- “Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.” -- Anais Nin
- “I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.” -- Sylvia Path
- "That’s it, I guess. Just go on living, whether you feel like it or not" -- The Seagull
- "I made no resolutions for the New Year. The habit of making plans, of criticising, sanctioning and moulding my life, is too much of a daily event for me." -- Anais Nin
- "I used to have lots of negative things in my life and was depressed, but because I had those things, I’m trying my hardest now. Because I was unsatisfied with my life, and because there was a time where I felt deep resentment, I am what I am today, so now I think of it as my treasure." -- Shou, Alice Nine
- “Is it possible, finally, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close are we able to come to that person’s essence. We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?” -- Haruki Murakami
- "But in the end, I’d be able to get up and on with it, could always do what little must be done to scratch by." -- Elizabeth Wurtzel
- “I can become someone else, not out of pressure and desperation, but merely because a new life sounds fun or interesting or joyful.” -- Chuck Palahniuk
- "There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts." -- Neil Gaiman
- "Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share." -- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves
- "Here's what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird," said May Kasahara. "Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I'd really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can't seem to do it. They just don't get it. Of course, the problem could be that I'm not explaining it very well, but I think it's because they're not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they're not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things." -- Haruki Murakami
- "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people." -- Steve Jobs
- "There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors." -- Tennessee Williams
- "I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling." -- Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
- “It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul.” -- Sherrilyn Kenyon
- "Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it’s a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.”
- "I don’t think people love me. They love versions of me I have spun for them, versions of me they have construed in their minds. The easy versions of me, the easy parts of me to love. Who’s going to love the girl that can’t stop crying? The girl that hurts herself? The girl that is losing control? The girl that is so sad she can’t get out of bed? The girl that keeps pushing everyone away? Who’s going to love the monster in me, who’s going to love me now?"
- "You make it obvious you don’t care whether people like you or not. That makes some people angry." - Haruki Murakami
- "No doubt about it: a whole day had gone by. But my one-day absence was probably not having an effect on anybody. Not one human being had noticed that I was gone, likely. I could disappear from the face of the earth, and the world would go on moving without the slightest twinge. Things were tremendously complicated, to be sure, but one thing was clear: no one needed me." - Haruki Murakami; The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Leonardo Da Vinci
- "Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering." - Don Miguel Ruiz
- "Even if we could turn back, we’d probably never end up where we started." -- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
- "It was strange how words meant something when they came out of your mouth. Inside your head they were safe and silent, but once they were outside, people grabbed hold of them." - Jenny Downham, You Against Me
- "I told her once I wasn’t good at anything. She told me survival is a talent" - Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
- "Your imperfection is perfectly beautiful." - Tablo
- "Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? …Well, think about it. Maybe you’re playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
- "There are many unusual things in this world. Everyday events occur that cannot be explained. Bizarre phenomena that often go unnoticed because people close their eyes to what they don’t understand. But the truth of the matter is, there are many unusual things in this world. And people. People are the most mysterious of them all." -- Ichihara Yuko
- "If you don't give up, the day will come when you're glad you didn't" -- Saikou no Jinsei no Owarikata~Ending Planner~
- "I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do." — Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
- "I want to bend in a thousand directions, like the sun does, like love does, like time stopped so the hands of the clock could hold each other." — Andrea Gibson
- '"When things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It’s because a little piece gets lost — the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed." - John Green and David Levithan, Will Grayson Will Grayson
- "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." — Friedrich Nietzsche
- "In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses." — WARM BODIES by Isaac Marion
- "I like the dark part of the night, after midnight and before four-thirty, when it’s hollow, when ceilings are harder and farther away. Then I can breathe, and can think while others are sleeping, in a way can stop time, can have it so – this has always been my dream – so that while everyone else is frozen, I can work busily about them, doing whatever it is that needs to be done, like the elves who make the shoes while children sleep." — Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
- "Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything. Nothing’s going to disappear just because you can’t see what’s going on. In fact, things will be even worse the next time you open your eyes. That’s the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won’t make time stand still." — Kafka on the shore - Haruki Murakami
- “"minds devoid of imagination. Intolerance, theories cut off from reality, empty terminology, usurped ideals, inflexible systems. Those are the things that really frighten me. What I absolutely fear and loathe. Of course it’s important to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around. But intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive. They’re a lost cause, and I don’t want anyone like that coming in here." — Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
- "It’s a sad day when you find out that it’s not accident or time or fortune, but just yourself that kept things from you." - Lillian Hellman
- "I don’t owe people anything, and I don’t have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to." - Ned Vizzini, It’s Kind of a Funny Story
- "In dreams you don’t need to make any distinctions between things. Not at all. Boundaries don’t exist. So in dreams there are hardly ever collisions. Even if there are, they don’t hurt. Reality is different. Reality bites. Reality, reality." - Haruki Murakami
- “Not just beautiful, though — the stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me. What I’ve up till now, what I’m going to do — they know it all. Nothing gets past their watchful eyes. As I sit there under the shining night sky, again a violent fear takes hold of me. My heart’s pounding a mile a minute, and I can barely breathe. All these millions of stars looking down on me, and I’ve never given them more than a passing thought before. Not just the stars — how many other things haven’t I noticed in the world, things I know nothing about? I suddenly feel helpless, completely powerless. And I know I’ll never outrun that awful feeling.” — Haruki Murakami
- “At first I felt dizzy - not with the kind of dizziness that makes the body reel but the kind that’s like a dead emptiness in the brain, an instinctive awareness of the void.” — Fernando Pessoa
- "A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world of ours." — Jack Kerouac, On the Road
- “If you can’t solve it, it isn’t a problem - it’s reality. And sometimes reality is the hardest thing to understand and the thing that takes the longest to realize. But once it hits you in the face you’ll never forget it. It will always be there in your memories and sometimes that is the best way to look at it.” — Jeneveve
- “I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.” — Charles Bukowski
- “Do you really love me? means, Will you accept me in process? Will you embrace what is different about me and applaud my efforts to become? Can I just be human, strong and vibrant some days, weak and frail on others? Will you love me even when I disappoint you?” — Angela Thomas
- "I used to believe that anything was better than nothing. Now I know that sometimes nothing is better." - Glenda Jackson
- "Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves" — Mitch Albom
- "For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die." - Anne Lammot
- "Socializing is as exhausting as giving blood. People assume we loners are misanthropes, just sitting thinking, ‘Oh, people are such a bunch of assholes,’ but it’s really not like that. We just have a smaller tolerance for what it takes to be with others. It means having to perform. I get so tired of communicating." — Anneli Rufus
- “I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.” — Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
- “Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
- “Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” — C.S Lewis
- “You can’t tell anything from photographs. They’re just a shadow. The real me is far away. That won’t show up in a picture.” — Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun
- "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." - T.S. Eliot
- "I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul." -- Pablo Neruda
- “You are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing.” — E.E. Cummings
- “When someone cries so hard that it hurts their throat, it is out of frustration or knowing that no matter what you can do or attempt to do can change the situation. When you feel like you need to cry, when you want to just get it out, relieve some of the pressure from the inside - that is true pain. Because no matter how hard you try or how bad you want to, you can’t. That pain just stays in place. Then, if you are lucky, one small tear may escape from those eyes that water constantly. That one tear, that tiny, salty, droplet of moisture is a means of escape. Although it’s just a small tear, it is the heaviest thing in the world. And it doesn’t do a damn thing to fix anything.” — Chase Brooks
- "I told everyone I could of tried harder, even though I know i gave it my all. Why? Because saying you should have tried harder is easier than admitting your best wasn’t good enough." --Unknown
- “Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you.” — John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany
- “Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to make it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I‘ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting.” — Sarah Ockler, Fixing Delilah
- “She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school. In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was… She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.” - Stargirl
- “It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes makes its way to the surface.” - Virginia Woolf
jan 1 2012 ∞
mar 26 2012 +
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