“
It’s simple guy logic: If a woman is angry? It means she cares. If you’re in a relationship and a chick can’t even be bothered to yell at you? You’re screwed. Indifference is a woman’s kiss of death. It’s the equivalent of a man not interested in sex. In either case—it’s over. You’re done.
”
”
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
“
When you find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will stand in front of you when other’s cast stones, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who will hold your hand when your sick, who thinks your pretty without makeup, the one who turns to his friends and say, ‘that’s her’, the one that would bear your rejection because losing you means losing his will to live, who kisses you when you screw up, watches the stars and names one for you and will hold and rock that baby for hours so you can sleep…..you marry him all over again.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. “Are we officially boyfriend
and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’?”
Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. “You have a book that’s also a face?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
I don't deserve you. I'm not made for relationships. I know I'm going to fuck this up. I'm going to drive you away or do something to hurt you, and you'll be added to my list of people I screwed over. You should walk away now.
”
”
M.A. Stacie (Unwritten Rules)
“
A pair of great heels was much more satisfying than a man. They lasted longer, and better yet, they didn’t leave me for someone prettier.
”
”
Cindi Madsen (Cinderella Screwed Me Over)
“
I looked back at my relationships and noticed my dating life had been more like Con Air than Cinderella-you know, bumpy and full of bad guys.
”
”
Cindi Madsen (Cinderella Screwed Me Over)
“
Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of, the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends, and a more-than minor life.
And then i screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there's no sugar-coating it: She deserved better friends.
When she fucked up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified. into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led for her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe in it spite of having lost her.
Beacause I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know that she forgives me for being dumb and sacred and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her. And here's how I know:
I thought at first she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her-green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs-would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere.
I still think that, sometimes. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just a matter, and matter gets recycled.
But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska's genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirety. There is a part of her knowable parts. And that parts has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, One thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed.
And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself -those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be.
When adults say "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are.
We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.
So I know she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Eidson's last words were: "It's very beautiful over there." I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.
”
”
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
“
Screw practice. Our relationship is more important than a damn practice.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Don't Look Back)
“
Saying something is “meant to be” is a cop out. It’s a way for people to deal when they screw up or when life hands them a bowl of shit stew. The things that are meant to be are the things we can’t control, the things we don’t cause, the things that happen regardless of who or what we are. Like sunsets and snow-fall and natural disasters. I’ve never believed hardship or suffering was meant to be. I’ve never believed relationships were meant to be. We choose. In large part, we choose. We create, we make mistakes, we burn bridges, we build new ones.
”
”
Amy Harmon (The Song of David (The Law of Moses, #2))
“
When you are not being honest in a relationship – to another person or to yourself – it is a little like screwing on the top of a jam jar when the ridges are out of line. An onlooker might think you are screwing it on just fine, but you can feel a stiffness developing that warns you it’s not on properly, and you know then that, however hard you try to keep turning it, the lid will never tightly seal.
”
”
Natasha Lunn (Conversations on Love: Lovers, Strangers, Parents, Friends, Endings, Beginnings)
“
The constant vigilance and my heightened anxiety that I'd screw it up anyway exhausted me, but I persevered.
”
”
Tracey Garvis Graves (The Girl He Used to Know)
“
And I think that’s what growing up is all about, where you go, okay, this is it, this is about love-relationships are a disaster, everything is really screwed up, things don’t work out, people get divorces, I may not even like everything there is to like about myself—love anyway. Live anyway. Choose to be a part of this anyway.
”
”
Raul Esparza
“
Relationship? We aren’t in a relationship. We don’t know a thing about each other, Zeth. You’re the guy who shows up on my doorstep and screws me senseless whenever he feels like it. And I’m the girl stupid enough to let you do it.
”
”
Callie Hart (Burn (Blood & Roses, #3))
“
Studies have shown a woman looking for a
'sense of humour' wants a man who
makes jokes and who likes to laugh.
A man looking for the same quality in a
woman does not expect her to be funny;
rather, he wants her to laugh at his jokes.
”
”
Lili Boisvert (Screwed: How Women Are Set Up to Fail at Sex)
“
I kept thinking about what my mother would have said about this situation.
“A real chunk of man meat and you screw it up because you’re afraid. You’re too much like your father, Olivia.”
I was a relationship retard. I kicked, shoved, and punched people out of my life, so they never had a chance to hurt me.
”
”
Tarryn Fisher (The Opportunist (Love Me with Lies, #1))
“
People screw up. A lot. The key to a lasting relationship is the ability to forgive over and over again.
”
”
Lyssa Kay Adams (Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club, #3))
“
NEVER EVER STAY IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR CHILDREN. That is the worst thing one can ever do. It is better for a child to live with one Good Parent than two frustrated,screwed up ones.
”
”
Rachitha Cabral
“
I just think that I screwed up what could have turned into a more significant relationship, or at least a lasting friendship.
”
”
Emily Giffin
“
I'd rather risk screwing up with you than not even try." - Under My Skin
”
”
J. Kenner
“
No matter how much they screw up, they will always pass off their pathetic behavior as comedy—a mask to minimize their failures.
”
”
Peace (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, & Other Toxic People)
“
There are lots of real reasons to decide to leave something or someone, but there are lots of other reasons that are less valid and less real and less about a relationship than our own minds: Fear (of screwing up, of being left, of not being good enough), restlessness, resistance to growing up, PMS, not knowing how to live without drama, fearing that you're getting happy, and happiness is boring.
The thing that scared me the most was the knowledge that if I stayed, something was going to change, and that something was probably me. I didn't know what changed me would look like, or if I would like her more or less than I already did. Would I still recognize myself? Would I still be myself?
”
”
Ännä White (Mended: Thoughts on Life, Love, and Leaps of Faith)
“
Dear Hunger Games :
Screw you for helping cowards pretend you have to be great with a bow to fight evil.
You don't need to be drafted into a monkey-infested jungle to fight evil.
You don't need your father's light sabre, or to be bitten by a radioactive spider.
You don't need to be stalked by a creepy ancient vampire who is basically a pedophile if you're younger than a redwood.
Screw you mainstream media for making it look like moral courage requires hair gel, thousands of sit ups and millions of dollars of fake ass CGI.
Moral courage is the gritty, scary and mostly anonymous process of challenging friends, co-workers and family on issues like spanking, taxation, debt, circumcision and war.
Moral courage is standing up to bullies when the audience is not cheering, but jeering. It is helping broken people out of abusive relationships, and promoting the inner peace of self knowledge in a shallow and empty pseudo-culture.
Moral courage does not ask for - or receive - permission or the praise of the masses. If the masses praise you, it is because you are helping distract them from their own moral cowardice and conformity. Those who provoke discomfort create change - no one else.
So forget your politics and vampires and magic wands and photon torpedoes. Forget passively waiting for the world to provoke and corner you into being virtuous. It never will.
Stop watching fictional courage and go live some; it is harder and better than anything you will ever see on a screen.
Let's make the world change the classification of courage from 'fantasy' to 'documentary.'
You know there are people in your life who are doing wrong. Go talk to them, and encourage them to pursue philosophy, self-knowledge and virtue.
Be your own hero; you are the One that your world has been waiting for.
”
”
Stefan Molyneux
“
I think honesty is important like you said. But what I actually think is that the key to a good relationship is forgiveness, because without it we're all completely screwed. [...] Because we're all human, and we all make mistakes. Without forgiveness, we'd all be walking this Earth angry and alone, and I think that would really suck.
”
”
Trish Cook (Notes from the Blender)
“
You know what I want? I just want you to be open to the fact that I am a woman. I’ve got emotions. I’ve got expectations. I cry. I laugh. And I was drawn to you because, first, you are a handsome man. But, secondly, after spending the time that we’ve spent, I just have an intuition that you’re the type of man who can appreciate a good woman. I really don’t care about your past and how many women you’ve screwed.
”
”
S.B. Redd (The Shades of Passion)
“
I had screwed up. Grown-ups didn’t go around blurting out troublesome things to people. You couldn’t just blithely disclose something that would then make it impossible to greet them with a smile the next day.
”
”
Hiromi Kawakami (Strange Weather in Tokyo)
“
Sometimes, we expect life to work a certain way and when it doesn’t we blame others or see it as a sign, rather than face the pain of the choices we should or shouldn’t have made. Real healing won’t begin until we stop saying, “God prevented this or that.” Often in our attempt to protect ourselves from pain, we leave things to fate and don’t take chances. Or, we don’t work hard enough to keep the blessings we are given. Maybe, we didn't recognize a blessing, until it was too late. Often, it is the lies we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck in a delusion of not being responsible for our lives. We leave it all up to God. The truth is we are not leaves blowing toward our destiny without any control. To believe this is to take away our freedom of choice and that of others. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This can’t be reached through always believing God willed the outcomes in our lives, despite our inaction or actions. To think so is to take the easy escape from our accountability. Sometimes, God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, we just screwed up and guarded our heart from accepting it, by putting our outcome on God as the reason it turned out the way it did. Faith is a beautiful thing, but without work we can give into a mysticism of destiny that really doesn't teach us lessons or consequences for our actions. Life then becomes a distorted delusion of no accountability with God always to blame for battles we walked away from, won or loss.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
Will restrained a desire to leap in at this point and tell her that an inability to hold down a relationship was indicative of an undervalued kind of moral courage, that only cool people screwed up.
”
”
Nick Hornby (About a Boy)
“
The last four days
where everything has finally made some sense. And why is she so ready to throw this away? Because.
Because eventually every relationship she’s been in has turned to shit. Eventually she ends up
screwing everything up. So maybe it’s better to leave now before people’s feelings get hurt.
”
”
Joe Meno (Office Girl)
“
Apparently I’m hopeless when it comes to relationships.”
“No, you’re not.” I ease up on my tiptoes and kiss the corner of his jaw. “You’re a bit inept, sure. But you’re also ridiculously talented when it comes to romantic gestures, so if you screw up again, I’m ninety percent sure you’ll be able to win me back.”
“Only ninety percent?” He looks upset.
“Well, it depends how badly you screw up. I mean, if it’s picking a fight with me like you did today, then obviously we’ll be able to work through it. But if I’m over at your house and I go down to the basement and find a serial killer lair? No promises.”
“Jesus Christ, what is your obsession with serial killers?” He grins. “Hey, that should be your specialty. Profiling killers.”
Damn. Not a bad idea.
”
”
Elle Kennedy (The Mistake (Off-Campus, #2))
“
I try to wrap my mind around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it happen to me. If I stay in a doomed relationship, if I mess up my career, if I hide in fear instead of facing what’s wrong with my body, I can create a living death—but one where I call the shots.
”
”
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
“
I was taught that punishment and shame were the logical and necessary reactions to screwing up. The benefit of punishment was that it would keep my wild and terrible natural tendencies in line. It would shame me into being better. “Justice is the firmest pillar of good government,” after all, and justice meant people had to pay for their mistakes. When something went wrong, there had to be fault. There had to be blame. There had to be pain. Now I knew I was wrong. Punishment didn’t make things better. It mucked things up even more.
The father’s self-punishment did not grant him his daughter’s forgiveness. It did not whip his sins out of him. Instead, it removed him from his family by isolating him in a prison of self-loathing. Locked in this prison, he couldn’t hear what his daughter needed. He couldn’t give her what she was asking for. There was blame and pain in spades. But all of this actively prevented him from making amends, from healing his relationship with his daughter. Punishment did not ease Willow or Jeremy or the other children at Mott Haven back into their circles of friends. Punishment excludes and excises. It demolishes relationships and community.
I could not believe it had taken me this long to realize that punishment is not love. In fact, it is the opposite of love. Forgiveness is love. Spaciousness is love.
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
Who was I to meddle in people’s love lives? Mine was a mess. My heart
wanted the one thing it wasn’t allowed to have — love with someone besides my
cupid-appointed soul mate. I was so screwed up, I made the dysfunctional
relationships on Jerry Springer look wholesome.
”
”
Jenn Windrow (Struck By Eros (Redeeming Cupid, #1))
“
For what it's worth, I think perfect love stories have perfect disasters hidden somewhere. If a genuine relationship comes out of two people screwing before they saw the potential of the 'relationship'? Its perfect, beautiful, a work of art in fact.. Normal is overrated.
”
”
Nike Thaddeus
“
It goes back to keeping things equal. Friendship feels really demeaning if one person still likes the other more,
which is probably what caused the breakup in the first place. It’s such a misnomer that ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ have the word ‘friend’ in them."
"I don’t know, Dom. It’s screwed up that people who dug each other enough to go out can’t at least stay friends
afterward.
"Spoken by a true love virgin.
”
”
Daria Snadowsky (Anatomy of a Single Girl (Anatomy, #2))
“
The notion that a vast gulf exists between "criminals" and those of us who have never served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology that birthed mass incarceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong and morally inferior about "them." The reality, though, is that all of us have done wrong. As noted earlier, studies suggest that most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime. Indeed, most of us break the law not once but repeatedly throughout our lives. Yet only some of us will be arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or a felon, and ushered into a permanent undercaste. Who becomes a social pariah and excommunicated from civil society and who trots off to college bears scant relationship to the morality of the crimes committed. Who is more blameworthy: the young black kid who hustles on the street corner, selling weed to help his momma pay rent? Or the college kid who deals drugs out of his dorm room so that he'll have cash to finance his spring break? Who should we fear? The kid in the 'hood who joined a gang and now carries a gun for security, because his neighborhood is frightening and unsafe? Or the suburban high school student who has a drinking problem but keeps getting behind the wheel? Our racially biased system of mass incarceration exploits the fact that all people break the law and make mistakes at various points in their lives with varying degrees of justification. Screwing up-failing to live by one's highest ideals and values-is part of what makes us human.
”
”
Michelle Alexander
“
Don’t blame yourself. You believed what he told you, because you trusted him. You’re a warm, open, trusting person. And you’re trustworthy. Trustworthy people like us always get screwed, because we expect other people to be like us. Don’t let his bad behavior make you question yourself.
”
”
Jacqueline Simon Gunn (The Cat Who Ate His Tail)
“
Very few people know loyalty anymore." "Do you?" I asked, needing for my own piece of mind to know. "Did I maybe start flirting with Shelly when I was still dating Meg in high school? Yeah, I did. I was sixteen and stupid as fuck. But I grew up. I watched countless families get torn apart by infidelity. I have had to comfort dozens of crying women in my office when I handed them the pictures they paid me to take. And I've gotten to witness the awful thing that happens when they stop crying." "What's that?" "They make up their minds to never let themselves get hurt like that again. See, cheating doesn't just screw up that one relationship, it tends to screw up every single one later because the person gets bitter or scared or distrusting. It's a sad fucking thing to see. And it's not something I am ever willing to do to a woman." He paused and I let those words sink in.
”
”
Jessica Gadziala (367 Days (Investigators, #1))
“
Loving yourself isn't just about celebrating your accomplishments and nurturing your talents. Those things are nice, sure. But that's not how we know others love us. We know others love us when they see us with our face on the ground, crying and weak, feeling like we've got nothing to offer the world—and they smile, and they reach out, and they love us anyway. Loving yourself is what you do when you fail, when you don't know, when you screw up, when you forget, when you lose everything. Loving yourself is what you do when you can't approve of what you've done. Loving yourself is what you do when you're not sure if it's going to get better. Loving yourself is what you must do in those moments when you can't like yourself. Real love is when you reach out for no good reason at all, except to love.
”
”
Vironika Tugaleva
“
Ridding yourself of what you don’t need doesn’t just stop with things. Material Items.
It’s also about ridding yourself of toxic people who are so bitter and negative in life
making you just want to jump off a bridge rather than listen to them talk. It’s hard
to tell satire when reading, but I hope you catch it at points like these. Wink wink.
”
”
Harken Headers (Health & Not Screwing It Up)
“
Sophie clutched Grant tighter. 'I don’t know what screwed-up messages from your family are floating around in your head right now, but you’re staying right here.
”
”
Jennifer Lane (Bad Behavior (Conduct, #2))
“
It’s very easy to diagnose a borderline. They screw you over, rip you off, commit whatever transgression, and then they blame you for it.
”
”
Christiane Northrup (Dodging Energy Vampires: An Empath’s Guide to Evading Relationships That Drain You and Restoring Your Health and Power)
“
It takes only one person to change a relationship.
”
”
Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
“
What have we become? We're strangers who used to be lovers... playing at being friends. And... how screwed up is that?
”
”
Alfa Holden
“
We light up around anyone who makes us feel screwed in, to the universe.
”
”
Curtis Tyrone Jones
“
Simon said, “So have we DTRed now?” Isabelle shrugged. “I have no idea what that means.” Simon hid the fact that he was inordinately pleased by this. “Are we officially boyfriend and girlfriend? Is there a Shadowhunter ritual? Should I change my Facebook status from ‘it’s complicated’ to ‘in a relationship’?” Isabelle screwed up her nose adorably. “You have a book that’s also a face?” Simon
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6))
“
When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.
”
”
Sherman Alexie (Reservation Blues)
“
I used to think that one day we would tell the STORY OF US ; how we met and instantly became the best of friends. From laughing about anything and everything, to antagonizing you and finally to falling for each other. You said, you have fallen for me ; I said I fell for you too. I know you wanted us to be something more, something more than just friends. You made my eyes shine and heart smile but I had my reasons when I said that we cannot be something when living in different continents. Long distance relationships never last and never stand against the test of time. Didn't wanna ruin something so beautiful and so special.
When I couldn't give you what you wanted I accepted that somebody else is. But, how did we land here honey? Fighting with each other to you completely cutting me off from you life. Leaving without saying goodbyes, words like knives and ever growing distance.
Break down the walls, let heaven in
Somewhere in forever, we'll dance again
We used to be inseparable
I used to think that I was irreplaceable
We lift the whole world up before we blew it up
I still don't know just how we screwed it up
Forever, forever, forever
Love will remember you
And love will remember me
I know it inside my heart
Forever will forever be ours.
”
”
EJR
“
I love your body 'cause I've lost my mind
If you want someone to talk to, you're wasting your time
If you want someone to share your life, you need someone who's alive
And if every relationship is a two-way street, I have been screwing in the back whilst you drive
I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow
My lack of knowledge is vast, and my horizons are narrow
I never said I was big, I never said that I was clever
And if you're waiting to find what's going on in my mind, you could be waiting forever
Forever and ever
I can dance you to the end of the night 'cause I'm afraid of the dark
I have to confess: I'm out of my depth
You're going over my head and straight through my heart
Some girls like to play it dirty, some girls want to be your mum
Me, I disrespected you whilst we were waiting for the taxi to come
My morality is shabby, my behaviour unacceptable
No, I'm not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle
I never said I was...
I never said I was...
I never said I was...
I never said I was deep, but I am profoundly shallow
My lack of knowledge is vast, and my horizons are narrow
Oh, yeah. I never said I was big, I never said that I was clever
And if you're waiting to find what's going on in my mind, you could be waiting forever
Forever and ever
”
”
Jarvis Cocker
“
What you do is you start loving responsive desire. Figure out what contexts give you a fantastic relationship and hot sex. Context-free spontaneous desire is just the man-as-default standard, and screw that. Don't use somebody else's standard to measure the quality of your sex life.
”
”
Emily Nagoski (Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life)
“
Letting people know you too well is like the commercial for a telephone company with the hapless person trying to find decent reception: 'Can you hear me now?' Our bitter, hard, screwed-up places spool out over time in a marriage or intimate relationship. Our crazy inside-person shows.
”
”
Anne Lamott (Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage)
“
You were a prisoner when we met.” Vidrol smirked at me. “And then you were a slave.”
“And then I won my freedom—” I started, but he cut me off with a tittering sound.
“You became an apprentice as we trained—”
“Tortured,” I corrected dully.
“But even that’s a far leap from a queen
”
”
Jane Washington (A Dream of Embers (A Tempest of Shadows, #3))
“
Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.” A woman who was in a relationship with Prince years ago told me that when he gave women baths he took total control. “He ran the bath, he put the bubbles in, he took your clothes off, he washed you, he washed your hair, it was a whole procedure and process. He put lotion on you after. He’d give you a robe. I don’t know if it was worshipful or if it was sweet and sensitive.
”
”
Touré (I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon)
“
Dear J.,
I want to explain something.
After my dad set me on fire...Well...He died in jail while I was in the hospital getting skin grafts. And I never got to tell him how much he hurt me. Not just physically, but inside, you know? So I took it out on other things for a while.
I'm better now. I get counseling for it, and I'm really better. But I'm not perfect. And I'm still fighting it. See... You're like the only person I have in my life that I really care about. I'm selfish about that. I don't want anybody to touch you. I want to keep you safe. That's why I hate this assignment so much. Now that I have you, I'm afraid to see you get hurt or messed up, like I was. I'm afraid I'll lose you, I guess.
I wish you could always be safe. I worry a lot. If you weren't so damned independent...Ah, well. *smile* As much as we have been through in the past few months, we still don't know each other very well, do we? I want to change that about us. Do you? I want to know you better. Know what makes you happy and what scares you. And I want you to know that about me, too.
I love you.
I will try to never hurt you again.
I know I'll screw up. But I'll keep trying, as long as you let me.
Love,
Cabe
”
”
Lisa McMann (Fade (Wake, #2))
“
I can’t emphasize this enough: the quickest and easiest way to screw up your life is to take on too much debt. The primary reason people spend decades working in jobs they despise is to pay off their creditors. Financial stress can destroy relationships, threaten your health, and jeopardize your sanity.
”
”
Josh Kaufman (The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business)
“
Wendell says, like my patient, I’ve come up with my own way to cope. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it happen to me. It may not be what I want, but at least I’ll choose it. Like cutting off my nose to spite my face, this is a way to say, 'take that, uncertainty'.
I try to wrap my mind around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it happen to me. If I stay in a doomed relationship, if I mess up my career, if I hide in fear instead of facing what’s wrong with my body, I can create a living death — but one where I call the shots.
”
”
Lori Gottlieb (Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed)
“
The very first picture that came up on the camera’s little view screen was of him.
What did that mean that she’d kept this picture of him?
Was it because she still cared?
Or had she saved it as a warning? Like, “Never forget how completely screwed up your relationship was with this loser . . .”
It wasn’t a particularly good picture. In fact, it was pretty embarrassing.
Sitting up in his bed, Max was in his room at Sheffield. It was the photo Gina had taken the day after he’d arrived there. He looked like crap warmed over after his very first physical therapy session, and he was glowering into the camera because he goddamn didn’t want his picture taken.
”
”
Suzanne Brockmann (Breaking Point (Troubleshooters, #9))
“
Eh, we’re nowhere near perfect, and you’re aware of that because she tells you everything.” He fixed me with a knowing look, hands tucked behind his head. “I screw up weekly, and living with your best friend, the love of my life, is not always a picnic, but that’s normal. People are imperfect, so relationships will always have flaws.
”
”
Denise Williams (How To Fail at Flirting)
“
Mature adults find ways to free themselves from exploding off irregular behavior. I try to change from being critical of the difficult person to feeling sorry for him. Isn’t it sad that someone you care about is limiting, possibly destroying, relationships by behavior that causes chaos? How awful to be so insecure, so cocksure, so caught in compulsive behaviors, so unwilling to change destructive patterns that a person stands as alone as an island, rather than joining hands in an alliance. Pity the person who drives others away by feigned illness, clinging dependency, fears, or efforts to control. Feeling sorrow instead of hurt turns angry fists into compassionate hands.
”
”
Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
“
one thing my own marriage taught me is that relationships are like football in a lot of ways. It’s a team sport and you have to work together to be successful. There are highs and lows, good plays and bad calls, and if you’re going to step out on the field, you need to be ready to play the game. Big mistakes get you benched, and, depending on how bad you screwed up, they can cost you a fortune before you’re allowed back on the playing field. There will always be rivals, people trying to knock you out of the game, but if you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a nice ring to show for your hard work. But it’s not over there, you know. That’s when it really starts, because for the rest of your life you’ll be trying to prove to everyone that you, out of everyone, deserved to be given that ring.” He paused, snickering to himself. “That’s not the biggest way relationships are like football, though. No matter what you do, no matter what happens, the point of both is to score as much as you can. Without scoring, the entire thing is really just a waste of time.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Redemption (Sempre, #2))
“
Everything I touch is tainted, Penn. Everything I want turns to ash. I spent the entire semester trying to be yours, but you’ve never once claimed my heart. I’m sending you to Adriana’s arms, not because I don’t care, but because I do. So much. Maybe too much. Because I screwed up so many relationships, the only way for us to heal is if I take myself out of the equation.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Pretty Reckless (All Saints High, #1))
“
As noted earlier, studies suggest that most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime. Indeed, most of us break the law not once but repeatedly throughout our lives. Yet only some of us will be arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or felon, and ushered into a permanent undercaste. Who becomes a social pariah and excommunicated from civil society and who trots off to college bears scant relationship to the morality of crimes committed. Who is more blameworthy: the young black kid who hustles on the street corner, selling weed to help his momma pay the rent? Or the college kid who deals drugs out of his dorm room so that he’ll have cash to finance his spring break? Who should we fear? The kid in the ’hood who joined a gang and now carries a gun for security, because his neighborhood is frightening and unsafe? Or the suburban high school student who has a drinking problem but keeps getting behind the wheel? Our racially biased system of mass incarceration exploits the fact that all people break the law and make mistakes at various points in their lives and with varying degrees of justification. Screwing up—failing to live by one’s highest ideals and values—is part of what makes us human.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
I was on the first one when I felt his fingers encircle my wrist. “Sophie, come on. I don’t want to fight with you.”
Turning, I opened my mouth to say I didn’t want to fight with him either. But before I could, I saw the telltale flash out of the corner of my eye, and the next thing I knew, my arm was jerking out of his grasp. “If you don’t want to fight with her, maybe you shouldn’t suggest she team up with people who want to kill her,” my voice snarled.
Archer backed up so fast he nearly stumbled, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him look so freaked out. But he recovered quickly. “Elodie, if I wanted to talk to you, I’d do a séance or something. Maybe go on an episode of Ghost Hunters. But right now, I want to talk to Sophie. So clear out.”
Elodie had no intention of doing that. “You always were a crappy boyfriend,” she said. “Once you left, I chalked that up to you, you know, not actually liking me. But unless I’m blind as well as dead, you really like Sophie. In fact, hard as it is for me to fathom, I think you love her.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Screw that, she retorted. You two spend all your time making stupid jokes and being all witty. Someone has to get real.
“What’s your point?” Archer asked, narrowing his eyes at me. Her. Whatever. God, this was getting confusing.
“Cal loves her, too, you know. And the last time I checked, he wasn’t part of a cult of monster killers. I’m just saying that if you’re going have loyalties that divided, maybe it’s time to bow out gracefully.”
You couldn’t say Elodie didn’t know how to make a dramatic exit. The next thing I knew, I was pitching forward into Archer’s arms, my head swimming.
Archer clutched my waist and then abruptly shoved me at arm’s length. “Sophie?” he asked, looking intently into my eyes.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice shaking. “I’m back.”
His fingers loosened, becoming more of a caress than a grip. “So you can’t control when she swoops in like that? She can just take you over…whenever?”
I tried to laugh, but it came out more of a cough. “You know Elodie. I don’t think anyone has ever controlled her.”
Frowning, Archer pulled his hands back and shoved them in his pockets. “Well, that’s awesome.”
I grabbed the railing to steady myself. “Archer…that stuff she said. You know it’s not true.”
He shrugged and moved past me onto the steps. “Saying the most hateful things possible is like Elodie’s superpower. Don’t worry about it.” He paused and looked over his shoulder. “We should probably go tell Jenna what we found down here.”
Oh, right. We’d just unearthed a whole bunch of demons. That probably trumped over relationship issues. Another few seconds passed. “Come on, Mercer,” Archer said, holding his hand out to me.
This time, I took it.
”
”
Rachel Hawkins (Spell Bound (Hex Hall, #3))
“
Your first novel is like your first relationship. You won't really understand the decisions you make until years later...And you'll probably screw up the ending...First love is amazing and wonderful, but a kind of panic underlies it, a sense of not knowing what you're doing. First novels are the same way...You do the best you can. But remember, it's not going to be the most polished novel you ever write, or the wisest, or the best-selling. That would be a shame, after all, to peak with your first.
”
”
Scott Westerfeld (Afterworlds (Afterworlds, #1))
“
Actually, Richard, what’s interesting is that you have a totally loveless marriage, and so you assume that everyone else must, too. But guess what? I love Sebastian.”
“And Paul.” I turn to my ex’s dad. “What’s also interesting is that your son had a totally loving relationship that he abandoned to chase someone who could further his career. And so you must assume that the next man I fall for would be a self-serving narcissist, too. But Sebastian’s nothing like Adam.” I smile. “Thank the Lord. So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and Screw You Very Much.
”
”
Katie Bailey (Season's Schemings (Cyclones Christmas, #1))
“
We may regard the cell quite apart from its familiar morphological aspects, and contemplate its constitution from the purely chemical standpoint. We are obliged to adopt the view, that the protoplasm is equipped with certain atomic groups, whose function especially consists in fixing to themselves food-stuffs, of importance to the cell-life. Adopting the nomenclature of organic chemistry, these groups may be designated side-chains. We may assume that the protoplasm consists of a special executive centre (Leistungs-centrum) in connection with which are nutritive side-chains... The relationship of the corresponding groups, i.e., those of the food-stuff, and those of the cell, must be specific. They must be adapted to one another, as, e.g., male and female screw (Pasteur), or as lock and key (E. Fischer).
”
”
Paul R. Ehrlich
“
Wilson’s defining achievement as president was his legislative agenda, the “New Freedom.” He had written in 1908 that the president was “the political leader of the nation.” Wilson took it upon himself to be a new type of executive, a prime minister more than a president, to guide the legislative process so that “no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him.”4 The New Freedom represented his plan for a new America, with the government, the Constitution, and the relationship between the central authority and the people all remade—to give the president new, sweeping powers. Teddy Roosevelt had started this process in 1901. Wilson put an exclamation point on the effort. And the presidents who followed him built on Wilson’s theoretical designs and program directives.
”
”
Brion T. McClanahan (9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: And Four Who Tried to Save Her)
“
Francis Spufford, using very contemporary idiom, calls for the same thing in this way. When discussing our sinfulness, he says: What we’re talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident, our passive role as agents of entropy. It’s our active inclination to break stuff, “stuff” here including . . . promises, relationships we care about and our own well-being and other people’s. . . . [You are] a being whose wants make no sense, don’t harmonize: whose desires deep down are discordantly arranged, so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to at the very same time. You’re equipped, you realize, more for farce (or even tragedy) than happy endings. . . . You’re human, and that’s where we live; that’s our normal experience.180 Until we fully acknowledge the chaos within us that the Bible calls sin, we live in what Calvin calls “unreality.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God)
“
She screwed me for life," he lamented to the pretty young woman he desperately wanted to love but couldn't quite fall in love with. "I've had relationships before but she was the most peculiar, infuriating and damnable thing I ever dared care for!" "You want to forget her," his girlfriend said painfully. She rubbed his back wishing she didn't have to compete with a menacing memory. "That relationship, the strangest I've ever known, changed me," he confided regretfully. "Like an unwanted and destructive addiction." "She wronged you," the red-head beside him blurted out truthfully. "And she continues to wrong you because you let her. Ever since her you can't help but compare." He looked at her tenderly, his heart trying to break through ice. "You want to let go but you can't let go," she continued coolly. He looked into the distance feeling the one he drew close but seeing the one out of reach. How could he let go of something, or someone, that made him feel so alive? A sweet, supportive voice knowingly broke through his thoughts, "The challenge," she whispered, "lies within you...
”
”
Donna Lynn Hope
“
The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that’s why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. The notion that a vast gulf exists between “criminals” and those of us who have never served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology that birthed mass incarceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong and morally inferior about “them.” The reality, though, is that all of us have done wrong. As noted earlier, studies suggest that most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime. Indeed, most of us break the law not once but repeatedly throughout our lives. Yet only some of us will be arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or felon, and ushered into a permanent undercaste. Who becomes a social pariah and excommunicated from civil society and who trots off to college bears scant relationship to the morality of crimes committed. Who is more blameworthy: the young black kid who hustles on the street corner, selling weed to help his momma pay the rent? Or the college kid who deals drugs out of his dorm room so that he’ll have cash to finance his spring break? Who should we fear? The kid in the ’hood who joined a gang and now carries a gun for security, because his neighborhood is frightening and unsafe? Or the suburban high school student who has a drinking problem but keeps getting behind the wheel? Our racially biased system of mass incarceration exploits the fact that all people break the law and make mistakes at various points in their lives and with varying degrees of justification. Screwing up—failing to live by one’s highest ideals and values—is part of what makes us human.
”
”
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
“
The key to a good relationship is forgiveness, because without it we’re all completely screwed.
”
”
Trish Cook, Brendan Halpin
“
Objectivity in healthy relationships encourages each person to be responsible for his own choices and actions and the consequences of them.
”
”
Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
“
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Chiller Manufacturer in Delhi
“
He sings, in one of the deepest lyrics in all of his oeuvre, “Would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me?” Could I be the shoulder you cry on and could the bond between us be so deep that I’m the one you want holding you after I made you cry? Could I be your salvation if I’m the sinner? When he snaps back to a male perspective he remains female focused, sweetly trying to win her over in a way that he thinks she would want, ways that move through intimacy rather than traditional masculine expressions of sexuality. He offers a tickle war that’ll make her laugh and laugh then suggests he’ll kiss her down there where it counts and “drink every ounce” and then they’ll have the ultimate cuddlefest: “I’ll hold u tight and hold u long and together we’ll stare into silence and we’ll try 2 imagine what it looks like.” People say Prince did crave that sort of intimacy in his relationships with women even as he struggled with the intimacy he wanted. Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.
”
”
Touré (I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon)
“
Before I met Rosie, I’d believed that a snake’s personality was rather like that of a goldfish. But Rosie enjoyed exploring. She stretched her head out and flicked her tongue at anything I showed her. Soon she was meeting visitors at the zoo. Children derived the most delight from this. Some adults had their barriers and their suspicions about wildlife, but most children were very receptive. They would laugh as Rosie’s forked tongue tickled their cheeks or touched their hair.
Rosie soon became my best friend and my favorite snake. I could always use her as a therapist, to help people with a snake phobia get over their fear. She had excellent camera presence and was a director’s dream: She’d park herself on a tree limb and just stay there. Most important for the zoo, Rosie was absolutely bulletproof with children. During the course of a busy day, she often had kids lying in her coils, each one without worry or fear.
Rosie became a great snake ambassador at the zoo, and I became a convert to the wonderful world of snakes. It would not have mattered what herpetological books I read or what lectures I attended. I would never have developed a relationship with Rosie if Steve hadn’t encouraged me to sit down and have dinner with her one night.
I grew to love her so much, it was all the more difficult for me when one day I let her down.
I had set her on the floor while I cleaned out her enclosure, but then I got distracted by a phone call. When I turned back around, Rosie had vanished. I looked everywhere. She was not in the living room, not in the kitchen, not down the hall. I felt panic well up within me. There’s a boa constrictor on the loose and I can’t find her! As I turned the corner and looked in the bathroom, I saw the dark maroon tip of her tail poking out from the vanity unit.
I couldn’t believe what she had done. Rosie had managed to weave her body through all the drawers of the bathroom’s vanity unit, wedging herself completely tight inside of it. I could not budge her. She had jammed herself in.
I screwed up all my courage, found Steve, and explained what had happened.
“What?” he exclaimed, upset. “You can’t take your eyes off a snake for a second!” He examined the situation in the bathroom. His first concern was for the safety of the snake. He tried to work the drawers out of the vanity unit, but to no avail. Finally he simply tore the unit apart bare-handed.
The smaller the pieces of the unit became, the smaller I felt. Snakes have no ears, so they pick up vibrations instead. Tearing apart the vanity must have scared Rosie to death. We finally eased her out of the completely smashed unit, and I got her back in her enclosure. Steve headed back out to work. I sat down with my pile of rubble, where the sink once stood.
”
”
Terri Irwin (Steve & Me)
“
For crying out loud, absurd things can happen, none of us is spared.” He reached out and gave her a soft pat on the back. “So screw it, lovey. Enjoy every second you’ve got and stop moping around.” - Intomesee
”
”
Maha Erwin
“
It’s a simple guy logic: If a woman is angry? It means she cares. If you’re in a relationship and a chick can’t even be bothered to yell at you? You’re screwed. Indifference is a woman’s kiss of death. It’s the equivalent of a man not interested in sex. In either case – it’s over. You’re done.
”
”
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
“
I know relationships are complicated and I won’t even pretend that I’m good at them. But I kind of want to screw up one with you if you ever want to give me a chance.
”
”
Sarah Noffke (Bad Wolf (Olento Research #4))
“
Gods, food is delicious. I want to eat more. I want to eat everything. Gimme all the foods. From now on, it’s food everywhere, all the time, every kind. I want to constantly stuff my face. Screw relationships, I’ll make food my new love. I’ve clearly been misplacing all my fantasies on love and sex. I should’ve just focused my pining on food this whole time.
”
”
Raven Kennedy (Signs of Cupidity (Heart Hassle, #1))
“
My mouth fell open. How was it I’d ended up in a position to be blackmailed by two men? I’d spent my life avoiding people. Keeping to myself. I didn’t talk to strangers. I lived in the woods like a good shifter and read books. Made jewelry and threw knives. Went hiking with Nova and rock-climbed on the rare occasion I was feeling adventurous. I didn’t waste my time with dating or relationships. I could barely get laid as it was. But I was good by it. Content. And now I was getting screwed by two guys at once. The irony.
”
”
Kel Carpenter (Reject Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues, #1))
“
It’s why you should rethink your relationship with the woman you’re guarding. I’m not sure why you think it’s professional to screw the woman you’re supposed to be protecting.” “None of my guys would have found a woman if I outlawed that,” Taggart threw in.
”
”
Lexi Blake (For His Eyes Only (Masters and Mercenaries, #13))
“
Since when do I think of any relationships in terms of anything other than hours or days? But, fuck, with Ollie I want that. I want to think about next month, next year, forever.
”
”
K.M. Neuhold (Screwed (Four Bears Construction, #4))
“
Well, look at the relationships I've had which ended. Losing Clifford. Those stories could seem like tragedies, depending where they stopped. If you wanted to finish the story when I was sixteen or twenty or even last year, having given him up and never found him, then it would have a different ending. I'd made too many mistakes. I'd screwed up. Or I thought maybe the problem was me, something was wrong with me."
Something was wrong with me. that was how I'd felt since Nana died: that I'd done something wrong, screwed everything up, and that was the real reason why I didn't have a home, a permanent place where I belonged, and why I'd felt so lost since she died-all my flaws and mistakes.
She paused. "Now, taking the long view, even after what happened these past few weeks, I'm optimistic, I think all those things were sort of rough turns along the way, detours to get here. Where I am now. I know there will be a good ending.
”
”
Margo Rabb (Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize)
“
A lot of people find it helpful to go on a hike or walk in nature somewhere, thereby removing the temptation to say “screw this” and watch Netflix instead. During the first 15 minutes or so of the hour, as a thought arises, practice noticing the thought, acknowledging its existence, and allowing it to pass. Then, spend the rest of the hour reflecting on your most important relationships. Perhaps take the temperature of these relationships in a general sense at first and then examine each one individually, working your way from most important to those of lesser significance. Think about what’s good and strong in those relationships, but also consider that which could use improvement
”
”
Josh Misner (Put the F**king Phone Down: Life. Can't Wait.)
“
When you are not being honest in a relationship – to another person or to yourself – it is a little like screwing on the top of a jam jar when the ridges are out of line. An onlooker might think you are screwing it on just fine, but you can feel a stiffness developing that warns you it’s not on properly, and you know then that, however hard you try to keep turning it, the lid will never tightly seal.
”
”
Natasha Lunn
“
Of course, you’re anxious!’ Watzlawick is said to have exclaimed.
‘You’re haunted by your own imperfection, which even you cannot fully escape. There’s a fundamental privilege,’ he told the guy, ‘that all through your growing up and even to this day you’ve never had. A privilege the lowliest white kid in town possesses in abundance. You know what it is? The privilege to fail, to screw up, to make a perfect fool of yourself.’
”
”
Terrence Real (Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (Goop Press))
“
Many pick-up artist guides written by middle-aged men are like trail guides to a location that has since been sown with land mines that focus on all the types of pretty birds you will see on your hike If you actually care to navigate the region, first and foremost, you need a guide to how to not step on mines because those things will screw you up.
”
”
Simone Collins (The Pragmatist's Guide to Relationships)
“
Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind). I firmly believe that we all need to find something to do in our lives that stops us from eating the couch. Whether we make a profession out of it or not, we all need an activity that is beyond the mundane and that takes us out of our established and limiting roles in society (mother, employee, neighbor, brother, boss, etc.). We all need something that helps us to forget ourselves for a while—to momentarily forget our age, our gender, our socioeconomic background, our duties, our failures, and all that we have lost and screwed up. We need something that takes us so far out of ourselves that we forget to eat, forget to pee, forget to mow the lawn, forget to resent our enemies, forget to brood over our insecurities. Prayer can do that for us, community service can do it, sex can do it, exercise can do it, and substance abuse can most certainly do it (albeit with god-awful consequences)—but creative living can do it, too. Perhaps creativity’s greatest mercy is this: By completely absorbing our attention for a short and magical spell, it can relieve us temporarily from the dreadful burden of being who we are. Best of all, at the end of your creative adventure, you have a souvenir—something that you made, something to remind you forever of your brief but transformative encounter with inspiration.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
“
Fuck me, indeed. I was starting to question whether pushing her away was worth the damage I was doing—to her and to me. The anger radiating off her was nothing compared to my own self-hatred. At this point, I was screwed no matter what I did. Let her in or push her away—both came with a price. Was I honestly considering a relationship with Valentina Genovese? If that was the case, I was more fucked than I’d ever imagined.
”
”
Jill Ramsower (Perfect Enemies (The Five Families, #6))
“
In November, China’s vice minister of foreign affairs, Chiao Kuan-hua, delivered a speech to the United Nations that Bush thought “was clearly hostile to the United States, referring to us as bullies etc.” American officials were under strict orders not to reply except in warm generalities, but Bush, still stung by the Taiwan defeat and thinking of domestic U.S. opinion, argued for a stronger response. “If we appear to be pushed around by Peking at every turn,” Bush said, “the whole thing can backfire on the President.” Kissinger was unmoved by Bush’s views. To Kissinger the relationship with Peking was too sensitive and too momentous to be subject to the emotions of a given moment. To have Bush making a contrary case, even internally, was infuriating. The two men met in Washington. “He started off madder than hell,” Bush recalled. “I want to treat you as I do four other ambassadors, dealing directly with you,” Kissinger said, “but if you are uncooperative I will treat you like any other ambassador.” The threat did not sit well with Bush, who pushed back. “I reacted very strongly…and told him that I damn sure had a feel for this country and I felt we had to react” to provocative Chinese rhetoric. For two or three minutes—an eternity in such circumstances—both men spoke candidly and passionately. It was, Bush thought, “a very heated” exchange. Bush insisted he was arguing out of conviction, not self-interest. “I told him very clearly when he got upset that I was not trying to screw things up, I was trying to serve the President [by defending the U.S. against the Chinese attacks] and that it was the only interest I had,” Bush recalled saying. “He ought to get that through his head. I was not trying to get any power.” After hearing Bush out, Kissinger “really cooled down.
”
”
Jon Meacham (Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush)
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I'd rather risk screwing up with you than not even try.
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J. Kenner
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Being in the high school parking lot has actually screwed up my relationship with Jesus, because of the mean thoughts I formulate about teenagers who won’t move their Size 0 asses out of the way of my car.
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Diane Laney Fitzpatrick
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Between the inked-up, rough-and-tumble Mick and Adam, the debonair dom, she was totally screwed. But like, in a good way. This sort of thing they made together was a sort of magic, and there was nothing she could do but love it as much as she loved them.
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Lauren Dane
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Prayer balances out the power struggle in difficult relationships, because when you have a relationship with God, you are no longer so vulnerable or reactive.
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
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The closer we are to someone, the more we expect from him. We are disappointed, confused, angry, hurt, encouraged, happy, or ecstatic in our relationships according to how close our expectations meet reality. Realistic vision frees us to relate to those close to us with the same objectivity we are able to use with those who touch our life but are not intertwined with our needs.
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
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The Foundation Blocks of Healthy Relationships 1. Respect 2. Accepting personal responsibility for one’s behavior 3. Allowing others to bear the consequences of their behavior 4. Caring without enabling
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
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Accepting your reality is only possible when you see the possibilities and options that exist in the relationships that surround you.
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
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Too often close relationships are better at causing demolition than building.
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)
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I'm the same way," Lana admitted. "I keep picking guys who are bad bets because they do what I expect them to screw me over. That way, It's never my fault when the relationship fails.
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Jen Frederick (Undeclared (Woodlands, #1))
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I'm unable to tell you what it feels like to be "a little" mad. My emotions work as if controlled by a light switch. I'm either fine or I'm out of control. I once spilled a container of thumbtacks and got as angry at myself as I did when I screwed up my relationship with my high school sweetheart. If I'm under the impression that there are Golden Grahams in my cupboard, then realize that there in fact are none, there's a high probability I'll be as sad as I was at my grandfather's funeral.
In other words, my reactions aren't in proportion to the things I'm reacting to. It's something I've been working on with a very lovely shrink for the past few years.
But against the 4Skins one day, all that hard word went out the window.
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Chris Gethard (A Bad Idea I'm About to Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Judgment and Stunningly Awkward Adventure)
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Unfortunately, in difficult relationships at least one person has her own agenda that precludes compromise. That agenda is expressed in “I can do it myself!” and “I want my way!
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Elizabeth B. Brown (Living Successfully with Screwed-Up People)