Unfair Love Quotes

I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness.

Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence.

After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.

How unfair she'd been to assume love and money would preclude pain and hardship.

Most people had an acquired kind of beauty, they became better looking the longer you knew them and the better you loved them, but Cole had unfairly skipped to the end of the game, all jaggedly handsome and Hollywood-looking. Not needing any love to get there.

It was unfair that people who longed for love the most, searched the hardest for it, found it so elusive.

It was then that Hook bit him. Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.

Small things such as this have saved me: how much I love my mother—even after all these years. How powerfully I carry her within me. My grief is tremendous but my love is bigger. So is yours. You are not grieving your son’s death because his death was ugly and unfair. You’re grieving it because you loved him truly. The beauty in that is greater than the bitterness of his death.

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more

Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice. I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.

A girl doesn't notice unfairness until she falls in love

Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends.

And Poppy, remember that someday you will meet a frog who will turn into a handsome prince." "Good," Beatrix said. "Because all she's met so far are princes who turn into frogs." "Mr. Bayning is not a frog," Poppy protested. "You're right," Beatrix said. "That was very unfair to frogs, who are lovely creatures.

More than anything, I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness, and then I leaned forward, my forehead against the back of Takumi's headrest, and I cried, whimpering, and I didn't even feel sadness so much as pain.

The only things you can truly love after such a short time are ice cream flavors and comfortable shoes.

There is much asked and only so much I think I can or should answer, and so, in this post I would like to give a few thoughts on what seemed to be the overwhelming question: “WHY?” And here is the best answer I can give: Because. Because sometimes, life is damned unfair. Because sometimes, we lose people we love and it hurts deeply. Because sometimes, as the writer, you have to put your characters in harm’s way and be willing to go there if it is the right thing for your book, even if it grieves you to do it. Because sometimes there aren’t really answers to our questions except for what we discover, the meaning we assign them over time. Because acceptance is yet another of life’s “here’s a side of hurt” lessons and it is never truly acceptance unless it has cost us something to arrive there. Why, you ask? Because, I answer. Inadequate yet true.

He desired her vaguely but without conviction. They walked together. He suddenly realized that she had always been very decent to him. She had accepted him as he was and had spared him a great deal of loneliness. He had been unfair: while his imagination and vanity had given her too much importance, his pride had given her too little. He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love -- first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. Today he understood that she had been genuine with him -- that she had been what she was, and that he owed her a good deal.

What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it...Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're complicated. That's what I love about them.

What's the rush, honey? We have all the time in the world.

Every child is affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly . All he thinks he has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never afterwards be the same boy. No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.

They should love you, just as you are. Parents should love their kids, right?" "You'd think so.

I define myself by helping others. This is what I do. Those people who want me to abandon my husband are asking me to put myself first and to judge him. The poor man has been judged unfairly by others. Why would I abandon him in his greatest need?

Love is selfish. Love is raw. Love is unfair, and unpredictable, and unstoppable.

Remember that you always have the right to be treated with respect, and to protest unfair treatment or criticism. It’s vital to reinforce those rights with boundaries.

I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness, and then I leaned forward, my forehead against the back of Takumi's headrest, and I cried, whimpering, and I didn't even feel sadness so much as pain.

We are way less likely to love someone just because they love us than we are to hate someone just because they hate us.

I have a sense that God is unfair and preferentially punishes his weak, his dumb, his fat, his lazy. I believe he takes more pleasure in his perfect creatures, and cheers them on like a brainless dad as they run roughshod over the rest of us. He gives us a need for love, and no way to get any. He gives us a desire to be liked, and personal attributes that make us utterly unlikable. Having placed his flawed and needy children in a world of exacting specifications, he deducts the difference between what we have and what we need from our hearts and our self-esteem and our mental health.

but I think of Cardan lying beside me on the floor of the royal rooms. I think of his quicksilver smile. I think of how he would hate to be trapped like this. How unfair it would be for me to keep him this way and call it love. You already know how to end the curse. “I do love you,” I whisper. “I will always love you.

Love can be like a commanding officer. It's unfair, random, cruel, but it gets you through the war, somehow, gets you where you have to be. (Vadim)

In one was, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely this reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

In one way, I suppose, I have been "in denial" for some time, knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me.

I was helpless in trying to return people's kindness, but also helpless to resist it. Kindness is a scarier force than cruelty, that's for sure. Cruelty isn't that hard to understand. I had no trouble comprehending why the phone company wanted to screw me over; they just wanted to steal some money, it was nothing personal. That's the way of the world. It made me mad, but it didn't make me feel stupid. If anything, it flattered my intelligence. Accepting all that kindness, though, made me feel stupid. Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renee, but we don't burn each other, not always. We are kind people in an unkind world, to paraphrase Wallace Stevens. How do you pretend you don't know about it, after you see it? How do you go back to acting like you don't need it? How do you even the score and walk off a free man? You can't. I found myself forced to let go of all sorts of independence I thought I had, independence I had spent years trying to cultivate. That world was all gone, and now I was a supplicant, dependent on the mercy of other people's psychic hearts.

Because the world is so corrupted, misspoken, unstable, exaggerated and unfair, one should trust only what one can experience with one's own senses, and THIS makes the senses stronger in Italy than anywhere in Europe. This is why, Barzini says, Italians will tolerate hideously incompetent generals, presidents, tyrants, professors, bureaucrats, journalists and captain of industry, but will never tolerate incompetent opera singers, conductors, ballerinas, courtesans, actors, film directors, cooks, tailors... In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Only artistic excellence is incorruptible. Pleasure cannot be bargained down. And sometimes the meal is the only currency that is real.

I might have been in love with the idea of her. I might have loved the attention. But I didn’t love her, and it seemed incredibly unfair for me to let someone love me when I didn’t feel the same way in return

Jill had three basic statements about life, 1. It is your life, usually with some added social commentary. 2. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things. 3. No one ever said that life was fair.

Oddly enough I never used to suffer from depression on cold, gray, cloudy days like this. I feel as if nature is in harmony with me, that it reflected my soul. On the other hand, when the sun appeared, the children would come out to play in the streets, and everyone was happy that it was such a lovely day, and then I would feel terrible, as if that display of exuberance in which i could not participate was somehow unfair.

We're going to die, so what? Everyone dies and everything ends. Sometimes endings are abrupt. They hit you in the face and it's too soon and it's unfair, but that doesn't matter. The last page doesn't define the book.

To be fair, death is hard! We love someone and then they die. It feels unfair. Sometimes death can be violent, sudden, and unbearably sad. But it’s also reality, and reality doesn’t change just because you don’t like it.

It's a privilege to love someone, to truly love them; and while it's paradisaical if she or he loves you back, it's unfair to demand or expect reciprocity. We should consider ourselves luck, honored, blessed that we possess the capacity to feel tenderness of such magnitude and be grateful even when that love is not returned. Love is the only game in which we win even when we lose.

if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this.

The biggest sin in the world is not being able to love someone. Do not judge anybody by what they are, because life may have played unfair with them. You be fair. The one who loves would be the closest to God. Do not choose whom to love and whom to not. Love everybody. Remember… Love is the language of God.

What is your problem?” I asked, scooping the freezing mess out of my cleavage. “We got unfinished business,” he reminded me. “My name’s not Bill.” He chuckled. “Yeah, I loved that movie. Shoulda brought a katana, but it seemed like an unfair advantage.

Yet if women are so flighty, fickle, changeable, susceptible, and inconstant (as some clerks would have us believe), why is it that their suitors have to resort to such trickery to have their way with them? And why don't women quickly succumb to them, without the need for all this skill and ingenuity in conquering them? For there is no need to go to war for a castle that is already captured. (...) Therefore, since it is necessary to call on such skill, ingenuity, and effort in order to seduce a woman, whether of high or humble birth, the logical conclusion to draw is that women are by no means as fickle as some men claim, or as easily influenced in their behaviour. And if anyone tells me that books are full of women like these, it is this very reply, frequently given, which causes me to complain. My response is that women did not write these books nor include the material which attacks them and their morals. Those who plead their cause in the absence of an opponent can invent to their heart's content, can pontificate without taking into account the opposite point of view and keep the best arguments for themselves, for aggressors are always quick to attack those who have no means of defence. But if women had written these books, I know full well the subject would have been handled differently. They know that they stand wrongfully accused, and that the cake has not been divided up equally, for the strongest take the lion's share, and the one who does the sharing out keeps the biggest portion for himself.

So what are we supposed to do again, when we hate everything? You stop pretending life is such fun or makes sense. It's often messy and cruel and dull, and we do the best we can. It's unfair, and jerks seem to win. But you fall in love with a few people. Like I love you, Elizabeth. You're the angel God sent me.

Fate is never unfair to anyone. We are all free to love or hate what we do.

That they were left with only this--this awkward, prearranged meet-up, this terrible silence--seemed almost more than she could bear, and the unfairness of it all welled up inside of her. It was his fault, all of it, and yet her hatred for him was the worst kind of love, a tortured longing, a misguided wish that made her heart hammer in her chest. She couldn't ignore the disjointed sensation that they were now two different pieces of two different puzzles, and nothing in the world could make them fit together again.

Life is hard, unfair, painful. But life is also guaranteed - one hundred percent, no doubt, no question - to offer unexpected and sudden moments of beauty, joy, love, acceptance, euphoria." The good stuff. It is our ability to recognize and then hold on to the moments of good stuff that allows us to survive, even thrive. And when we can share the beauty, hope is restored.

I feel sorry for beautiful people. Beauty, from the moment you possess it, is already slipping away, ephemeral. That must be difficult. Always having to prove that there’s more to you, wanting people to see beneath the surface, to be loved for yourself, and not your stunning body, sparkling eyes or thick, lustrous hair. In most professions, getting older means getting better at your job, earning respect because of your seniority and experience. If your job depends on your looks, the opposite is true—how depressing. Suffering other people’s unkindness must be difficult too; all those bitter, less attractive people, jealous and resentful of your beauty. That’s incredibly unfair of them. After all, beautiful people didn’t ask to be born that way. It’s as unfair to dislike someone because they’re attractive as it is to dislike someone because of a deformity.

But it’s so bloody unfair” Walt looked at me, and I realized he was smiling. “That’s my line. I’ve been saying that for years. Sadie, I want to be here. The past two months I’ve felt like I’m actually living for the first time. And getting to know you…” He cleared his throat. He was quite attractive when he got nervous. “I started worrying about smile things. My hair. My clothes. Whether I brushed my teeth. I mean, I’m dying , and I’m worrying about my teeth.” “You have a lovely teeth.

Oh, so there were angels and demons, but no vampires? No mysterious, super-hot bloodsuckers who would love you forever? Now that was totally unfair.

More than anything, I felt the unfairness of it, the inarguable injustice of loving someone who might have loved you back but can't due to deadness...

It’s loneliness. Even though I’m surrounded by loved ones who care about me and want only the best, it’s possible they try to help only because they feel the same thing—loneliness—and why, in a gesture of solidarity, you’ll find the phrase “I am useful, even if alone” carved in stone. Though the brain says all is well, the soul is lost, confused, doesn’t know why life is being unfair to it. But we still wake up in the morning and take care of our children, our husband, our lover, our boss, our employees, our students, those dozens of people who make an ordinary day come to life. And we often have a smile on our face and a word of encouragement, because no one can explain their loneliness to others, especially when we are always in good company. But this loneliness exists and eats away at the best parts of us because we must use all our energy to appear happy, even though we will never be able to deceive ourselves. But we insist, every morning, on showing only the rose that blooms, and keep the thorny stem that hurts us and makes us bleed hidden within. Even knowing that everyone, at some point, has felt completely and utterly alone, it is humiliating to say, “I’m lonely, I need company. I need to kill this monster that everyone thinks is as imaginary as a fairy-tale dragon, but isn’t.” But it isn’t. I wait for a pure and virtuous knight, in all his glory, to come defeat it and push it into the abyss for good, but that knight never comes. Yet we cannot lose hope. We start doing things we don’t usually do, daring to go beyond what is fair and necessary. The thorns inside us will grow larger and more overwhelming, yet we cannot give up halfway. Everyone is looking to see the final outcome, as though life were a huge game of chess. We pretend it doesn’t matter whether we win or lose, the important thing is to compete. We root for our true feelings to stay opaque and hidden, but then … … instead of looking for companionship, we isolate ourselves even more in order to lick our wounds in silence. Or we go out for dinner or lunch with people who have nothing to do with our lives and spend the whole time talking about things that are of no importance. We even manage to distract ourselves for a while with drink and celebration, but the dragon lives on until the people who are close to us see that something is wrong and begin to blame themselves for not making us happy. They ask what the problem is. We say that everything is fine, but it’s not … Everything is awful. Please, leave me alone, because I have no more tears to cry or heart left to suffer. All I have is insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing. But they insist that this is just a rough patch or depression because they are afraid to use the real and damning word: loneliness. Meanwhile, we continue to relentlessly pursue the only thing that would make us happy: the knight in shining armor who will slay the dragon, pick the rose, and clip the thorns. Many claim that life is unfair. Others are happy because they believe that this is exactly what we deserve: loneliness, unhappiness. Because we have everything and they don’t. But one day those who are blind begin to see. Those who are sad are comforted. Those who suffer are saved. The knight arrives to rescue us, and life is vindicated once again. Still, you have to lie and cheat, because this time the circumstances are different. Who hasn’t felt the urge to drop everything and go in search of their dream? A dream is always risky, for there is a price to pay. That price is death by stoning in some countries, and in others it could be social ostracism or indifference. But there is always a price to pay. You keep lying and people pretend they still believe, but secretly they are jealous, make comments behind your back, say you’re the very worst, most threatening thing there is. You are not an adulterous man, tolerated and often even admired, but an adulterous woman, one who is ...

My grandmother and my two aunts were an exhibition in resilience and resourcefulness and black womanhood. They rarely talked about the unfairness of the world with the words that I use now with my social justice friends, words like "intersectionality" and "equality", "oppression", and "discrimination". They didn't discuss those things because they were too busy living it, navigating it, surviving it.

In AP Bio, I learned that the cells in our body are replaced every seven years, which means that one day, I'll have a body full of cells that were never sick. But it also means that parts of me that knew and loved Sadie will disappear. I'll still remember loving her, but it'll be a different me who loved her. And maybe this is how we move on. We grow new cells to replace the grieving ones, diluting our pain until it loses potency. The percentage of my skin that touched hers will lessen until one day my lips won't be the same lips that kissed hers, and all I'll have are the memories. Memories of cottages in the woods, arranged in a half-moon. Of the tall metal tray return in the dining hall. Of the study tables in the library. The rock where we kissed. The sunken boat in Latham's lake, Sadie, snapping a photograph, laughing the lunch line, lying next to me at the movie night in her green dress, her voice on the phone, her apple-flavored lips on mine. And it's so unfair. All of it.

It broke her heart that the boy she loved was taken so tragically and so unexpectedly. She never got to say goodbye. She wished she could sit with him, talk to him, and hear his voice one last time. She would sacrifice anything to hug him and kiss him once more. The moment she lost Robert in that fateful accident, it was as if she had lost her reason for living, and she felt her life begin to race tragically towards its inevitable end.

Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.

I believe that there are three conditions to a woman’s beauty. First, you must realize that not all women are beautiful all of the time. Sometimes beauty comes on a subconscious level. When she is in love, or has met someone new and exciting, she shines. Second, you must understand that life is unfair. Beauty is something that, for some, must be worked at. The third condition is luck. Some women can just be lucky.

they greet those who are cast down, and those in heart, those troubled adn those filled with desire, those who are overjoyed and those disconsolate, all lovers. may all herein find strength against inconstancy, against unfairness and despite and loss and pain and all the bitterness of loving.

Never again mistrust me. Don’t turn your anger unfairly towards me. Trust isn’t something I bestow easily. It’s something precious. You have it or you don’t. Like faith, like love. It’s blind. It has to be. If I trust, if I love, I’ll always believe you; no matter the circumstances.

The trouble with good fortune is that we tend to equate it with personal goodness, so that if things are going well for us and less well for others, it’s assumed they must have done something to have brought that misfortune on themselves while we must have worked harder to avoid it. We speak of ourselves as being blessed, but what can that mean except that others are not blessed, and that God has picked out a few of us to love more? It is our responsibility to care for one another, to create fairness in the face of unfairness and find equality where none may have existed in the past.

As an ability, love is always there as a potential, ready to flourish and help our lives flourish. As we go up and down in life, as we acquire or lose, as we are showered with praise or unfairly blamed, always within there is the ability of love, recognized or not, given life or not.

You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room,” he said. “I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it.” He took a shuddering breath. “How you must despise me.

In reading, one should notice and fondle details. There is nothing wrong about the moonshine of generalization when it comes after the sunny trifles of the book have been lovingly collected. If one begins with a readymade generalization, one begins at the wrong end and travels away from the book before one has started to understand it. Nothing is more boring or more unfair to the author than starting to read, say, Madame Bovary, with the preconceived notion that it is a denunciation of the bourgeoisie. We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world, so that the first thing we should do is to study that new world as closely as possible, approaching it as something brand new, having no obvious connection with the worlds we already know. When this new world has been closely studied, then and only then let us examine its links with other worlds, other branches of knowledge.

Buckley followed the three of them into the kitchen and asked, as he had at least once a day, “Where’s Susie?” They were silent. Samuel looked at Lindsey. “Buckley,” my father called from the adjoining room, “come play Monopoly with me.” My brother had never been invited to play Monopoly. Everyone said he was too young, but this was the magic of Christmas. He rushed into the family room, and my father picked him up and sat him on his lap. “See this shoe?” my father said. Buckley nodded his head. “I want you to listen to everything I say about it, okay?” “Susie?” my brother asked, somehow connecting the two. “Yes, I’m going to tell you where Susie is.” I began to cry up in heaven. What else was there for me to do? “This shoe was the piece Susie played Monopoly with,” he said. “I play with the car or sometimes the wheelbarrow. Lindsey plays with the iron, and when you mother plays, she likes the cannon.” “Is that a dog?” “Yes, that’s a Scottie.” “Mine!” “Okay,” my father said. He was patient. He had found a way to explain it. He held his son in his lap, and as he spoke, he felt Buckley’s small body on his knee-the very human, very warm, very alive weight of it. It comforted him. “The Scottie will be your piece from now on. Which piece is Susie’s again?” “The shoe?” Buckley asked. “Right, and I’m the car, your sister’s the iron, and your mother is the cannon.” My brother concentrated very hard. “Now let’s put all the pieces on the board, okay? You go ahead and do it for me.” Buckley grabbed a fist of pieces and then another, until all the pieces lay between the Chance and Community Chest cards. “Let’s say the other pieces are our friends?” “Like Nate?” “Right, we’ll make your friend Nate the hat. And the board is the world. Now if I were to tell you that when I rolled the dice, one of the pieces would be taken away, what would that mean?” “They can’t play anymore?” “Right.” “Why?” Buckley asked. He looked up at my father; my father flinched. “Why?” my brother asked again. My father did not want to say “because life is unfair” or “because that’s how it is”. He wanted something neat, something that could explain death to a four-year-old He placed his hand on the small of Buckley’s back. “Susie is dead,” he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game. “Do you know what that means?” Buckley reached over with his hand and covered the shoe. He looked up to see if his answer was right. My father nodded. "You won’t see Susie anymore, honey. None of us will.” My father cried. Buckley looked up into the eyes of our father and did not really understand. Buckley kept the shoe on his dresser, until one day it wasn't there anymore and no amount of looking for it could turn up.

I tried to reassure him with every line about how the world is hard and unfair sometimes, but that it's all OK because he is so loved. He is surrounded by souls who would do anything to help him. And not only that--he has wisdom and patience of his own, buried deep inside his being, which will only reveal themselves over time and will always carry him through any trial. He is a gift from God to all of us.

Dot hurled her pizza at her, smacking Hester in the cheek. “Do you know how unfair that is, you contemptuous git! You made me gain weight in order to stay in the coven and now you’re making fun of me for it? Are you that insecure that you needed me to be fat to feel okay about yourself? Well, you picked the wrong piggy tail to pull, honey. I love myself no matter what I look like, so nothing you say to me will ever make me feel ugly again. Because unlike you, Hester, I’ll never be ugly inside.

This story was written many moons ago under an apple tree in an orchard in Kent, which is one of England's prettiest counties . . . I had read at least twenty of the [fairy tales] when I noticed something that had never struck me before--I suppose because I had always taken it for granted. All the princesses, apart from such rare exceptions as Snow White, were blond, blue-eyed, and beautiful, with lovely figures and complexions and extravagantly long hair. This struck me as most unfair, and suddenly I began to wonder just how many handsome young princes would have asked a king for the hand of his daughter if that daughter had happened to be gawky, snub-nosed, and freckled, with shortish mouse-colored hair? None, I suspected. They would all have been of chasing after some lissome Royal Highness with large blue eyes and yards of golden hair and probably nothing whatever between her ears! It was in that moment that a story about a princess who turned out to be ordinary jumped into my mind, and the very next morning I took my pencil box and a large rough-notebook down to the orchard and, having settled myself under an apple tree in full bloom, began to write . . . the day was warm and windless and without a cloud in the sky. A perfect day and a perfect place to write a fairy story.

1. It is not your fault. 2. It is your responsibility. 3. It is unfair that this is your thing. 4. This is your thing. 5. This will never stop being your thing until you face it. 6. You cannot do it alone. 7. Only you can do it. 8. I love you. 9. I will never stop reminding you of these things.

Don’t you understand? My role has been compromised since that first night in the gardens. I don’t want you to marry the King. And even if I could still somehow claim your heart, even after telling you how cruel and unfair I’ve treated you, I wouldn’t be able to give it to the White Queen. Catherine, I don’t want your heart to belong to anyone but me.

She had accepted him as he was and had spared him a great deal of loneliness. He had been unfair: while his imagination and vanity had given her too much importance, his pride had given her too little. He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

Unfairness – this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it – not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you. In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty damm lucky by Indian standards. Let’s be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we don’t. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don’t get literary praise. It’s ok. I don’t look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful than her. It’s ok. Don’t let unfairness kill your spark

As parents, guardians and teachers who are being treated unfairly, we have to be productive, regardless of all the chaos. We cannot be passive, and we have to lay the foundation of truth, the foundation of justice, and the foundation of ownership to obtain closure once and for all to the silent killers that we call bullies.

Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.

Everything happens for a reason.” The only thing worse than saying this is pretending that you know the reason. I’ve had hundreds of people tell me the reason for my cancer. Because of my sin. Because of my unfaithfulness. Because God is fair. Because God is unfair. Because of my aversion to Brussels sprouts. I mean, no one is short of reasons. So if people tell you this, make sure you are there when they go through the cruelest moments of their lives, and start offering your own. When someone is drowning, the only thing worse than failing to throw them a life preserver is handing them a reason.

That's how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because changing it seems like too much bother. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turn away or yell, as a child might, that it's not your fault. Of course it isn't your fault. I'm sure you're lovely. That doesn't mean you don't have a responsibility to do something about it.

… my mother said to me, You love your father better, and that is all right. I thought she was being petty, but suddenly I could call up the pain in her eyes. The unfairness that I thought he was the better of the two of them. My father did not love one family more than the other. It was that he didn’t care about either more than he cared about himself.

Slowly but surely, the darkness revealed light; and as the dim light shine brighter, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared to battle the raging storms and the unfair, distasteful barriers. When my bags were too heavy and weighing me down, the darkness taught me when to put them down and focus on me. It taught me when to let go and know I could not change the situation. Most importantly, the darkness taught me that I could work through my trying times and make the best of what I was given.

I’m such a negative person, and always have been. Was I born that way? I don’t know. I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. I hate most of humanity. Though I might be very fond of particular individuals, humanity in general fills me with contempt and despair. I hate most of what passes for civilization. I hate the modern world. For one thing there are just too Goddamn many people. I hate the hordes, the crowds in their vast cities, with all their hateful vehicles, their noise and their constant meaningless comings and goings. I hate cars. I hate modern architecture. Every building built after 1955 should be torn down! I despise modern music. Words cannot express how much it gets on my nerves – the false, pretentious, smug assertiveness of it. I hate business, having to deal with money. Money is one of the most hateful inventions of the human race. I hate the commodity culture, in which everything is bought and sold. No stone is left unturned. I hate the mass media, and how passively people suck up to it. I hate having to get up in the morning and face another day of this insanity. I hate having to eat, shit, maintain the body – I hate my body. The thought of my internal functions, the organs, digestion, the brain, the nervous system, horrify me. Nature is horrible. It’s not cute and loveable. It’s kill or be killed. It’s very dangerous out there. The natural world is filled with scary, murderous creatures and forces. I hate the whole way that nature functions. Sex is especially hateful and horrifying, the male penetrating the female, his dick goes into her hole, she’s impregnated, another being grows inside her, and then she must go through a painful ordeal as the new being pushes out of her, only to repeat the whole process in time. Reproduction – what could be more existentially repulsive? How I hate the courting ritual. I was always repelled by my own sex drive, which in my youth never left me alone. I was constantly driven by frustrated desires to do bizarre and unacceptable things with and to women. My soul was in constant conflict about it. I never was able to resolve it. Old age is the only relief. I hate the way the human psyche works, the way we are traumatized and stupidly imprinted in early childhood and have to spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome these infantile mental fixations. And we never ever fully succeed in this endeavor. I hate organized religions. I hate governments. It’s all a lot of power games played out by ambition-driven people, and foisted on the weak, the poor, and on children. Most humans are bullies. Adults pick on children. Older children pick on younger children. Men bully women. The rich bully the poor. People love to dominate. I hate the way humans worship power – one of the most disgusting of all human traits. I hate the human tendency towards revenge and vindictiveness. I hate the way humans are constantly trying to trick and deceive one another, to swindle, to cheat, and take unfair advantage of the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. I hate the vacuous, false, banal conversation that goes on among people. Sometimes I feel suffocated; I want to flee from it. For me, to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize that I am one of them, I want to scream in horror.

There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always - always - returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred.

Nicole’s door opened, and she stomped down the hall. “I have something to say,” she said, giving him the Slitty Eyes of Death. “You’re totally unfair, and if I run away, you shouldn’t be surprised.” “Don’t make me put a computer chip in your ear,” Liam answered. “It’s not funny! I hate you.” “Well, I love you, even if you did ruin my life by turning into a teenager,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Did you study for your test?” “Yes.” “Good.” He looked at his daughter—so much like Emma, way too pretty. Why weren’t there convent schools anymore? Or chastity belts? “Want some supper? I saved your plate.” She rolled her eyes with all the melodrama a teenager could muster. “Fine. I may as well become a fat pig since I can’t ever go on a date.” “That’s my girl,” he said and, grinning, got up to heat up her dinner.

Unfortunately, life is unfair and not all babies are brought into the world with the same amount of anticipation and affection, as others. No matter what anyone says; we are really not all given an equal start at life. And so what must children be made up of, to come into a world like this one? Children must be made up of silk. They must be brought up with a serenity in their skin but a bulletproof strength in their souls. This is the new breed of children. Ones that are soft to the touch but are truly unbreakable. And unbreakable in a beautiful way; not in a lost way.

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny they are small, and the fountain is in France where you wrote me that last letter and I answered and never heard from you again. you used to write insane poems about ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you knew famous artists and most of them were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right, go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous because we’ never met. we got close once in New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never touched. so you went with the famous and wrote about the famous, and, of course, what you found out is that the famous are worried about their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed with them, who gives them that, and then awakens in the morning to write upper case poems about ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe it was the upper case. you were one of the best female poets and I told the publishers, editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom, but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder. your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying bench every night and wept for the lovers who had hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide 3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this.

Somehow the idea of bearing his baby angers me. Let him bear his own baby! If I have a baby I want it to be all mine. A girl like me, but better. A girl who'll also be able to have her own babies. It is not having babies in itself which seems unfair, but having babies for men. Babies who get their names. Babies who lock you by means of love to a man you have to please and serve on pain of abandonment. And love, after all, is the strongest lock. The one that chafes hardest and wears longest. And then I would be trapped for good. The hostage of my own feelings and my own child.

You may have misery,” she continued, ignoring my plea, “you may lose hope in the sorrow of an unplanned life but as long as you have faith and trust in adoration, in affection, in love, that sorrow will turn to happiness. And that is a constant, dear.” She breathed deeply and steadily for a moment, seemingly catching her breath. “No one can know sincere happiness, Sophie, without first having known sorrow. One can never appreciate the enormity and rareness of such a fiery bliss without seeing misery, however unfair that may be. “And you will know honest happiness. Of that I am certain. Certain because it’s why you are here and also because here is your inevitability.

YOUR GREATER ANIMAL They say that if you are Ever confronted by A lion or bear, To never act scared. Instead act like You are the greater animal And that they're The hare That you are about To tear. This has been Proven And compared. This is how presidents Are loved And feared. Each one of us has an animal Within us That is armed with Mental, Physical or Spiritual gifts That could shoot spears Through the air. So next time You are confronted in A fight that seems unfair, Just remember the lion and the bear. MAGNIFY Your greater animal And all that feel your magnificence Will quickly step away And disappear.

Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave. It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair. I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical. Do you know the Symposium, Grey? The Symposium of Plato. [He] says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember? I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words. I wish I had never met you. And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.

Sol, listen,” came the Voice, modulated now so it did not boom from far above but almost whispered in his ear, “the future of humankind depends upon your choice. Can you offer Rachel out of love, if not obedience?” Sol heard the answer in his mind even as he groped for the words. There would be no more offerings. Not this day. Not any day. Humankind had suffered enough for its love of gods, its long search for God. He thought of the many centuries in which his people, the Jews, had negotiated with God, complaining, bickering, decrying the unfairness of things but always—always—returning to obedience at whatever the cost. Generations dying in the ovens of hatred. Future generations scarred by the cold fires of radiation and renewed hatred. Not this time. Not ever again.

A habit that forms from this is that I can ask Eric questions when he is asleep. Once I hear the first snore, I say, Why is your trajectory so straight? Why is your family so nice? It seems unfair how easy everything comes to you. In your last life you must have been a dung beetle. Or someone who gave up his life for someone else. Perhaps a pregnant woman crossing the street. Do you remember? Then I part his autumn hair and bring my voice down to a whisper. Please stop, just for a little while, and let me catch up. How do you expect me to marry you if you never let me catch up?

I do know I can lie awake all night and it feels as if someone is cutting out my stomach the pain of having lost her is so awful. And I am angry that I was made to choose, that both Fen & Helen needed me to choose, to be their one & only when I didn’t want a one & only. I loved that Amy Lowell poem when I first read it, how her lover was like red wine at the beginning and then became bread. But that has not happened to me. My loves remain wine to me, yet I become too quickly bread to them. It was unfair, the way I had to decide one way or another in Marseille. Perhaps I made the conventional choice, the easy way for my work, my reputation, and of course for a child. A child that does not come.

Our pioneers gave us a head start. They prepared us to fight many battles for decades to come as they left the map for us to continue on the path of their greatness. As quoted by the great Susan B. Anthony, “Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.” The shade of our skin might be a bit darker or lighter, but we share the same rejections and discriminations as we are treated unfairly because we are women. Our religions might very well be different; however, we share the same identity, being females productively working for change for a greater cause.

Julian," she said huskily, "you were right the other morning. You know me so well. I'm not made for illicit affaires, all that sneaking around to avoid discovery." In the dark, her hands crept up to his shoulders, then his face. Her finger teased through his hair. "Why should we hide at all? Let all London see us together. I don't care what anyone says or thinks. I love you, and I want the world to know." He wanted to weep. For joy, for frustration. She was so brave, his beautiful Lily, and the situation was so damned unfair. It wasn't her fault that she made these heartrending declarations at a moment when their lives were probably in danger and he couldn't possibly reciprocate. That fault was his, for choosing to live the way he had and making the decisions he'd made. He didn't deserve her, didn't deserve her love. He most certainly didn't merit those warm brushes of her lips against his skin. But damned if he could bring himself to stop them. "We're in love, Julian. Isn't it wonderful?" "No," he murmured as she kissed him again. "It's not wonderful. It's a disaster." Her lips grazed his jaw, then his throat. "I can feel you speaking, and I know you're probably making some valiant protest. But you know I can't hear those words. Your body is making an altogether different argument, and I'm listening to it." Her fingers crept inside his waistcoat, splaying over the thin lawn of his shirt. "Take your heart, for example." Yes, take it. Take it and keep it, always.

In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill. You promised me you'd take me there again someday. But because of me, you were never able to. Well, I'm alone there now… In our ”“special place.” Waiting for you… Waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do. And so I wait, wrapped in my cocoon of pain and loneliness. I know I've done a terrible thing to you. Something you'll never forgive me for. I wish I could change that, but I can't. I feel so pathetic and ugly lying here, waiting for you... Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling, and all I can think about is how unfair it all is... The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting better. It's just that this may be my last chance... I think you know what I mean... Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly. But I'm afraid James. I'm    afraid you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you come see me, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if you hate me or pity me... Or maybe I just disgust you.... I'm sorry about that. When I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time, and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James. I'll always love you. Even though our life together had to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together. Well, this letter has gone on too long, so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that when you read this, I'll already be dead. I can't tell you to remember me, but I can't bear for you to forget me. These last few years since I became ill...I'm so sorry for what I did to you, did to us... You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing. That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James. James... You made me happy. “I love you, Mary.”  As the car began to slowly sink to the bottom of the lake, James pulled his wife close and gently held her. Their wish had finally come true. They would be together. And now they had an eternity to enjoy their happiness.

he was always so brave. So resilient, I suppose—that seems to be the word du jour. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel things—many’s the time I saw him weep—but he dealt with his disappointment, with his hardship and grief; he picked himself up and went on, every time. And not like a mad person who refuses to recognize adversity, but like someone who accepts that life is inherently unfair. That the only truly fair thing about it is the randomness of its unfairness.” She topped up their glasses. “I’m telling you all this not because I feel like a stroll down memory lane or because I like to tell my young friends sad stories on sunny Friday evenings; I just— I wanted you to understand. I wanted you to see what a balm love is. What it is to share one’s life, to really share it, so that very little matters outside the certainty of its walls. Because the world is very noisy, Elodie, and although life is filled with joy and wonder, there’s evil and sorrow and injustice, too.

Jesus was consistently on the side of those who were outcast by society and bore the unfair burden of disdain, discrimination, and prejudice. It is likely that he would look at modern-day lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and hold real sympathy for them and their plight. He would have understood the implications of a system set up to benefit the heterosexual majority over the homosexual minority. It is hard to imagine Jesus joining in the wholesale discrimination against LGBT people. Isn't it logical that he would be sympathetic to young gay teens who take their own lives rather than live with the stigma attached to their sexual orientation? Would he not be found speaking a word of support, encouragement, and hope to them? Would he not be seeking a change in the hearts of those who treat them as outcasts?

Take responsibility. Just as you can't deny that you can feel love and hate, happiness and sadness, anger and ease of mind, or tiredness and relaxation, you can't deny that you have a fate that, sometimes, you can't control. That doesn't mean that it takes control over you. You can't deny that you have words that need to be spoken. You can't deny that you have a choice. You can't deny the ability that you can say no. You can't deny the ability that you have the freedom to make a decision and defend it. You can't deny injustice when you see it, unfairness when you feel it, oppression when you witness it. Stop blaming the world around you for wronging you. Take responsibility for the nos you could have said but chose not to, the words you could have said but didn't, instead wrapping your mouth with your own hands and remaining silent against what needed to be addressed. Take responsibility for the choices you could have made but restrained yourself from making.

The world upsets, disappoints, frustrates and hurts us in countless ways at every turn. It delays us, rejects our creative endeavours, overlooks us for promotions, rewards idiots and smashes our ambitions on its bleak, relentless shores. And almost invariably, we can’t complain about any of it. It’s too difficult to tease out who may really be to blame; and too dangerous to complain even when we know for certain (lest we be fired or laughed at). There is only one person to whom we can expose our catalogue of grievances, one person who can be the recipient of all our accumulated rage at the injustices and imperfections of our lives. It is of course the height of absurdity to blame them. But this is to misunderstand the rules under which love operates. It is because we cannot scream at the forces who are really responsible that we get angry with those we are sure will best tolerate us for blaming them. We take it out on the very nicest, most sympathetic, most loyal people in the vicinity, the ones least likely to have harmed us, but the ones most likely to stick around while we pitilessly rant at them. The accusations we direct at our lovers make no particular sense. We would utter such unfair things to no one else on earth. But our wild charges are a peculiar proof of intimacy and trust, a symptom of love itself – and, in their own way, a perverted manifestation of commitment. Whereas we can say something sensible and polite to any stranger, it is only in the presence of the lover we wholeheartedly believe in that we can dare to be extravagantly and boundlessly unreasonable. A

There are many differing viewpoints on nature versus nurture, and there are those who believe that bad behavior can be excused and understood if a person doesn't know better. The theory that someone who has been abused as a child will go on to abuse their own children, and so on, because they don't know differently is widely held. But children know. We all know. Learned behavior. When a child is abused, he or she knows, even as it is happening, that it is wrong. I knew. I was abused. When a child is treated unfairly in any way, he or she knows that it is wrong. I knew. I was treated unfairly. And when a child is treated with love and affection, he or she knows that it is right. I knew. I saw how other kids were treated with love and affection by their parents. I knew. My soul cried out to me and told me so. We all know. We all know right from wrong. Our souls cry out to us and tell us so. And we decide, we make our choices, and we are responsible for those choices. We, no one else but we, decide. Anger, hurt, pain, humiliation, fear, dread, confusion-all these emotions we choose. De we hold on to our anger, our pain and humiliation, and hit back, or do we strive to understand that we can do better?

Her stomach lurches. She fancies him sooo much - she is powerless to resist. How can she possibly? She knows it's wrong: he has a girlfriend - he lives with her, for goodness' sake - and what they're doing is unfair, cruel. She is not sure what he's said to his girlfriend to wangle a night away and she doesn't want to know. She would hate it if it was done to her - she has never seen herself as the kind of girl who would steal another woman's man. She and Anna have always been most disapproving about women who do that, arguing through college and beyond that there are plenty of available men out there, that it is quite unnecessary to go for those already spoken for. But she has liked Simon since day one, and he is the one who initiated this whole thing. He is the one who blew her away with a clandestine kiss just a week ago, who asked if he could come back and stay at hers afterwards; he is the one who doubtless made unconvincing excuses when he returned home the next day. And it only took that single night to open this Pandora's box of mutual passion, being together was far, far better than it should have been, were it only a one-night stand. Karen senses that he really likes her.

I keeled over sideways. The world turned fluffy, bleached of all color. Nothing hurt anymore. I was dimly aware of Diana’s face hovering over me, Meg and Hazel peering over the goddess’s shoulders. “He’s almost gone,” Diana said. Then I was gone. My mind slipped into a pool of cold, slimy darkness. “Oh, no, you don’t.” My sister’s voice woke me rudely. I’d been so comfortable, so nonexistent. Life surged back into me—cold, sharp, and unfairly painful. Diana’s face came into focus. She looked annoyed, which seemed on-brand for her. As for me, I felt surprisingly good. The pain in my gut was gone. My muscles didn’t burn. I could breathe without difficulty. I must have slept for decades. “H-how long was I out?” I croaked. “Roughly three seconds,” she said. “Now, get up, drama queen.” She helped me to my feet. I felt a bit unsteady, but I was delighted to find that my legs had any strength at all. My skin was no longer gray. The lines of infection were gone. The Arrow of Dodona was still in my hand, though he had gone silent, perhaps in awe of the goddess’s presence. Or perhaps he was still trying to get the taste of “Sweet Caroline” out of his imaginary mouth. I beamed at my sister. It was so good to see her disapproving I-can’t-believe-you’re-my-brother frown again. “I love you,” I said, my voice hoarse with emotion. She blinked, clearly unsure what to do with this information. “You really have changed.” “I missed you!” “Y-yes, well. I’m here now. Even Dad couldn’t argue with a Sibylline invocation from Temple Hill.” “It worked, then!” I grinned at Hazel and Meg. “It worked!” “Yeah,” Meg said wearily. “Hi, Artemis.” “Diana,” my sister corrected. “But hello, Meg.” For her, my sister had a smile. “You’ve done well, young warrior.” Meg blushed. She kicked at the scattered zombie dust on the floor and shrugged. “Eh.” I checked my stomach, which was easy, since my shirt was in tatters. The bandages had vanished, along with the festering wound. Only a thin white scar remained. “So…I’m healed?” My flab told me she hadn’t restored me to my godly self. Nah, that would have been too much to expect. Diana raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m not the goddess of healing, but I’m still a goddess. I think I can take care of my little brother’s boo-boos.” “Little brother?” She smirked.

And do not try to be so brave. I am your lifemate.You cannot hide from me something as powerful as fear." "Trepidation," she corrected, nibbling at the pad of his thumb. "Is there a difference?" His pale eyes had warmed to molten mercury. Just that fast, her body ent liquid in answer. "You know very well there is." She laughed again, and the sound traveled down from his heart to pool in his groin, a heavy,familiar ache. "Slight, perhaps, but very important." "I will try to make you happy, Savannah," he promised gravely. Her fingers went up to brush at the thick mane of hair falling around his face. "You are my lifemate, Gregori. I have no doubt you will make me happy." He had to look away,out the window into the night. She was so good, with so much beauty in her, while he was so dark, his goodness drained into the ground with the blood of all the lives he had taken while he waited for her. But now,faced with the reality of her, Gregori could not bear her to witness the blackness within him, the hideous stain across his soul. For beyond his killing and law-breaking, he had committed the gravest crime of all. And he deserved the ultimate penalty, the forfeit of his life. He had deliberately tempered with nature.He knew he was powerful enough, knew his knowledge exeeded the boundaries of Carpathian law. He had taken Savannah's free will, manipulated the chemistry between them so that she would believe he was her true lifemate. And so she was with him-less than a quarter of a century of innocence pitted against his thousand years of hard study.Perhaps that was his punishment, he mused-being sentenced to an eternity of knowing Savannah could never really love him, never really accept his black soul.That she would be ever near yet so far away. If she ever found out the extent of his manipulation, she would despise him. Yet he could never,ever, allow her to leave him. Not if mortals and immortals alike were to be safe. His jaw hardened, and he stared out the window, turning slightly away from her. His mind firmly left hers, not wanting to alert her to the grave crime he had committed.He could bear torture and centuries of isolation, he could bear his own great sins, but he could not endure her loathing him. Unconsciously, he took her hand in his and tightened his grip until it threatened to crush her fragile bones. Savannah glanced at him, let out a breath slowly to keep from wincing, and kept her hand passively in his.He thought his mind closed to her.Didn't believe she was his true lifemate. He truly believed he had manipulated the outcome of their joining unfairly and that somewhere another Carpathian male with the chemistry to match hers might be waiting.Though he had offered her free access to his mind, had himself given her the power,to meld her mind with his,both as her wolf and as her healer before she was born,he likely didn't think a woman,a fledging, and one who was not his true lifemate, could possibly have the skill to read his innermost secrets.But Savannah could. And completing the ancient ritual of lifemates had only strengthened the bond.