanged. “You can’t sing about men killing men since the Goblin Wars! Especially not a song against a proper king of Holt, even an old, bad king!” Now, of course, I joined in. My five Upstart sons have declared against you Their tongues are as black as their promise is true And they’ll call you to answer whatever you do! No Coldfoot guard was going to be left out of an illegal Galtish rebel song, so Malk picked up the next verse with us, his strong, confident baritone suddenly making the whole insurrection seem credible. The crown you so love sits but light on your head The castle you stole has a cold, stony bed And though I am old, I will yet see you dead You’ve hundreds of men with long swords and long knives But you’ve lain with near half of their fair Galtish wives And none of them love you to lay down their lives Abandon your tower and open your gate No silver-bought army can alter your fate If all my five perish, my neighbor has eight Our ten thousand sons have declared against you Their tongues are as black as their promise is true And they’re coming, they’re coming, whatever you do
Christopher Buehlman (The Blacktongue Thief (Blacktongue, #1))
Close your eyes and stare into the dark. My father's advice when I couldn't sleep as a little girl. He wouldn't want me to do that now but I've set my mind to the task regardless. I'm staring beyond my closed eyelids. Though I lie still on the ground, I feel perched at the highest point I could possibly be; clutching at a star in the night sky with my legs dangling above cold black nothingness. I take one last look at my fingers wrapped around the light and let go. Down I go, falling, then floating, and, falling again, I wait for the land of my life. I know now, as I knew as that little girl fighting sleep, that behind her gauzed screen of shut-eye, lies colour. It taunts me, dares me to open my eyes and lose sleep. Flashes of red and amber, yellow and white speckle my darkness. I refuse to open them. I rebel and I squeeze my eyelids together tighter to block out the grains of light, mere distractions that keep us awake but a sign that there's life beyond. But there's no life in me. None that I can feel, from where I lie at the bottom of the staircase. My heart beats quicker now, the lone fighter left standing in the ring, a red boxing glove pumping victoriously into the air, refusing to give up. It's the only part of me that cares, the only part that ever cared. It fights to pump the blood around to heal, to replace what I'm losing. But it's all leaving my body as quickly as it's sent; forming a deep black ocean of its own around me where I've fallen. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Never have enough time here, always trying to make our way there. Need to have left here five minutes ago, need to be there now. The phone rings again and I acknowledge the irony. I could have taken my time and answered it now. Now, not then. I could have taken all the time in the world on each of those steps. But we're always rushing. All, but my heart. That slows now. I don't mind so much. I place my hand on my belly. If my child is gone, and I suspect this is so, I'll join it there. There.....where? Wherever. It; a heartless word. He or she so young; who it was to become, still a question. But there, I will mother it. There, not here. I'll tell it; I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry I ruined your chances - our chances of a life together.But close your eyes and stare into the darkness now, like Mummy is doing, and we'll find our way together. There's a noise in the room and I feel a presence. 'Oh God, Joyce, oh God. Can you hear me, love? Oh God. Oh God, please no, Hold on love, I'm here. Dad is here.' I don't want to hold on and I feel like telling him so. I hear myself groan, an animal-like whimper and it shocks me, scares me. I have a plan, I want to tell him. I want to go, only then can I be with my baby. Then, not now. He's stopped me from falling but I haven't landed yet. Instead he helps me balance on nothing, hover while I'm forced to make the decision. I want to keep falling but he's calling the ambulance and he's gripping my hand with such ferocity it's as though I'm all he has. He's brushing the hair from my forehead and weeping loudly. I've never heard him weep. Not even when Mum died. He clings to my hand with all of his strength I never knew his old body had and I remember that I am all he has and that he, once again just like before, is my whole world. The blood continues to rush through me. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Maybe I'm rushing again. Maybe it's not my time to go. I feel the rough skin of old hands squeezing mine, and their intensity and their familiarity force me to open my eyes. Lights fills them and I glimpse his face, a look I never want to see again. He clings to his baby. I know I lost mind; I can't let him lose his. In making my decision I already begin to grieve. I've landed now, the land of my life. And still my heart pumps on. Even when broken it still works.
Cecelia Ahern (Thanks for the Memories)