β
You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.
β
β
AndrΓ© Gide (Autumn Leaves)
β
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.
β
β
Maurice Switzer (Mrs. Goose, Her Book)
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
You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.
β
β
Khaled Hosseini
β
There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.
β
β
Linda Grayson
β
Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
β
β
Alfred Tennyson (In Memoriam)
β
Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (At First Sight (Jeremy Marsh & Lexie Darnell, #2))
β
When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.
β
β
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β
Do you hate people?β
βI don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.
β
β
Charles Bukowski (Barfly)
β
It's far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone β so far.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.
β
β
George R.R. Martin
β
When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
It means 'Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234'.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not.
β
β
Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)
β
What happens when people open their hearts?"
"They get better.
β
β
Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
β
Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.
β
β
Jane Smiley (Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel)
β
There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (Just Listen)
β
Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.
β
β
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment)
β
He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who has left the world better than he found it,
Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction.
β
β
Bessie Anderson Stanley (More Heart Throbs Volume Two in Prose and Verse Dear to the American People And by them contributed as a Supplement to the original $10,000 Prize Book HEART THROBS)
β
I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.
β
β
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
β
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
Sometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
β
It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
β
β
Herman Melville
β
There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
β
β
C.S. Lewis
β
If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.
β
β
Holly Black (The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1))
β
No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.
β
β
Maya Angelou
β
People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.
β
β
Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1))
β
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.
β
β
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
β
Tomorrow will be better.β
βBut what if itβs not?β I asked.
βThen you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.
β
β
Morgan Matson (Amy & Roger's Epic Detour)
β
Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?
β
β
Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)
β
Don't Gain The World & Lose Your Soul, Wisdom Is Better Than Silver Or Gold.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
Better to be strong than pretty and useless.
β
β
Lilith Saintcrow (Strange Angels (Strange Angels, #1))
β
If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.
β
β
Charles Bukowski (What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
β
My imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.
β
β
Patricia Highsmith
β
There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
β
β
John Lennon
β
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, thereβs something stronger β something better, pushing right back.
β
β
Albert Camus
β
My dear,
Find what you love and let it kill you.
Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.
Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.
For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but itβs much better to be killed by a lover.
~ Falsely yours
β
β
Kinky Friedman
β
Try a little harder to be a little better.
β
β
Gordon B. Hinckley
β
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
β
β
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)
β
I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.
β
β
Stephen King
β
Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion.
β
β
Edward Abbey
β
It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count.
β
β
Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)
β
Remember me and smile, for it's better to forget than to remember me and cry.
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and Iβ
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
β
β
Robert Frost
β
Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
The only thing better than imagining Dimitri carrying me in his arms was imagining him shirtless while carrying me in his arms.
β
β
Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy, #1))
β
Families are messy. Immortal families are eternally messy. Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we're related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
β
Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.
β
β
Ernest Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea)
β
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
β
β
Victor Hugo
β
...you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.
β
β
Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1))
β
It is better, I think, to grab at the stars than to sit flustered because you know you cannot reach them.
β
β
R.A. Salvatore (Sojourn (Forgotten Realms: The Dark Elf Trilogy, #3; Legend of Drizzt, #3))
β
Good sex is like good bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.
β
β
Mae West
β
I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.
β
β
Nadezhda Mandelstam (Hope Against Hope)
β
Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
β
β
Mother Teresa
β
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
β
β
George Washington
β
To give pleasure to a single heart by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer.
β
β
Mahatma Gandhi
β
When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.
β
β
Mae West
β
What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.
β
β
Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)
β
Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
β
β
Plato
β
The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
β
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
β
β
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
β
Do no harm and leave the world a better place than you found it.
β
β
Patricia Cornwell
β
Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
β
β
Hunter S. Thompson
β
We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.
β
β
Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth)
β
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
β
β
Theodore Roosevelt
β
At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.
β
β
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club)
β
Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.
β
β
Margaret Atwood (The Handmaidβs Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1))
β
Love isn't always pretty. Sometimes you spend all your time hoping it'll eventually be something different. Something better. Then, before you know it, you're back to square one, and you lost your heart somewhere along the way.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Ugly Love)
β
I have something I need to tell you," he says. I run my fingers along the tendons in his hands and look back at him. "I might be in love with you." He smiles a little. "I'm waiting until I'm sure to tell you, though."
"That's sensible of you," I say, smiling too. "We should find some paper so you can make a list or a chart or something."
I feel his laughter against my side, his nose sliding along my jaw, his lips pressing my ear.
"Maybe I'm already sure," he says, "and I just don't want to frighten you."
I laugh a little. "Then you should know better."
"Fine," he says. "Then I love you.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
β
We can't be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don't have something better.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
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
Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn't have the time to sit around and talk about you. What's important to me is not others' opinions of me, but what's important to me is my opinion of myself.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
You wonβt understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you areβnot smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgivingβand then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how badβor goodβit might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.
β
β
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
β
I have for the first time found what I can truly loveβI have found you. You are my sympathyβmy better selfβmy good angelβI am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about youβand, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
β
β
Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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
When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. "It's all right" we whisper, "I'm here, I love you." and we lie: "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days)
β
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.
That is the sort of bravery I must have now.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Allegiant (Divergent, #3))
β
There are three questions every woman should be able to answer yes to before they commit to a man. If you answer no to any of the three questions, run like hell."
[...]
"Does he treat you with respect at all times? That's the first question. The second question is, if he is the exact same person twenty years from now that he is today, would you still want to marry him? And finally, does he inspire to be a better person? You find someone you can answer yes to all three, then you've found a good man.
β
β
Colleen Hoover (Slammed (Slammed, #1))
β
Finding someone you love and who loves you back is a wonderful, wonderful feeling. But finding a true soul mate is an even better feeling. A soul mate is someone who understands you like no other, loves you like no other, will be there for you forever, no matter what. They say that nothing lasts forever, but I am a firm believer in the fact that for some, love lives on even after we're gone.
β
β
Cecelia Ahern (P.S. I Love You (P.S. I Love You, #1))
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
I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.
β
β
Beryl Markham (West with the Night)
β
You'd think people had better things to gossip about," said Ginny as she sat on the common room floor, leaning against Harryβs legs and reading the Daily Prophet. "Three Dementor attacks in a week, and all Romilda Vane does is ask me if itβs true youβve got a Hippogriff tattooed across your chest."
Ron and Hermione both roared with laughter. Harry ignored them.
What did you tell her?"
I told her it's a Hungarian Horntail," said Ginny, turning a page of the newspaper idly. "Much more macho."
Thanks," said Harry, grinning. "And what did you tell her Ronβs got?"
A Pygmy Puff, but I didnβt say where.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6))
β
Can you surf really well, then?"
I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
"Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."
He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.)
β
β
Rick Riordan
β
It was true that I didnβt have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?
β
β
Charles Bukowski (Factotum)
β
If you take a book with you on a journey," Mo had said when he put the first one in her box, "an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories. And forever after you have only to open that book to be back where you first read it. It will all come into your mind with the very first words: the sights you saw in that place, what it smelled like, the ice cream you ate while you were reading it... yes, books are like flypaperβmemories cling to the printed page better than anything else.
β
β
Cornelia Funke (Inkheart (Inkworld, #1))
β
I will never leave him. It will be this, always, for as long as he will let me.
If I had had words to speak such a thing, I would have. But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth.
As if he had heard me, he reached for my hand. I did not need to look; his fingers were etched into my memory, slender and petal-veined, strong and quick and never wrong.
βPatroclus,β he said. He was always better with words than I.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Donβt put your wand there, boy!β roared Moody. βWhat if it ignited? Better wizards than you have lost buttocks, you know!β βWho dβyou know whoβs lost a buttock?β the violet-haired woman asked Mad-Eye interestedly. βNever you mind, you just keep your wand out of your back pocket!β growled Mad-Eye. βElementary wand safety, nobody bothers about it anymoreΒ .Β .Β .β He stumped off toward the kitchen. βAnd I saw that,β he added irritably, as the woman rolled her eyes at the ceiling.
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
β
In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!
β
β
Woody Allen
β
He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we canβt know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumiβs note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
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I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.
I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.
I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.
I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.
I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.
I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.
I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.
I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.
I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.
I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
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Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))
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Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.
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Robert A. Heinlein
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
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Carl Sagan (Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space)
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She raised an eyebrow. "You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?"
You'd probably kick my butt."
You know I'd kick your butt."
I brushed the cake off my hands. "When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable . . . Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal."
Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. "Yeah?"
Then up on Olympus," I said, "when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-"
Oh, you so wanted to."
Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought-I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking . . ." My throat felt really dry.
Anyone in particular?" Annabeth asked, her voice soft.
I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.
You're laughing at me," I complained.
I am not!"
You are so not making this easy."
Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands
around my neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.
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Rick Riordan (The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #5))
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The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships.
These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember, to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever. Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person might not be there again. Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
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Bob Moorehead (Words Aptly Spoken)
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When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
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Kahlil Gibran (Le Prophète)