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1 " It's clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another. "
― Robert James Waller , The Bridges of Madison County
2 " Staring over him in the dim light of a side lamp, my tired eyes traced along the path of faint, yet emerging, lines etched around his equally-tired eyes. They'd become a permanent reminder of his ever-smiling face, and I wished–even after all of these years together-that I could absorb some of his contentment. "
― Jodi LaPalm , The Choice Not Taken
3 " Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued it, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." -All Quiet On The Western Front, Chapter 12 "
4 " night has enveloped, to give me some reliefnow invisible are walls of separation, and thy griefwhere blood quenches the thirstdisloyalty is faith last and firstis the religion my beloved belongs toI beckoned, red and black robed lady with a wandlet me take her by the handheard of her about sorceryher powers useless, and witch now about to succumbfrom just a gaze of eyes filled with Kohl of Leilamy nights worthless, body breathlessevery moment, feeling restlessbe silent and hear, hear me, my criesdon't forget the promise you sworeI have lost my childhood over youdon't know, how these years left me alonesufferings, separation, theft me aloneI never knew how pain excrutiatessometimes, i enlivened you my dearLove is a blessing, and not a fearin a melancholy cloudy day, I mournglistening eyes, weeping sky, and heart tornI gaze from a window in KashmirFor a moment, condoling the tragedy, sighingIn sombre time, lifeless, as if dying "
― Mirza Sharafat Hussain Beigh
5 " According to Hugh Thomas, author of 'A History of the World', the greatest medical advance in history has been garbage collection. The greatest psychological advance in history is just around the corner and will also have to do with cleaning up. Cleaning up lies and " coming out of the closet" is getting more attention these days. Some day we will look back on these years of suffocation in bullsh*t in the same way we look back on all the years people lived in, and died from, their garbage. "
6 " UPYou wake up filled with dread.There seems no reason for it.Morning light sifts through the window,there is birdsong,you can't get out of bed.It's something about the crumpled sheetshanging over the edge like junglefoliage, the terry slippers gapingtheir dark pink mouths for your feet,the unseen breakfast--some of itin the refrigerator you do not dareto open--you will not dare to eat.What prevents you? The future. The future tense,immense as outer space.You could get lost there.No. Nothing so simple. The past, its densityand drowned events pressing you down,like sea water, like gelatinfilling your lungs instead of air.Forget all that and let's get up.Try moving your arm.Try moving your head.Pretend the house is on fireand you must run or burn.No, that one's useless.It's never worked before.Where is it coming form, this echo,this huge No that surrounds you,silent as the folds of the yellowcurtains, mute as the cheerfulMexican bowl with its cargoof mummified flowers?(You chose the colours of the sun,not the dried neutrals of shadow.God knows you've tried.)Now here's a good one:you're lying on your deathbed.You have one hour to live.Who is it, exactly, you have neededall these years to forgive? "
― Margaret Atwood , Morning in the Burned House
7 " Now here's a good one:you're lying on your deathbed.You have one hour to live.Who is it, exactly, you have neededall these years to forgive? "
― Louise Penny , A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)
8 " She passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and it accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. "
― Khaled Hosseini
9 " Raven had been shunned and abandoned throughout his life. Friends often came and went without a word or worse, they toyed with his emotions and shared his secrets with those he chose to distrust. His loneliness was inevitable and his secrets were damaging enough. Through all of his largely brief but emotionally involved friendships and infatuations, the depression and the darkness of his past, there had been one place to which he could go for solitude—either in thought or in person—and he never shared the knowledge of its existence or its secrets with anyone. That place dwelled within him even all of these years since the summer when he was nine and all that could ever have gone wrong, did. "
― Amanda M. Lyons , Eyes Like Blue Fire
10 " From the experience of these years Dr. Lloyd-Jones was immovably confirmed in a truth which he had first seen in the New Testament. It was that evangelism is pre-eminently dependent upon the quality of the Christian life which is known and enjoyed in the church. "
― Iain H. Murray , The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones - 1899-1981
11 " It was a strange business and it made a sad and curious impression on me; everything that had belonged to me in these earlier years of my life left me, was alien and lost to me. I suddenly saw how sad and artificial my life had been during this period, for the loves, friends, habits and pleasures of these years were discarded like badly fitting clothes. I parted from them without pain and all that remained was to wonder that I could have endured them so long. "
― Hermann Hesse , Gertrude
12 " During these years in the small-talk wilderness, I also wondered why Americans valued friendliness with commerce so much. Was handing over cash the sacred rite of American capitalism—and of American life? On a day that I don’t spend money in America, I feel oddly depressed. It’s my main form of social interaction—as it is for millions of Americans who live alone or away from their families. "
― Karan Mahajan
13 " That's what I don't like about college, by the way. It's like a lot of people don't believe these years really count, so you're allowed to experiment with... whatever. There's such a casual view about things like sex and drinking and even drugs. I know that sounds really old-fashioned, but I just don't get it...to be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in those two people I heard about, and I don't want to sit there trying to pretend that I'm not. I know I shouldn't judge,...but still, what was the point? Shouldn't you save things like that for someone you love? So that it really means something?" - Savannah "
14 " Darling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich. Your spirit is always around me, in your diary, our letters, all the things you got for our household. How proud we were of that! And the nearly six years! O God, I thank you for those years. If I never had met you, I would now not have all the sorrow; but I would have missed these riches -- and do these years not abundantly balance the lonely years I face without you? "
― , Things We Couldn't Say
15 " Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something, an enterprise glorious or humble, a destiny illustrious or trivial. We are faced with a condition, strange but inexorable, involved in our very existence. On the one hand, to live is something which each one does of himself and for himself. On the other hand, if that life of mine, which only concerns myself, is not directed by me towards something, it will be disjointed, lacking in tension and in " form." In these years we are witnessing the gigantic spectacle of innumerable human lives wandering about lost in their own labyrinths, through not having anything to which to give themselves. All imperatives, all commands, are in a state of suspension. The situation might seem to be an ideal one, since every existence is left entirely free to do just as it pleases- to look after itself. The same with every nation. Europe has slackened its pressure on the world. But the result has been contrary to what might have been expected. Given over to itself, every life has been left empty, with nothing to do. And as it has to be filled with something, it invents frivolities for itself, gives itself to false occupations which impose nothing intimate, sincere. To-day it is one thing, to-morrow another, opposite to the first. Life is lost at finding itself all alone. Mere egoism is a labyrinth. This is quite understandable. Really to live is to be directed towards something, to progress towards a goal. "
16 " She had been waiting for someone to notice her, like, really notice her. She felt that that was the key, that she would go from the duck to the swan the minute someone recognized her potential. And they would look into her like they were trying to pierce her eyes with theirs, like they were trying to make her heart stop, and the whole world would become background noise and she would take her first breath after all of these years of nothing but existing. It would be like a coronation, or a star exploding, and then she would be born. She would be alive, and she would be loved. "
― Rose Fall , Heart: A Romantic Short Story Collection
17 " But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in. "
― Junot Díaz , The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
18 " Of these years nought remains in memory but the sad feeling that we have advanced and only grown older. "
