β
I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.
β
β
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
β
It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3))
β
You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
β
You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfectβyou aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can breakβher heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
β
People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.
β
β
Lemony Snicket (The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #11))
β
If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.
β
β
Carter Crocker
β
I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.
β
β
Lisa Kleypas (Blue-Eyed Devil (Travises, #2))
β
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
β
β
Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (Airman's Odyssey)
β
We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has only happened once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
β
I think we dream so we donβt have to be apart for so long. If weβre in each otherβs dreams, we can be together all the time.
β
β
A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1))
β
I, myself, am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
β
β
Augusten Burroughs
β
I think if I've learned anything about friendship, it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired, don't take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.
β
β
Jon Katz
β
You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on.
β
β
Tupac Shakur
β
Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall.
β
β
Jodi Picoult
β
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
β
β
John Lennon
β
We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough
β
β
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β
We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
β
If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks
β
Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
β
β
Desmond Tutu
β
I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
β
β
Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1))
β
I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
β
Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
True friends are always together in spirit.
β
β
L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
β
We were together. I forget the rest.
β
β
Walt Whitman
β
If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3))
β
Iβm glad we had the times together just to laugh and sing a song, seems like we just got started and then before you know it, the times we had together were gone.
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.
β
β
Judy Blume
β
Captain?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think it was destiny that brought us together?"
He squinted and, after a thoughtful moment, shook his head. "No. I'm pretty sure it was Cinder.
β
β
Marissa Meyer (Cress (The Lunar Chronicles, #3))
β
I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)
β
In our time together, you claimed a special place in my heart, one I'll carry with me forever and that no one can ever replace.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
Theyβre a rotten crowdβ, I shouted across the lawn. βYouβre worth the whole damn bunch put together.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
β
When things break, it's not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It's because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends couldn't fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed.
β
β
John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)
β
Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal
β
β
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
β
Itβs fascinating. You know all these words, and theyβre all English, but when you string them together into sentences, they just donβt make any sense.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
β
Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.
β
β
Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
β
But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.
β
β
Leslie Marmon Silko (Ceremony)
β
Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.
β
β
George Orwell (1984)
β
I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.
β
β
Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
β
In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry I cry and when you hurt I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods to tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
He needed to tell her...what? That she was lovely and brave and better than anything he deserved. That he was twisted, crooked, wrong, but not so broken that he couldn't pull himself together into some semblance of a man for her. That without meaning to, he'd begun to lean on her, to look for her, to need her near. He needed to thank her for his new hat.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
β
Heβs very pretty. For a human.β
βHeβs very broken,β said Magnus. βLike a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skill can put it back together the way it was before.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
β
It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.
β
β
John Joseph Powell (The Secret of Staying in Love)
β
Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,β Wren said. βItβs the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.
β
β
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
β
Maybe the truth is, there's a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn't having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things.
β
β
Ann Brashares (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Sisterhood, #1))
β
An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.
β
β
Albert Camus
β
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
β
β
Francesco Petrarca
β
Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin
β
Second hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.
β
β
Virginia Woolf
β
Love cannot be reduced to a catalogue of reasons why, and a catalogue of reasons cannot be put together into love.
β
β
Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries)
β
It's okay,β he said. βWe're together.β He didn't say you're okay, or we're alive. After all they'd been through over the last year, he knew that the most important thing was that they were together. She loved him for saying that.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
β
No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)
β
The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.
β
β
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
β
I'm completely in favor of the
separation of Church and State.
... These two institutions screw us up enough
on their own, so both of them together is
certain death.
β
β
George Carlin
β
We're all in this game together.
β
β
William Styron
β
I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane.
β
β
Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
β
And for the briefest instant, it almost feels like we're together again.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.
β
β
J.D. Salinger
β
Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.
β
β
Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
β
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
β
β
Charles Bukowski
β
Why wasnβt friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasnβt it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.
β
β
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
β
We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken a lifetime to learn. It seems only the old are able to sit next to one another and not say anything and still feel content. The young, brash and impatient, must always break the silence. It is a waste, for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together because only those who are comfortable with each other can sit without speaking. This is the great paradox.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
β
I had a boyfriend who told me Iβd never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped Iβd fail. I said to him, βSomeday, when weβre not together, you wonβt be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.
β
β
Lady Gaga
β
I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.
β
β
Erin Morgenstern (The Night Circus)
β
Some of you say, βJoy is greater than sorrow,β and others say, βNay, sorrow is the greater.β
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
β
Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the motherβs fate.
β
β
Bonnie Burstow (Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence)
β
Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk β real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.
β
β
Jack Kerouac (On the Road)
β
You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. Youβll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. Sheβs the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? Thatβs the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
Sheβs the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because sheβs kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the authorβs making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyceβs Ulysses sheβs just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
Itβs easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, sheβs going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Sheβll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time sheβs sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasnβt burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then youβre better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
β
β
Rosemarie Urquico
β
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
β
β
Shawn Slovo (Captain Corelli's Mandolin filmscript)
β
I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.
β
β
Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go)
β
I'm going to wake Peeta," I say.
"No, wait," says Finnick. "Let's do it together. Put our faces right in front of his."
Well, there's so little opportunity for fun left in my life, I agree. We position ourselves on either side of Peeta, lean over until our faces are inches frim his nose, and give him a shake. "Peeta. Peeta, wake up," I say in a soft, singsong voice.
His eyelids flutter open and then he jumps like we've stabbed him. "Aa!"
Finnick and I fall back in the sand, laughing our heads off. Every time we try to stop, we look at Peeta's attempt to maintain a disdainful expression and it sets us off again.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
β
Once she was gone, I knelt next to Annabeth and felt her forehead. She was still burning up.
"You're cute when you're worried," she muttered. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together."
"You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," I said. "Why did you take that knife?"
"You would've done the same for me."
It was true. I guess we both knew it. Still, I felt like somebody was poking my heart with a cold metal rod.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
β
Anyone who is in love is making love the whole time, even when they're not. When two bodies meet, it is just the cup overflowing. They can stay together for hours, even days. They begin the dance one day and finish it the next, or--such is the pleasure they experience--they may never finish it. No eleven minutes for them.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
β
There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just mean you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it.
β
β
Laurell K. Hamilton (Incubus Dreams (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #12))
β
I couldnβt forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisyβthey smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
β
β
F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
β
You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.
β
β
Antoine de Saint-ExupΓ©ry (The Little Prince)
β
I'm like you,' he said. 'I remember everything.'
I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when youβre just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and thereβs not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name
β
β
AndrΓ© Aciman (Call Me by Your Name)
β
Then Day reaches out and touches my hand with his. He encloses it in a handshake. And just like that, I am linked with him again, I feel the pulse of our bond and his- tory and love through our hands, like a wave of magic, the return of a long-lost friend. Of something meant to be. The feeling brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps we can take a step forward together.
βHi,β he says. βIβm Daniel.β
βHi,β I reply. βIβm June.
β
β
Marie Lu (Champion (Legend, #3))
β
What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."
[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]
β
β
Carl Sagan (Cosmos)
β
A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time β proof that humans can work magic.
β
β
Carl Sagan
β
Lissa and I had been friends ever since kindergarten, when our teacher had paired us up together for writing lessons. Forcing five-year-olds to spell Vasilisa Dragomir and Rosemarie Hathaway was beyond cruel, and weβdβor rather, Iβdβresponded appropriately. Iβd chucked my book at out teacher and called her a fascist bastard. I hadnβt known what those words meant, but Iβd known how to hit a moving target.
Lissa and I had been inseparable ever since.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
β
I missed you every hour. And you know what the worst part was? It caught me completely by surprise. I'd catch myself just walking around to find you, not for any reason, just out of habit, because I'd seen something that I wanted to tell you about or because I wanted to hear your voice. And then I'd realize that you weren't there anymore, and every time, every single time, it was like having the wind knocked out of me. I've risked my life for you. I've walked half the length of Ravka for you, and I'd do it again and again and again just to be with you, just to starve with you and freeze with you and hear you complain about hard cheese every day. So don't tell me why we don't belong together," he said fiercely.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone (The Shadow and Bone Trilogy, #1))
β
And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.
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Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)
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The spell. Victor said you had to want me... to care about me... for it to work." When he didn't say anything, I tried to grip his shirt, but my fingers were too weak. "Did you? Did you want me?"
His words came out thickly. "Yes, Roza. I did want you. I still do. I wish... we could be together."
"Then why did you lie to me?"
We reached the clinic, and he managed to open the door while still holding me. As soon as he stepped inside, he began yelling for help.
"Why did you lie?" I murmured again.
Still holding me in his arms, he looked down at me. I could hear voices and footsteps getting closer.
"Because we can't be together."
"Because of the age thing, right?" I asked. "Because you're my mentor?"
His fingertip gently wiped away a tear that had escaped down my cheek. "That's part of it," he said. "But also... well, you and I will both be Lissa's gaurdians someday. I need to protect her at all cost. If a pack of Strogoi come, I need to throw my body between them and her."
I know that. Of course that's what you have to do." The black sparkles were dancing in front of my eyes again. I was fading out.
"No. If I let myself love you, I won't throw myself in front of her. I'll throw myself in front of you.
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Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
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The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightening, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the Queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.
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John Green (Paper Towns)
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Will rose slowly to his feet. He could not believe he was doing what he was doing, but it was clear that he was, clear as the silver rim around the black of Jemβs eyes. βIf there is a life after this one,β he said, βlet me meet you in it, James Carstairs.β
βThere will be other lives.β Jem held his hand out, and for a moment, they clasped hands, as they had done during their parabatai ritual, reaching across twin rings of fire to interlace their fingers with each other. βThe world is a wheel,β he said. βWhen we rise or fall, we do it together.β
Will tightened his grip on Jemβs hand, which felt thin as twigs in his. βWell, then,β he said, through a tight throat, βsince you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.
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Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
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Poets often describe love as an emotion that we can't control, one that overwhelms logic and common sense. That's what it was like for me. I didn't plan on falling in love with you, and I doubt if oyu planned on fallin gin love with me. But once we met, it was clear that neither of us could control what was happening to us. We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has happened only once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it.
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Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
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He dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of living each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.
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Gabriel GarcΓa MΓ‘rquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
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If Peeta and I were both to die, or they thought we were....My fingers fumble with the pouch on my belt, freeing it. Peeta sees it and his hand clamps on my wrist. "No, I won't let you." "Trust me," I whisper. He holds my gaze for a long moment then lets go. I loosen the top of the pouch and pour a few spoonfuls of berries into his palm. Then I fill my own. "On the count of three?" Peeta leans down and kisses me once, very gently. "The count of three," he says. We stand, our backs pressed together, our empty hands locked tight. "Hold them out. I want everyone to see," he says. I spread out my fingers, and the dark berries glisten in the sun. I give Peeta's hand one last squeeze as a signal, as a good-bye, and we begin counting. "One." Maybe I'm wrong. "Two." Maybe they don't care if we both die. "Three!" It's too late to change my mind. I lift my hand to my mouth taking one last look at the world. The berries have just passed my lips when the trumpets begin to blare. The frantic voice of Claudius Templesmith shouts above them. "Stop! Stop! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark! I give you - the tributes of District 12!
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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I don't like you, Park," she said, sounding for a second like she actually meant it. "I..." - her voice nearly disappeared - "think I live for you."
He closed his eyes and pressed his head back into his pillow.
"I don't think I even breathe when we're not together," she whispered. "Which means, when I see you on Monday morning, it's been like sixty hours since I've taken a breath. That's probably why I'm so crabby, and why I snap at you. All I do when we're apart is think about you, and all I do when we're together is panic. Because every second feels so important. And because I'm so out of control, I can't help myself. I'm not even mine anymore, I'm yours, and what if you decide that you don't want me? How could you want me like I want you?"
He was quiet. He wanted everything she'd just said to be the last thing he heard. He wanted to fall asleep with 'I want you' in his ears.
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Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park)
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My kids are starting to notice I'm a little different from the other dads. "Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day.
I told them this story:
In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.
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Tom Waits
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Love is . . . Being happy for the other person when they are happy, Being sad for the person when they are sad, Being together in good times, And being together in bad times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.
Love is . . . Being honest with yourself at all times, Being honest with the other person at all times, Telling, listening, respecting the truth, And never pretending.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF REALITY.
Love is . . . An understanding so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person, Accepting the other person just the way they are, And not trying to change them to be something else.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF UNITY.
Love is . . . The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person, The growth of one individual alongside of and together with the growth of another individual.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SUCCESS.
Love is . . . The excitement of planning things together, The excitement of doing things together.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF THE FUTURE.
Love is . . . The fury of the storm, The calm in the rainbow.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF PASSION.
Love is . . . Giving and taking in a daily situation, Being patient with each other's needs and desires.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SHARING.
Love is . . . Knowing that the other person will always be with you regardless of what happens, Missing the other person when they are away but remaining near in heart at all times.
LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SECURITY.
LOVE IS . . . THE SOURCE OF LIFE!
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Susan Polis Schutz
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Percy, let me go" she croaked. "You can't pull me up."
His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.
"Never," he said. He looked up at Nico, fifteen feet above.
"The other side, Nico! We'll see you there. Understand?"
Nico's eyes widened. "But-"
"Lead them!" Percy shouted. "Promise me!"
"I-I will."
Below them, the voice laughed in the darkness. Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess.
Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome.
"We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."
Only then did she understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall.
"As long as we're together," she said.
She heard Nico and Hazel still screaming for help. She saw sunlight far, far above- maybe the last sunlight she would ever see.
Then Percy let go of his ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Annabeth fell into the endless darkness.
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Rick Riordan (The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus, #3))
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Grief can destroy you --or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. OR you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see that it wasn't just a movie and a dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life.
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Dean Koontz (Odd Hours (Odd Thomas, #4))
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Do you love me?' I asked her. She smiled. 'Yes.' 'Do you want me to be happy?' as I asked her this I felt my heart beginning to race. 'Of course I do.' 'Will you do something for me then?' She looked away, sadness crossing her features. 'I don't know if I can anymore.' she said. 'but if you could, would you?' I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I'd never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment. As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me. 'yes' she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. 'I would.' Finally getting control of myself I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do. Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she'd wanted. It was what my heart had been telling me to do all along. Jamie, I understood then, had already given me the answer I'd been searching for, the answer my heart needed to find. She'd told me outside Mr. Jenkins office, the night we'd asked him about doing the play. I smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in what I was about to do. Encouraged, I leaned closer and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath. 'Will you marry me?
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Nicholas Sparks (A Walk to Remember)