Sea Of Tranquility Quotes

Daylight won’t protect you from anything. Bad things happen all the time; they don’t wait until after dinner

People like to say love is unconditional, but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. There's always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won't be happy unless you are ... I just don't want that responsibility.

There are so many things that can break you if there's nothing to hold you together.

I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

I know at that moment what he's given me and it isn't a chair. It's an invitation, a welcome, the knowledge that I am accepted here. He hasn't given me a place to sit. He's given me a place to belong.

I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck.

We're like mysteries to one another. Maybe if I can solve him and he can solve me, we can explain each other. Maybe that's what I need. Someone to explain me.

Emilia," he says, and when he does, it warms me to my soul. "Every day you save me.

I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid, because it’s an impossible wish.” He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time. “It’s not stupid to want to see her again.” “It wasn’t so much that I wanted to see her again,” he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. “I wanted her to see you.

When you look at her what do you feel?... Joy, fear, frustration, longing, friendship, anger, need, despair, love, lust?" "Yes." "Yes, what?" "All of it.

Do real boys actually call girls baby? I don't have enough experience to know. I do know that if a guy ever called me baby, I'd probably laugh in his face. Or choke him.

People who go around advertising their birthdays are douchebags. It's a fact. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

And if my Sea od Tranquility were real, it would be this place, here, with him. I don't say anything right away, because I just want one minute to look at him before I give him my last secret. And then I tell him. "Your garage.

The world should be full of Josh Bennetts. But it’s not. I had the only one. And I threw him away.

When I look at her now, I think, for just one second, that God doesn't hate me so much after all.

Good morning, Sunshine.

What? Sunshine fits you. It's bright and warm and happy. Just. Like. You.

Just so you know,” I inform him, “one day, I’m going to get tired of sharing your affection with that coffee table and I’m going to make you choose.” “Just so you know,” he mimics me, “I would chop that table up and use it for firewood before I would ever choose anything over you.

And maybe I'm a liar and I do need it, because being kissed by Josh Bennet is kind of like being saved. It's a promise and a memory of the future and a book of better stories.

Call me Sunshine again, and I will murder you, cocksucker.

Nothing is perfect. It's not even good yet. But maybe.

Josh isn’t in love with me and I’m not in love with him.” “Sell it to someone who’s buying, Sunshine. Have you seen the way he looks at you?” I’ve seen the way he looks at me but I don’t know what it means. “Like you’re a seventeenth-century, hand-carved table in mint condition.

Good Morning, Sunshine!" Josh F**king Bennett. By now, I'm pretty sure that if I were to find his birth certificate that is exactly what it would say.

I’m going to walk over to you,” I say, taking one step at a time in her direction like I’m talking down a jumper. “I’m going to put my arms around you and I’m going to hold you,” I pause before taking the last step, “and you’re going to let me.

I'm tired of being responsible for other people's misery. I can't even put up with my own.

He's kissing me. And when he does, part of me is lost. But it's the part that's twisted and mangled and wrong, and for just that moment, with his hands in my hair and his lips on my mouth, I can pretend that it never existed.

I don't really care what people say about me. I'm fine with lies and rumors. It's the truth I don't want being told.

Just because I don't talk about it, doesn't mean I forget.

Maybe one day you'll come back. Maybe you never will and that'll suck, but you can't keep doing this. The blame and the self-loathing and the bullshit. I can't watch that. It makes me hate you for hating yourself. I don't want to lose you. But I'd rather lose you if it means you'll be happy. I think if you come back with me today, you'll never be okay. And I'll never be okay if you aren't. I need to know that there's a way for people like us to end up okay. I need to know that there even is such a thing as okay, maybe even good, and it's out there and we just haven't found it yet. There's got to be a happier ending than this, here. There's got to be a better story. Because we deserve one. You deserve one. Even if it doesn't end with you coming back to me.

I don't know how to say it - after all this time, I'm not even sure that I can - but I have to break her last rule, because if she knows nothing else, I need her to know this one thing. 'I love you, Sunshine,' I tell her, before I lose my nerve. 'And I don't give a shit whether you want me to or not.

I don't know if I'm okay. It shouldn't be possible to be this close to another person. To let them crawl inside you.

A life lived in a simulation is still a life.

His hands are miracles. I can watch them for hours, transforming wood into something it never dreamed of being.

My point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.

There's a reverence in the way he kisses me that frightens me, because it's the most wonderful thing I've ever felt.

I haven’t started counting yet. I wonder if it’s just me or if it’s like that for everybody; that every time someone dies you start counting how much time has passed since they’ve been gone. First you count it in minutes, then in hours. You count in days, then weeks, then months. Then one day you realize that you aren’t counting anymore, and you don’t even know when you stopped. That’s the moment they’re gone.

And as much as I'm telling her to stay here, I still want her to choose to come with me. To say fuck sanity and healing and closure. To say that I am the only thing she needs to be well and whole and alive. But we both know that's not true.

He's the kind of good-looking that transforms once self-respecting females into useless puddles of dumbass.

There’s a low-level, specific pain in having to accept that putting up with you requires a certain generosity of spirit in your loved ones.

Wonderful. Last night's dinner, the charred remains of my dignity, and apparently, now, my undergarments, too. What else did I leave on Josh Bennett's bathroom floor?

Maybe nobody knows how. Sometimes it's easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you're powerless to do anything about it.

I can be your other hand when you need it.

Congratulations, then. You wanted to be ruined? Well, you did yourself one better because you wrecked me, too, Sunshine. Now we’re both worth shit.

He took the fucking piano, Sunshine. He didn't take everything. Look at your left hand. It's probably clenched in a fist right now, isn't it?" I don't need to look. It is. He knows it. "Now open it up and let it go." And I do.

This is the strange lesson of living in a pandemic: life can be tranquil in the face of death.

Dying really isn’t so bad after you’ve done it once. And I have. I’m not afraid of death anymore. I’m afraid of everything else.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about time and motion lately, about being a still point in the ceaseless rush.

If there’s pleasure in action, there’s peace in stillness.

Her antiquity in preceding and surviving succeeding tellurian generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant resplendent propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, when invisible.

My jealousy is a living thing. Shifting, changing, growing. Like my rage and my mother's regret.

I like finding things no one else is looking for. Things that got lost or forgotten, shoved in a corner. Stuff I never knew existed. I don’t even need to buy it. I just like to find it and know that it’s there. That’s the part I like.

It's a little bit devastating being surrounded by people who can do what you can't anymore. People who create. People whose souls don't live in their bodies anymore because they've leached so much of themselves into their work.

If definitive proof emerges that we’re living in a simulation, the correct response to that news will be So what. A life lived in a simulation is still a life.

You know I meant it. I am human. And male. And not remotely blind. Do you want me to say it again? You are distractingly, even if-that-is-not-a-real-word pretty. You are so pretty that I bullied Clay Whitaker into drawing me a picture of you so I could look at you when you aren't around. You are so pretty that one of these days I'm going to lose a finger in my garage because I can't concentrate with you so close to me. You are so pretty that I wish you weren't so I wouldn't want to hit every guy at school who looks at you, especially my best friend.

I have a black-belt in self-pity. I was an expert in the field. Still am. It’s a skill you never forget.

Pandemics don’t approach like wars, with the distant thud of artillery growing louder every day and flashes of bombs on the horizon. The arrive in retrospect, essentially. It’s disorienting. The pandemic is far away and then it’s all around you with seemingly no intermediate step.

I'd watch her, amazed at just how much a person could accomplish fueled by tea and regret.

No star burns forever.

What about Josh?” I think there’s more to that question than she’s letting on but she’s testing the waters. Salvation, I write. She looks at the word and nods. And for a minute she looks as sad as I feel. “That fits, I think.

I may not be allowed to love her, but that doesn't mean I'll let anyone hurt her.

My mother's hope is a weapon.

True story.

When have we ever believed that the world wasn’t ending?

Nothing else matters. If I had a penny right now I'd wish that were true; I want to believe it more than I've ever wanted to believe anything.

Josh Bennett laughs, and for one minute, everything is right in the world.

I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants of shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet and walk.

Sometimes it's easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you're powerless to do anything about it.

You can't change the rules and think everyone else is just going to keep playing.

I say Sunshine and then she shatters. All the pieces of all the girls go flying and I’m holding the one who’s left.

It’s a chair. Stop overanalyzing it. I’m not selling it and I’m not giving it to someone else. I made it for you. It’s yours.

I’d trade my hand all over again to take back everything I did and hear him call me Sunshine.

Sometimes you don't know you're going to throw a grenade until you've already pulled the pin.

It’s about the dream of second chances,” he says finally. He hasn’t raised his eyes from the paper on his desk and I feel him looking at me without looking when he uses his grandfather’s words. “The narrator doesn’t respect the beauty of life and the world around her, so it crushes her into the ground and once she’s dead, she realizes everything she took for granted and didn’t see right in front of her while she was alive. She’s begging for another chance to live again so she can appreciate it this time.” “And does she get that chance?” she asks Josh while I desperately focus on the poster of literary terms on the wall and wait for absolution. When it comes, I barely hear it. “She does.

Because it's good when you find one that does mean something. Makes all the empty ones worthwhile.

You get halfway through with your life and you realize you haven't done the things you wanted to do or become what you'd thought you'd become and it's disheartening.

I doubt taking in a sullen, bitter, teenage girl with more issues than National Geographic is at the center of the vision board for a single woman in her early thirties.

Seeing Josh is my homecoming. I didn't tell him I was coming back. He doesn't say anything when he sees me, and neither do I, because the fact that I'm here is an answer. We just look at each other and speak in the silence like we always have and no one interrupts the conversation.

I've done goodbyes before, and I can do this one, too. Somehow this one hurts worse than the others; because this one I could prevent if I wanted to, since I'm the one saying it. This goodbye comes with a choice the way none of the others did.

Immoral people debating the existence of God is always a crowd pleaser.

If I could be alone, I would. Gratefully. I'd rather be alone than have to pretend I'm okay.

I'm not sure how long we sit in Josh's truck, holding hands, surrounded by darkness and unspoken regrets. But it's long enough to know that there are no stories or secrets in the world worth holding onto more than his hand.

But you can only go so long being angry before you learn to hate.

It's not the sound itself that bothers me; it's just the fact that it's loud. The loud sounds make it impossible to hear the soft sounds and the soft sounds are the ones you have to be afraid of.

I love you, Sunshine, and I don't give a shit whether you want me to or not.

What’d you wish?” “I can’t tell you that!” I say indignantly. “Why not?” “Because it won’t come true.” Do I really need to say this? I’m pretty sure it’s a given in wish situations. “Bullshit.” “It’s the rule,” I insist. “It’s only the rule with birthday cakes and shooting stars, not pennies in fountains.

It’s shocking to wake up in one world and find yourself in another by nightfall, but the situation isn’t actually all that unusual. You wake up married, then your spouse dies over the course of the day. You wake up in peacetime and by noon your country is at war; you wake up in ignorance and by the evening it’s clear that a pandemic is already here.

Seriously, Josh. What the hell?

Depends on how badly you want it. It's worth whatever you're willing to pay for it.

Where did you go?' His voice drops just slightly and loses even the suggestion of a smile. He's watching me like he's not sure he's allowed to ask question, and he's not even sure he wants the answer. I can almost see grandfather's word and josh's doubt about them swimming in his head. On every side of me are the lights and the tools and the wood and the boots and the boy I want to see forever. And if the my Sea of Tranquility were real, it would be this place, here, with him. I don't say anything right away, because I just want one minute to look at his face before I gave him my last secret. And then I tell him. 'Your garage.

Girls always want to change the rules in the middle of the game.

I haven't gotten better. I'm not even close to okay. The only thing I've done is to decide to get better. But I think that may just be enough. I'm trying to see the magic in everyday miracles now: the fact that my heart still beats, that I can lift my feet off of the earth to walk and that there is something in me worthy of love. I know that bad things still happen. And sometimes I still ask myself why I am alive; but now, when I ask, I have an answer.

I don’t know anything about art so I can’t tell you that it’s watercolor or acrylic or that it’s on canvas or anything art related at all. I can tell you that it’s a painting of a hand, my hand, turned up and opened to the world and that it reaches into my body and rips out everything that’s left. Because in the palm, right in the center, is the pearl button I never reached.

You didn’t get a choice in what happened to you. Neither did we. But you have a choice in what happens now. We don’t. You’re the one in control and all we can do is sit on the sidelines and watch, even if you keep making the wrong calls over and over again.” We’re obviously veering into sports metaphor territory. “We’re not going to force you to do anything you aren’t ready to do. You’ve had enough forced on you. But you have to make a decision about how long you’re going to let this define your life.

It amazes me how people are so afraid of what can happen in the dark, but they don't give a second thought about their safety during the day; as if the sun offers some sort of ultimate protection from all the evil in the world. It doesn't... Daylight won't protect you from anything. Bad things happen all the time; they don't wait until after dinner.

I decline the coffee. I don't drink it, because no matter how much sugar I put into it, it still tastes like ass-water to me. Maybe it's because my taste buds are so desensitized to sweet that anything not comprised of at least ninety percent sugar tastes wrong

People like to say love is unconditional, but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that makes you automatically responsible for their business because they won't be happy unless you are. You're supposed to be who they think you're supposed to be and feel how they think you're supposed to feel because they love you and when you can't give them what they want, they feel shitty, so you feel shitty, and everybody feels shitty. I just don't want that responsibility.

I need to know that there even is such a thing as okay, or maybe not just okay, maybe even good, and it's out there and we just haven't found it yet. There's got to be a happier ending than this, here. There's got to be a better story. Because we deserve one. You deserve one. Even if it doesn't end with you coming back to me. --Josh

I reach up to brush my hair back out of my eyes so I can look around and attempt to determine what the hell is going on. The only three things that I know for certain took place last night are that one -- small elves climbed up my body and tied my hair into a mass of tiny knots, two -- I must have slept with my mouth open because something crawled into it and died and three -- I was sucked through a vortex into some animated world where an anvil was dropped on my head.

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind. Constantly then give to thyself this retreat, and renew thyself; and let thy principles be brief and fundamental, which, as soon as thou shalt recur to them, will be sufficient to cleanse the soul completely, and to send thee back free from all discontent with the things to which thou returnest. For with what art thou discontented? With the badness of men? Recall to thy mind this conclusion, that rational animals exist for one another, and that to endure is a part of justice, and that men do wrong involuntarily; and consider how many already, after mutual enmity, suspicion, hatred, and fighting, have been stretched dead, reduced to ashes; and be quiet at last.- But perhaps thou art dissatisfied with that which is assigned to thee out of the universe.- Recall to thy recollection this alternative; either there is providence or atoms, fortuitous concurrence of things; or remember the arguments by which it has been proved that the world is a kind of political community, and be quiet at last.- But perhaps corporeal things will still fasten upon thee.- Consider then further that the mind mingles not with the breath, whether moving gently or violently, when it has once drawn itself apart and discovered its own power, and think also of all that thou hast heard and assented to about pain and pleasure, and be quiet at last.- But perhaps the desire of the thing called fame will torment thee.- See how soon everything is forgotten, and look at the chaos of infinite time on each side of the present, and the emptiness of applause, and the changeableness and want of judgement in those who pretend to give praise, and the narrowness of the space within which it is circumscribed, and be quiet at last. For the whole earth is a point, and how small a nook in it is this thy dwelling, and how few are there in it, and what kind of people are they who will praise thee.

One thing which even the most seasoned and discerning masters of the art of choice do not and cannot choose, is the society to be born into - and so we are all in travel, whether we like it or not. We have not been asked about our feelings anyway. Thrown into a vast open sea with no navigation charts and all the marker buoys sunk and barely visible, we have only two choices left: we may rejoice in the breath-taking vistas of new discoveries - or we may tremble out of fear of drowning. One option not really realistic is to claim sanctuary in a safe harbour; one could bet that what seems to be a tranquil haven today will be soon modernized, and a theme park, amusement promenade or crowded marina will replace the sedate boat sheds. The third option not thus being available, which of the two other options will be chosen or become the lot of the sailor depends in no small measure on the ship's quality and the navigation skills of the sailors. Not all ships are seaworthy, however. And so the larger the expanse of free sailing, the more the sailor's fate tends to be polarized and the deeper the chasm between the poles. A pleasurable adventure for the well-equipped yacht may prove a dangerous trap for a tattered dinghy. In the last account, the difference between the two is that between life and death.