Quotes: Volume I

I have a great amount of quotes that I've amassed over the years. I've been meaning to keep a quote book where I can hand write my favorites but until I have the time and patience to do that, posting groups of them here will suffice. There will be more volumes to come since my collection is ever growing. I find comfort in quotes because good ones can stand on their own and they come without attachment, which leaves me free to make them my own. Enjoy :)

(Side Note: unfortunately, some may not have a source)

“Strange,

I barely know you,

but yet I feel deeply connected to you.

Crave,

I never had you,

but yet I feel so lonely without

 you.”

—   Beautiful Stranger

“I don’t care about losing people who don’t wanna be in my life anymore. I’ve lost people who meant the world to me and I’m still doing just fine.”

—   Pleasure P

“Act like you trust people, but don’t.”

“Be nobody’s darling;

Be an outcast.

Take the contradictions

Of your life

And wrap around

You like a shawl,

To parry stones

To keep you warm.”

—Alice Walker

“Sometimes,

I wake up

at four in the morning

and taste smoke

in the back of my throat.

I swear to god,

you’re still burning

somewhere inside me."

-Solange

“For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse.

So collapse.

Crumble.

This is not your destruction.

This is your birth.”

“We lived, as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”

—Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

“You wanna know what living life to the fullest actually is? It’s waking up on a Monday morning with no complaints. It’s knowing you always deserve to laugh. It’s doing what feels right no matter what. It’s doing what you want to, no matter how stupid you look. It’s about being yourself, ‘cause no one can tell you you’re doing it wrong.”

“Some days you are the explosion,

and other days you are the aftermath.

We don’t have to talk about the bloody knees right now.

We don’t have to talk about the nights you feared

the world would end,

or the nights you

wished it would.

I found you here with your

bones leaking smoke

and ignored the broken fire escape,

the rusty ladder you knocked down

before it could save you.

We all have different reasons

for sleeping in burning buildings,

and some days your eyes are still sirens,

still flashing emergencies telling me I’m too late.

But maybe we were never dying.

Maybe all those times we ran out of breath

were just for practice.

When did learning how to survive

become falling in love with the way we don’t?

You’re taking comfort in the fact that

this will end soon.

I’m taking comfort in the fact that you’re still right here.”

“I think it’s intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.”

—Don Cheadle

I live for coincidences. They briefly give to me the illusion or the hope that there’s a pattern to my life, and if there’s a pattern, then maybe I’m moving toward some kind of destiny where it’s all explained.”

—Jonathan Ames, My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays

“Nothing can wear you out like caring about people.”

—S.E. Hinton, That Was Then, This Is Now

“That’s why she’s in love with you, you know…There were a lot of other boys, but they didn’t scare her. She rather frightened them, I think. You’re very different. But I think you frightened her, and that’s why she likes you.”

—Aurelia Plath, Sylvia

“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.”

— Roald Dahl

“You are a

hurricane of

a girl;

remember

to breathe

every once

and a while,

do not drown

within your

own storm.”

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

— Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“I said never apologize for how you feel. No one can control how they feel. The sun doesn’t apologize for being the sun. The rain doesn’t say sorry for falling. Feelings just are.”

—   Iain S. Thomas

“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder. To search for the truth.”

—Albert Einstein

“You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.”

— Augusten Burroughs

“I’m that douchebag friend who doesn’t talk to you for weeks but still cares about you and hopes you still care too.”

“I am proud that I defy your categories. I am proud that I don’t fit easily into any box. I am proud of all the things I am and all the things i can be. Question yourself every time you think you only see one thing in me.”

— David Levithan, Wide Awake

“And you tried to change, didn’t you? Closed your mouth more. Tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake… You can’t make homes out of human beings. Someone should have already told you that. And if he wants to leave, then let him leave. You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.”

— Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult To Love

“1. I’m lonely so I do lonely things

2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.

3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.

4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.

5. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.

6. I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.

7. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.

8. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.

9. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.

10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes.

11. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.

12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.

13. I’m not a dog.

14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong.

15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.

16. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.

17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.

18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.

19. You were too cruel to love for a long time.

20. It just didn’t work out.

21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.

22. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.

23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.

24. The women in my family die waiting.

25. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.

26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.

27. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.

28. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”

29. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile

30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.

31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.

32. I’m a lover without a lover.

33. I’m lovely and lonely.

34. I belong deeply to myself.”

— Warsan Shire

“I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go”

— Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These people have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

—   Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.”

— Shakespeare

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”