The Most Painful Thing

“The most painful thing is losing yourself 

in the process of loving someone too much, 

and forgetting that you are special too.” 

~ Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women

When You Stop Expecting People

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, 

you can like them for who they are.” 

~ Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: 

What I Learned While Editing My Life

Why Is It

“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, 

"I feel I've known you so many years?"

"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.” 

~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

I Mean

“I mean, if the relationship can't survive the long term, 

why on earth would it be worth my time and energy for the short term?” 

~ Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song

Well It Seems to Me

“Well, it seems to me that the best relationships

 - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. 

You know, one day you look at the person and you

see something more than you did the night before. 

Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. 

And the person who was just a friend is... 

suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with.” 

~ Gillian Anderson

We're All Seeking That Special Person

“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. 

But if you’ve been through enough relationships, 

you begin to suspect there’s no right person, 

just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? 

Because you yourself are wrong in some way, 

and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. 

But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. 

And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons,

 your unsolvable problems—

the ones that make you truly who you are—

that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. 

Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. 

You’re looking for the wrong person. 

But not just any wrong person: it's got to be the right wrong person—

someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”

"I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.” 

~ Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected 

to Everything in the Universe

It Hurts to Let Go

“It hurts to let go. 

Sometimes it seems the harder you

try to hold on to something or someone the more

it wants to get away. 

You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. 

For having wanted to be wanted. 

It confuses you because you think that your feelings were wrong and

it makes you feel so small because it's so hard

to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't come back. 

You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head.” 

~ Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

Man May Have Discovered Fire

“Man may have discovered fire, 

but women discovered how to play with it.” 

~ Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City

For the Two of Us

“For the two of us, home isn't a place. 

It is a person. And we are finally home.” 

~ Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss

You Can Talk With Someone

“You can talk with someone for years, every day, 

and still, it won't mean as much as what you can 

have when you sit in front of someone, not saying 

a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, 

you feel like you have known the person for forever... 

Connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.” 

~ C. JoyBell C.

A Guy and A Girl

“A guy and a girl can be just friends, 

but at one point or another, they will fall for each other...

Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, 

maybe too late, or maybe forever” 

~ Dave Matthews Band

The Meeting of Two Personalities

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact 

of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” 

~ Carl Gustav Jung

I Think You Still Love Me

“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact

that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going

to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling

in love with another woman. I’m not angry, 

either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. 

A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how 

much this would hurt, but I was wrong.” 

~ Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Indifference and Neglect

“Indifference and neglect often do much 

more damage than outright dislike.” 

~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I No Longer Believed

“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. 

But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, 

if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. 

Not because he was perfect, or because you were, 

but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way

 that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.” 

~ Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil

When Someone Loves You

“When someone loves you, the way they talk

about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.” 

~ Jess C. Scott, The Intern

I Get the Same Buzz

“I get the same buzz cleaning up the yard as Leo Tolstoy did from scything hay.” 

~ Sergei Lukyanenko, Twilight Watch

This is All a Tale

“This is all a tale of an older world and a forgotten countryside. 

At this moment of time change has come; 

a screaming line of steel runs through the heather of no-man’s-land, 

and the holiday-maker claims the valleys for his own. 

But this busyness is but of yesterday, 

and not ten years ago the fields lay quiet to the gaze

of placid beasts and the wandering stars. 

This story I have culled from the grave of an old fashion, 

and set down for the love of a great soul and the poetry of life.” 

~ John Buchan, Best Short Stories

The Warm Days of Firestreak

“The warm days of Firestreak are usually 

good for travellers in the world of Amarillia.” 

~ Ian Livingstone, Firestorm

The Christian Admits

“The Christian admits that the universe is manifold

and even miscellaneous, just as a 

sane man knows that

he is complex. The sane

man knows that he has a touch of the

beast, a touch of the devil, a touch of the saint, 

a touch of the citizen. Nay, the really sane man knows

that he has a touch of the madman. 

But the materialist's world is quite simple and solid,

 just as the madman is quite sure he is sane. 

The materialist is sure that history has been simply

and solely a chain of causation, 

just as the interesting person before mentioned is

quite sure that he is simply and solely a chicken. 

Materialists and madmen never have doubts.” 

~ G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy