β
May you live every day of your life.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
β
People haven't always been there for me but music always has.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.
β
β
Henry Van Dyke (Music and Other Poems)
β
To me, Fearless is not the absense of fear. It's not being completely unafraid. To me, Fearless is having fears. Fearless is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, Fearless is living in spite of those things that scare you to death.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
ASAP. Whatever that means. It must mean, 'Act swiftly awesome pacyderm!
β
β
Dr. Seuss (Horton Hears a Who!)
β
This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I suffer from girlnextdooritis where the guy is friends with you and that's it.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2))
β
I took a chance, I took a shot
And you may think Iβm bullet-proof, but Iβm not. You took a swing, I took it hard. And down here from the ground I see who you are
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
When I was a little girl I used to read fairy tales. In fairy tales you meet Prince Charming and he's everything you ever wanted. In fairy tales the bad guy is very easy to spot. The bad guy is always wearing a black cape so you always know who he is. Then you grow up and you realize that Prince Charming is not as easy to find as you thought. You realize the bad guy is not wearing a black cape and he's not easy to spot; he's really funny, and he makes you laugh, and he has perfect hair.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Iβm intimidated by the fear of being average.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I never want to change so much that people can't recognize me.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Just be yourself, there is no one better.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you've had a bunch of bad days and there's different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
It's hard to fight when the fight ain't fair.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Jace shoot her a look of white rage - but when she glanced at him, he looked as he always did: easy, confident, slightly bored.
"In future, Clarissa," he said, "it might be wise to mention that you already have a man in your bed, to avoid such tedious situations."
"You invited him into bed?" Simon demanded, looking shaken.
"Ridiculous, isn't it?" said Jace. "We would never have all fit."
"I didn't invite him into bed," Clary snapped. "We were just kissing."
"Just kissing?" Jace's tone mocked her with its false hurt. "How swiftly you dismiss our love.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
The lesson I've learned the most often in life is that you're always going to know more in the future than you know now.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
There's more to life than dating the boy on the football team.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things they'll never stop doing, I think it's FEARLESS to stop believing them. It's FEARLESS to say "you're NOT sorry" and walk away.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
You can write a book on how to ruin someoneβs perfect day.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Words can break someone into a million pieces, but they can also put them back together. I hope you use yours for good, because the only words you'll regret more than the ones left unsaid are the ones you use to intentionally hurt someone.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Being FEARLESS isn't being 100% Not FEARFUL, it's being terrified but you jump anyway...
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
you're an expert at sorry and keeping the lines blurry
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
You can walk away and say "We don't need this." but something in your eyes says "We can beat this.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
So don't you worry your pretty little mind because people throw rocks at things that shine. [Ours]
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
giving up doesn't always mean your weak sometimes your just strong enough to let go
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
β
β
Richard Adams (Watership Down (Watership Down, #1))
β
The way you walk, way you talk, way you say my name; it's beautiful, wonderful, don't you ever change.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
β
PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings (Middle Earth, #2-4))
β
The only one who's got enough of me to break my heart.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift: Piano Play-Along Volume 95)
β
I've wanted one thing for me whole life and I'm not going to be that girl who wants one thing her whole life then gets it and complains.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
We should love, not fall in love, because everything that falls, gets broken.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
β
Move swift as the Wind and closely-formed as the Wood. Attack like the Fire and be still as the Mountain.
β
β
Sun Tzu (The Art of War)
β
FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over again....even though every time you've tried before you've lost.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
When a great genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
[Thoughts on Various Subjects]
β
β
Jonathan Swift (Abolishing Christianity and Other Essays)
β
If they don't like you for being yourself, be yourself even more.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you...
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Iβve learned that you canβt predict [love] or plan for it. For someone like me who is obsessed with organization and planning, I love the idea that love is the one exception to that. Love is the one wild card.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Life isn't how to survive the storm, it's about how to dance in the rain.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Be that strong girl that everyone knew would make it through the worst, be that fearless girl, the one who would dare to do anything, be that independent girl who didn't need a man; be that girl who never backed down.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran
β
I don't let nobody see me wishin' he was mine
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
And I'm dying to know, is it killing you like it's killing me? And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
But I miss screamin' and fightin' and kissin' in the rain and it's 2 a.m. and I'm cursin' your name. You're so in love the you act insane, and that's the way I loved you.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I've always been a hugger. If we all hugged more, the world would be a better place :)
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Wow I can't belive I won,
This is awesome,
Don't trip and fall,
I'm gonna get to thank the fans,
This is so cool,
Oh kany'e west is here,
Cool haircut,
What are ya doing there...
Ouch...
I guess I'm not gonna get to thank the fans
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I've found time can heal most anything and you just might find who you're supposed to be.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
So watch me strike a match on all my wasted time. As far as I'm concerned you're just another picture to burn.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night - if you dare to let yourself burn.
β
β
Sabaa Tahir (A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2))
β
Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
There are two different categories of love. The first category is called a fairytale. The second category of love is called just another lesson
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.
β
β
Henry Van Dyke
β
To me, βFEARLESSβ is not the absence of fear. Itβs not being completely unafraid. To me, FEARLESS is having fears. FEARLESS is having doubts. Lots of them. To me, FEARLESS is living in spite of those things that scare you to death. FEARLESS is falling madly in love again, even though youβve been hurt before. FEARLESS is walking into your freshmen year of high school at fifteen. FEARLESS is getting back up and fighting for what you want over and over againβ¦ even though every time youβve tried before, youβve lost. Itβs FEARLESS to have faith that someday things will change. FEARLESS is having the courage to say goodbye to someone who only hurts you, even if you canβt breathe without them. I think itβs FEARLESS to fall for your best friend, even though heβs in love with someone else. And when someone apologizes to you enough times for things theyβll never stop doing, I think itβs FEARLESS to stop believing them. Itβs FEARLESS to say βyouβre NOT sorryβ, and walk away. I think loving someone despite what people think is FEARLESS. I think allowing yourself to cry on the bathroom floor is FEARLESS. Letting go is FEARLESS. Then, moving on and being alrightβ¦ThatβsFEARLESS too. But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have to believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. Thatβs why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
You made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter. You are the best thing that's ever been mine.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I haven't had that one great love, which is good. I don't want that to be in the past, I want it to be in the future.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
To truly love is to have the courage to walk away and let the other person who wishes to be free go no matter how much it hurts.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
she thinks I'm psycho cause I like to rhyme her name with things.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
It's never been about trying to look well-behaved. It's just how I am. I guess it's a weird thing to be 19 and not ever have been drunk, but for me, it just feels normal because I don't really know any other way. I don't know if I'd be comfortable getting wasted and not knowing what I've said. That doesn't mean when I'm older I won't have a glass of wine. I just don't think it's such a strange thing for me not to be wasted all the time.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Do not leave me,
hide in my heart like a secret,
wind around my head like a turban.
"I come and go as I please,"
you say, "swift as a heartbeat."
You can tease me as much as you like
but never leave me.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
All that Syrio Forel had taught her went racing through her head. Swift as a deer. Quiet as shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine. Fear cuts deeper than swords. The man who fears losing has already lost. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords. Fear cuts deeper than swords.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Part of doing something is listening. We are listening. To the sun. To the stars. To the wind.
β
β
Madeleine L'Engle (Swiftly Tilting Planet)
β
Every man desires to live long, but no man wishes to be old.
β
β
Jonathan Swift (Gulliverβs Travels)
β
So what you're saying is, I'm your brand of heroin?" I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
He smiled swiftly, seeming to appreciate my effort. "Yes, you are exactly my brand of heroin.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1))
β
But no matter what love throws at you, you have to believe in it. You have ot believe in love stories and prince charmings and happily ever after. That's why I write these songs. Because I think love is FEARLESS.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
(on grief) And you do come out of it, thatβs true. After a year, after five. But you donβt come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.
β
β
Julian Barnes (Flaubert's Parrot)
β
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
At some point you have to forget about grudges because they only hurt.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I'm captivated by you, baby, like a firework show.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I could wait patiently, but I really wish you would:
Drop everything now, meet me in the pourin' rain,
Kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain;
Cause I see sparks fly whenever you smile
Hit me with those green eyes, baby, as the lights go down,
Give me somethin' that'll haunt me when you're not around;
Cause I see sparks fly whenever you . . . smile.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Books, the children of the brain.
β
β
Jonathan Swift (A Tale of a Tub and Other Writings)
β
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
β
β
Bertrand Russell (Why Men Fight)
β
It was almost like fear, in the way it filled me, rising in my chest. It was almost like tears, in how swiftly it came. But it was neither of those, buoyant where they were heavy, bright were they dull.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
In high school, I used to think it was like sooooo cool if a guy had an awesome car. Now none of that matters. These days I look for character and honesty and trust.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Love moderately. Long love doth so.
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
*Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.*
β
β
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
β
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morningβs hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
β
β
Mary Elizabeth Frye
β
And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.
β
β
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))
β
He tugged on the hood, and I savored the shadows and menace and wings.
Death on swift wings. That's what I'd call the painting.
He said softly, "I love it when you look at me like that."
The purr in his voice heated my blood. "Like what?"
"Like my power isn't something to run from. Like you see me.
β
β
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
β
Utopia lies at the horizon.
When I draw nearer by two steps,
it retreats two steps.
If I proceed ten steps forward, it
swiftly slips ten steps ahead.
No matter how far I go, I can never reach it.
What, then, is the purpose of utopia?
It is to cause us to advance.
β
β
Eduardo Galeano
β
The days aren't discarded or collected, they are bees
that burned with sweetness or maddened
the sting: the struggle continues,
the journeys go and come between honey and pain.
No, the net of years doesn't unweave: there is no net.
They don't fall drop by drop from a river: there is no river.
Sleep doesn't divide life into halves,
or action, or silence, or honor:
life is like a stone, a single motion,
a lonesome bonfire reflected on the leaves,
an arrow, only one, slow or swift, a metal
that climbs or descends burning in your bones.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (Still Another Day)
β
At Tara in this fateful hour,
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath,
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness:
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness!
β
β
Madeleine L'Engle (A Swiftly Tilting Planet (Time Quintet, #3))
β
Real life is a funny thing, you know. In real life, saying the right thing at the right moment is beyond crucial. So crucial, in fact, that most of us start to hesitate, for fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. But lately what I've begun to fear more that that is letting the moment pass without saying anything.
I think most of us fear reaching the end of our life, and looking back, regretting the moments we didn't speak up. When we didn't say "I love you." When we should've said "I'm Sorry." When we didn't stand up for ourselves or some one who needed help.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.
This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad in a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight.
β
β
Jack London (The Call of the Wild)
β
I write a lot of songs about love and I think thatβs because to me love seems like this huge complicated thing. But it seems like every once in a while, two people get it figured out, two people get it right. And so I think the rest of us, we walk around daydreaming about what that might be like. To find that one great love, where all of a sudden everything that seemed to be so complicated, became simple. And everything that used to seem so wrong all of a sudden seemed right because you were with the person who made you feel fearless.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek-
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you-
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.
β
β
Dorothy Parker
β
A few years have gone and come around when we were sittin' at our favorite spot in town and you looked at me, got down on one knee. Take me back to the time when we walked down the aisle; the whole town came and our mammas cried. And you said "I do.", and I did, too. Take me home where we met so many years before; we'll rock our babies on the very front porch. After all this time, you and I. And I'll be eighty-seven you'll be eighty-nine, I'll still look at you like the stars that shine. In the sky. Oh, my my my.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
β
The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other lifeβanother hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigodβthereβs only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. Itβs the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.
β
β
Liu Cixin (The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earthβs Past, #2))
β
I've apparently been the victim of growing up, which apparently happens to all of us at one point or another. It's been going on for quite some time now, without me knowing it. I've found that growing up can mean a lot of things. For me, it doesn't mean I should become somebody completely new and stop loving the things I used to love. It means I've just added more things to my list. Like for example, I'm still beyond obsessed with the winter season and I still start putting up strings of lights in September. I still love sparkles and grocery shopping and really old cats that are only nice to you half the time. I still love writing in my journal and wearing dresses all the time and staring at chandeliers. But some new things I've fallen in love with -- mismatched everything. Mismatched chairs, mismatched colors, mismatched personalities. I love spraying perfumes I used to wear when I was in high school. It brings me back to the days of trying to get a close parking spot at school, trying to get noticed by soccer players, and trying to figure out how to avoid doing or saying anything uncool, and wishing every minute of every day that one day maybe I'd get a chance to win a Grammy. Or something crazy and out of reach like that. ;) I love old buildings with the paint chipping off the walls and my dad's stories about college. I love the freedom of living alone, but I also love things that make me feel seven again. Back then naivety was the norm and skepticism was a foreign language, and I just think every once in a while you need fries and a chocolate milkshake and your mom. I love picking up a cookbook and closing my eyes and opening it to a random page, then attempting to make that recipe. I've loved my fans from the very first day, but they've said things and done things recently that make me feel like they're my friends -- more now than ever before. I'll never go a day without thinking about our memories together.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
β
Ian stood above me, his chest heaving with exertion and fury. For a second he turned away and put the door back in place with one swift wrench. And then he was glowering again.
I took a deep breath and rolled up onto my knees, holding my hands out, palms up, wishing that some magic would appear in them. Something I could give him, something I could say. But my hands were empty.
"You. Are. Not. Leaving. Me." His eyes blazed - burning brighter than I had ever seen them, blue fires.
"Ian," I whispered. "You have to see that... that I can't stay. You must se that."
"No!" he shouted at me.
I cringed back, and, abruptly, Ian crumpled forward, falling to his knees, falling into me. He buried his head in my stomach, and his arms locked around my waist. He was shaking, shaking hard, and loud, desperate sobs were breaking out of his chest.
"No, Ian, no," I begged. This was so much worse than his anger. "Don't, please. Please, don't."
"Wanda," he moaned.
"Ian, please. Don't feel this way. Don't. I'm so sorry. Please."
I was crying too, shaking too, though that might have been him shaking me.
"You can't leave."
"I have to, I have to," I sobbed.
And then we cried wordlessly for a long time.
β
β
Stephenie Meyer (The Host (The Host, #1))
β
These days, I've been trying to classify my thoughts into two categories: "Things I can change," and "Things I can't." It seems to help me sort through what to really stress about. But there I go again, over-planning and over-organizing my over-thinking! I write songs about my adventures and misadventures, most of which concern love. Love is a tricky business. But if it wasn't, I wouldn't be so enthralled with it. Lately I've come to a wonderful realization that makes me even more fascinated by it: I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to love. No one does! There's no pattern to it, except that it happens to all of us, of course. I can't plan for it. I can't predict how it'll end up. Because love is unpredictable and it's frustrating and it's tragic and it's beautiful. And even though there's no way to feel like I'm an expert at it, it's worth writing songs about -- more than anything else I've ever experienced in my life.
β
β
Taylor Swift (Taylor Swift Songbook: Guitar Recorded Versions)
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I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say. They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then--how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal. A denial heralded the thrice crowing of a cock, and an insincerity was like the kiss of Judas. The adult mind can lie with untroubled conscience and a gay composure, but in those days even a small deception scoured the tongue, lashing one against the stake itself.
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Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca)
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The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.
There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled.
He walked along and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.
Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.
He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beechen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.
He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.
When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.
Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tinuviel! Tinuviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinuviel
That in his arms lay glistening.
As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinuviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.
Long was the way that fate them bore,
O'er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of iron and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.
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J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings (Middle Earth, #2-4))
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Reading list (1972 edition)[edit]
1. Homer β Iliad, Odyssey
2. The Old Testament
3. Aeschylus β Tragedies
4. Sophocles β Tragedies
5. Herodotus β Histories
6. Euripides β Tragedies
7. Thucydides β History of the Peloponnesian War
8. Hippocrates β Medical Writings
9. Aristophanes β Comedies
10. Plato β Dialogues
11. Aristotle β Works
12. Epicurus β Letter to Herodotus; Letter to Menoecus
13. Euclid β Elements
14. Archimedes β Works
15. Apollonius of Perga β Conic Sections
16. Cicero β Works
17. Lucretius β On the Nature of Things
18. Virgil β Works
19. Horace β Works
20. Livy β History of Rome
21. Ovid β Works
22. Plutarch β Parallel Lives; Moralia
23. Tacitus β Histories; Annals; Agricola Germania
24. Nicomachus of Gerasa β Introduction to Arithmetic
25. Epictetus β Discourses; Encheiridion
26. Ptolemy β Almagest
27. Lucian β Works
28. Marcus Aurelius β Meditations
29. Galen β On the Natural Faculties
30. The New Testament
31. Plotinus β The Enneads
32. St. Augustine β On the Teacher; Confessions; City of God; On Christian Doctrine
33. The Song of Roland
34. The Nibelungenlied
35. The Saga of Burnt NjΓ‘l
36. St. Thomas Aquinas β Summa Theologica
37. Dante Alighieri β The Divine Comedy;The New Life; On Monarchy
38. Geoffrey Chaucer β Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
39. Leonardo da Vinci β Notebooks
40. NiccolΓ² Machiavelli β The Prince; Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy
41. Desiderius Erasmus β The Praise of Folly
42. Nicolaus Copernicus β On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
43. Thomas More β Utopia
44. Martin Luther β Table Talk; Three Treatises
45. FranΓ§ois Rabelais β Gargantua and Pantagruel
46. John Calvin β Institutes of the Christian Religion
47. Michel de Montaigne β Essays
48. William Gilbert β On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies
49. Miguel de Cervantes β Don Quixote
50. Edmund Spenser β Prothalamion; The Faerie Queene
51. Francis Bacon β Essays; Advancement of Learning; Novum Organum, New Atlantis
52. William Shakespeare β Poetry and Plays
53. Galileo Galilei β Starry Messenger; Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences
54. Johannes Kepler β Epitome of Copernican Astronomy; Concerning the Harmonies of the World
55. William Harvey β On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals; On the Circulation of the Blood; On the Generation of Animals
56. Thomas Hobbes β Leviathan
57. RenΓ© Descartes β Rules for the Direction of the Mind; Discourse on the Method; Geometry; Meditations on First Philosophy
58. John Milton β Works
59. MoliΓ¨re β Comedies
60. Blaise Pascal β The Provincial Letters; Pensees; Scientific Treatises
61. Christiaan Huygens β Treatise on Light
62. Benedict de Spinoza β Ethics
63. John Locke β Letter Concerning Toleration; Of Civil Government; Essay Concerning Human Understanding;Thoughts Concerning Education
64. Jean Baptiste Racine β Tragedies
65. Isaac Newton β Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy; Optics
66. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz β Discourse on Metaphysics; New Essays Concerning Human Understanding;Monadology
67. Daniel Defoe β Robinson Crusoe
68. Jonathan Swift β A Tale of a Tub; Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; A Modest Proposal
69. William Congreve β The Way of the World
70. George Berkeley β Principles of Human Knowledge
71. Alexander Pope β Essay on Criticism; Rape of the Lock; Essay on Man
72. Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu β Persian Letters; Spirit of Laws
73. Voltaire β Letters on the English; Candide; Philosophical Dictionary
74. Henry Fielding β Joseph Andrews; Tom Jones
75. Samuel Johnson β The Vanity of Human Wishes; Dictionary; Rasselas; The Lives of the Poets
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Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading)
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Where have you been?" she cried. "Damn you, where have you been?" She took a few steps toward Schmendrick, but she was looking beyond him, at the unicorn.
When she tried to get by, the magician stood in her way. "You don't talk like that," he told her, still uncertain that Molly had recognized the unicorn. "Don't you know how to behave, woman? You don't curtsy, either."
But Molly pushed him aside and went up to the unicorn, scolding her as though she were a strayed milk cow. "Where have you been?" Before the whiteness and the shining horn, Molly shrank to a shrilling beetle, but this time it was the unicorn's old dark eyes that looked down.
"I am here now," she said at last.
Molly laughed with her lips flat. "And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where where you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?" With a flap of her hand she summed herself up: barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. "I wish you had never come. Why did you come now?" The tears began to slide down the sides of her nose.
The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world."
"She would be." Molly sniffed. "It would be the last unicorn in the world to come to Molly Grue." She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn's cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, "It's all right. I forgive you.
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Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn, #1))