tuck QUOTES

1 " My father gave me a ruined boy to compensate for the fact that he does not love me.

The boy is fragile, broken—broke himself—broke everything.

I asked him why he did it. He said because the world was unlivable. He said it was unlovable, but I think he meant himself. I think he meant that loneliness is sometimes painful.

I curl against him, tuck my head beneath his chin and listen to his heart. It says stay and wait. It says regret. He knows what it is to want love, a love so fierce you grow roots. I hear his heart say please.

He went looking for angels and found me instead, girl of the sorrows, sad but not sorry. I waited for a sign, a star to fall. He reached for a knife and drew branches. "

― Brenna Yovanoff

2 " The Type

Everyone needs a place. It shouldn't be inside of someone else. -Richard Siken

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
you can let them look at you. But do not mistake eyes for hands.

Or windows.
Or mirrors.

Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may not have ever seen one before.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
you can let them touch you.

Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle. A door. A sandwich. A Pulitzer. Another woman.

But their hands found you first. Do not mistake yourself for a guardian.
Or a muse. Or a promise. Or a victim. Or a snack.

You are a woman. Skin and bones. Veins and nerves. Hair and sweat.
You are not made of metaphors. Not apologies. Not excuses.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
you can let them hold you.

All day they practice keeping their bodies upright--
even after all this evolving, it still feels unnatural, still strains the muscles,

holds firm the arms and spine. Only some men will want to learn
what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,

admit they do not have the answers
they thought they would have by now;

some men will want to hold you like The Answer.
You are not The Answer.

You are not the problem. You are not the poem
or the punchline or the riddle or the joke.

Woman. If you grow up the type men want to love,
You can let them love you.

Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love, it is discovering the ocean

after years of puddle jumping. It is realizing you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.

Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of woman
men will hurt. If he leaves you with a car alarm heart, you learn to sing along.

It is hard to stop loving the ocean. Even after it has left you gasping, salty.
Forgive yourself for the decisions you have made, the ones you still call

mistakes when you tuck them in at night. And know this:
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.

Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.

You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You were born to build. "

― Sarah Kay

3 " Rare and precious moments, how I long to live with you eternally! If only your sweetness never ceased to touch my lips, and the flutters you evoke nevermore faded away. I dream of your arm extended immeasurably to keep hold of my reaching hand.
But Father Time, being a cruel master, will not grant such a wish.
And so I tuck you away as cherished memories, stored in a treasure box buried in my heart. And in times of solitude, I shall bring you out to view like rainbows. "

― Richelle E. Goodrich , Making Wishes: Quotes, Thoughts, & a Little Poetry for Every Day of the Year

4 " He laughs. " Put some clothes on so you don't scare poor Kiara with your morning hard-on." I look down at my shorts. Sure enough, I've got la tengo dura in front of Kiara and Tuck. Shit. I reach out for the first thing I can grab and put it in front of me to shield myself from view. It happens to be one of Kiara's stuffed animals, but I don't have much choice right now." That's Kiara's Mojo," Tuck says, laughing. " Get it? Mojo? "

5 " And that's why I don't get to cry, I guess. Because they do. Because we're older but we're not the grown-ups who seem too far away to understand. I tuck that thought inside me, warm and small like balled hands inside hoodie pockets. Beneath the beech trees and sugar maples, feet crunching against dead leaves, I hope for strength. Because as much as I want to be the one crying, I want to be the kind of person someone can hold onto. "

― Emery Lord , The Names They Gave Us

6 " Too often there is this sinister greed that pulls at my coattails, subtly whispering in the ear of my soul that it is within my rights to tuck away a few dark trinkets to toy with when the tedium of righteous living gets a bit boring. But God would suggest that I empty my pockets. "

― Craig D. Lounsbrough , A View from the Front Porch: Encounters with Life and Jesus

7 " Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds. "

― Craig D. Lounsbrough

8 " Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that there are two foremen and a rulebook, and that there's someone to tuck them in at night. "

― Carew Papritz , The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift

9 " If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
You can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands,
Or windows for mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may not have ever seen one before.
If you grow up the type of woman men want to touch,
You can let them touch you.
Sometimes it is not you they are reaching for.
Sometimes it is a bottle, a door, a sandwich, a Pulitzer, another woman –
But their hands found you first.
Do not mistake yourself for a guardian, or a muse, or a promise, or a victim or a snack.
You are a woman –
Skin and bones, veins and nerves, hair and sweat
You are not made of metaphors,
Not apologies, not excuses.
If you grow up the type of woman men want to hold,
You can let them hold you.
All day they practice keeping their bodies upright.
Even after all this evolving it still feels unnatural,
Still strains the muscles, holds firm the arms and spine.
Only some men will want to learn what it feels like to curl themselves into a question mark around you,
Admit they don’t have the answers they thought they would by now.
Some men will want to hold you like the answer.
You are not the answer.
You are not the problem.
You are not the poem, or the punchline, or the riddle, or the joke.
Woman, if you grow up the type of woman men want to love,
You can let them love you.
Being loved is not the same thing as loving.
When you fall in love,
It is discovering the ocean after years of puddle jumping.
It is realising you have hands.
It is reaching for the tightrope after the crowds have all gone home.
Do not spend time wondering if you are the type of woman men will hurt.
If he leaves you with a car alarm heart.
You learn to sing along.
It is hard to stop loving the ocean,
Even after it’s left you gasping, salty.
So forgive yourself for the decisions you’ve made,
The ones you still call mistakes when you tuck them in at night,
And know this.
Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours.
Let the statues crumble.
You have always been the place.
You are a woman who can build it yourself.
You are born to build. "

― Sarah Kay

10 " There was a saying that the strength of a man’s steel was only known under the hammer of circumstance. If anyone had asked me a few hours ago, I would have said that nearly five years of boyhood had hammered me into constant fear and excessive caution. But now I realised it had done the opposite. It had shaped me into someone who stepped forwards and reached for what she wanted. It was too late for me to tuck my hands behind my back and wait like a good woman. "

― Alison Goodman , Eona: The Last Dragoneye (Eon, #2)

11 " [Y]ou, one day, will knock lips with Turkish-coffee-clad veils whose beds our kin must tuck in misty-eyed. "

― , No Return Address: A collection of poems

12 " I'm ordered to a week of bed rest and I don't object because I feel so lousy. Not just my heel and my tailbone. My whole body aches with exhaustion. So I let my mother doctor me and feed me breakfast in bed and tuck another quilt around me. Then I just lie there, staring out my window at the winter sky, pondering how on earth this will all turn out. "

13 " from Taking Your Clothes to the Salvation Army:

Okay, so strangers will be grateful for this, will wear the socks to keep their feet warm, blow their noses in your handkerchiefs, pull up the shorts, tuck in the size large shirts (too small for our boys, too big for our daughter), and bits of you will be out there, engaging in a life you no longer have. "

― Jane Yolen , Things to Say to a Dead Man: Poems at the End of a Marriage and After

14 " Why did the sun rise this morning
It's not natural
I don't want to see the light

It's not time to close the casket
Or say Kaddish for my son
I've already buried two fathers

With a mother to come
Isn't that enough Lord who wants us
To exalt and santify Him

I don't want to wear the mourner's ribbon
Or wake up crying every morning
For God knows how long

I don't want to tuck my son into the ground
As if we were putting him to bed
For the last time

Close the prayer book I will not pretend
That God brings peace upon us
And upon all Israel

I don't want to hear anyone
Scolding me from her wheelchair
Because I'm crying too hard

I'm not worried about a heart attack
Nothingness
You've already broken my heart

I will not forgive you
Sun of emptiness
Sky of blank clouds

I will not forgive you
Indifferent God
Until you give back my son "

― Edward Hirsch , Gabriel: A Poem

15 " The thing is, someday the sun is going to die and everything on Earth will freeze. This will happen. Even if we end global warming and clean up our radiation. The complete works of William Shakespeare, Monet’s lilies, all of Hemingway, all of Milton, all of Keats, our music libraries, our library libraries, our galleries, our poetry, our letters, our names etched in desks. I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. The idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents! I want what I think and who I am captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortingly tuck into a shelf in some labyrinthine library. "

― Marina Keegan

16 " Once on yellow sheet of paper with green lines, he wrote a poemand he called it “Spot”because that was the name of his dog and that’s what it was all aboutand his teacher gave him an “A” and a big gold starand his mother hung it on the kitchen cupboard and showed it to his auntand that was the year his sister was born-and his parents kissed all the timeand the little girl around the corner sent him a postcard with a row of X’s on itand his father tucked him into bed at night and was always there.Then on a white sheet of paper with blue lines, he wrote another poemand he called it “Autumn”because that was the time of year and that’s what it was all aboutand his teacher gave him an “A” and told him to write more clearlyand his mother told him not to hang it on the kitchen cupboard because it left marksand that was the year his sister got glasses and his parents never kissed anymoreand the little girl around the corner laughed when he fell down with his bikeand his father didn’t tuck him in at night.So, on another piece of paper torn from a notebook he wrote another poemand he called it “Absolutely Nothing”Because that’s what it was all aboutand his teach gave him an “A” and a hard searching lookand he didn’t show it to his motherand that was the year he caught his sister necking on the back porchand the little girl around the corner wore too much make-up so that he laughed when he kissed herbut he kissed her anywayand he tucked himself in bed at three AM with his father snoring loudly in the next roomFinally, on the inside of a matchbook he wrote another poemand he called it “?” because that’s what it was all aboutAnd he gave himself an “A” and a slash on each wrist and hung it on the bathroom mirrorBecause he couldn’t make it to the kitchen. "

17 " You can tuck your head under your wing for a while...and wait out this storm. But you will fly again. "

― Connilyn Cossette , Shadow of the Storm (Out From Egypt, #2)

18 " Hey Highbrow. Next time remember to tuck and roll. "

― Naima Simone , Chayot (Secrets and Sins, #4)

19 " Regret isn't real," Tuck said. " It's something invented to punish ourselves. "

20 " What he had remembered was to tuck among his changes of clothes one of Regan's framed photographs of the four of them from a few summers back, at Lake Winnipesaukee. He set it up on the nightstand, as if he might swim down into the past, where nothing could go wrong. "

― Garth Risk Hallberg , City on Fire

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