Before I Go To Sleep Quotes

Everything seems different now. The room I am in looks no more familiar to me than it did this morning when I woke up and stumbled into it, trying to find the kitchen, desperate for a drink of water, desperate to piece together what happened last night. And yet it no longer seems shot through with pain, and sadness. It no longer seems emblematic of a life I cannot consider living. The ticking of the clock at my shoulder is no longer just marking time. It speaks to me. Relax, it says. Relax, and take what comes. ~ S.J. Watson

I'm terrified of bugs and I travel with sprays, lotions, potions; the lot. I have to check the room before I go to sleep and if I come across a bug and fail to remove it I have to sleep in a separate room as I'm paranoid that I'll be taken advantage of as I sleep. ~ Freema Agyeman

When they throw the water on the witch, she says, "Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness". That line inspired my life. I sometimes say it to myself before I go to sleep, like a prayer. ~ John Waters

I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I'm sure part of the baggage that I bring having played a lot of villains is also pertinent to the movie [ Before I Go To Sleep], because I'm sure people look at me and think, "Oh, I'm not sure I trust him or not." ~ Mark Strong

From Bought: The Greek's Innocent Virgin ... He drew in a long breath. 'You are very difficult to please.'
'No, I'm not. I'm easy to please. When you peel my orange for breakfast, you please me. When you rub my shoulders before I go to sleep, that pleases me. When you defend me from a nasty comment, that pleases me. I'm easy to please, Angelos.' Her heart was pounding. 'Just don't try and buy me. ~ Sarah Morgan

I just invited close friends and family, the usual suspects whose opinion I value but who I know will enjoy the film [ Before I Go To Sleep]. I don't know how difficult it is for them to suspend their disbelief because they obviously know me and what they're seeing is not me. ~ Mark Strong

Can I get you anything? Water? Tea? Anything?"
I turned to face him, as he stepped inside. "No water, no tea, but there is one thing I'd like before I go to sleep," I purred, taking a few steps his way.
"What's that?"
"Goodnight kiss?"
His eyes darkened. "Oh, hell, is that all? That I can do." He closed the distance between us and slipped his arms easily around my waist. ~ Alice Clayton

I need you. I can't stand the thought of being without you." He releases a shaky breath. "You're the last person I think about before I go to sleep, and the first person I think about when I open my eyes in the morning. You're it for me, baby. ~ Elle Kennedy

I love you Tory. I know I say it a lot, but ... "
"I know baby. I feel the same way about you. Those words never convey what goes through my mind and heart every time I look up and see you sitting in my house. Funny thign is, I always thought my house was full and that there was nothing missing in my life. I had a job I loved. Family who loved me. Good friends to keep me sane. Everything a human could want. And t hen I met an infuriating, impossible man who added the one thing I didn't know wasn't there."
"Dirty socks on the floor?"
She laughed. "No, the other part of my heart. The last face I see before I go to sleep and the first one I see when I get up. I'm so glad it was you."
Those words both thrilled and scared him. Mostly because he knew firsthand that if love went untended it turned into profound hatred.
Tory and Acheron ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

You act one way in front of everyone else, but at night when I'm on the phone with you, I get the real Charlie. It's going to be absolute torture not dialing your number and hearing your voice before I go to sleep each night, but I can't do this anymore. I can't only love that part of you - the real part of you. I want to love you when I talk to you at night and I also want to love you when I see you during the day, but you're beginning to show two different sides of yourself. ~ Colleen Hoover

You are my first thought in the morning, and my last thought before I go to sleep. ~ Penny Reid

I'm guilty of eating Magnum bars before I go to sleep at night. ~ Madonna Ciccone

I am a scholar of life. Every night before I go to sleep, I analyze every detail of what I did that day. I evaluate things and people, which helps me avoid mistakes. ~ Compay Segundo

On her deathbed ... I tell her she is as good a soul as I have ever met or hope to meet, that she is an angel in the flesh, and that I will speak her name to God every night of my life before I go to sleep. ~ Dean Koontz

Maybe I'll never be able to figure out what I'm passionate about. But when I choose something, it has to be something that when I wake up it's the first thing I think about, and it's also the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. I read about other people and how much they love their jobs - like, how they just want to do it all the time and it doesn't feel like work because they love it so much. I want that to happen to me. ~ Maria Malonzo

[Chris Langan] told me not long ago. "I found if I go to bed with a question on my mind, all I have to do is concentrate on the question before I go to sleep and I virtually always have the answer in the morning. Sometimes I realize what the answer is because I dreamt the answer and I can remember it. Other times I just feel the answer, and I start typing and the answer emerges onto the page. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I have to convince myself every night that I love you before I go to sleep lest I wake up empty. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

So it's Alice's fault that I never invested the appropriate time worrying about infertility. I never insured against it by worrying about it. I won't make that mistake again. Now every day I remember to worry that Ben will die in a car accident on his way to work. I make sure I worry at regular intervals about Alice's children - ticking off every terrible childhood disease: meningitis, leukemia. Before I go to sleep at night I worry that someone I love will die in the night. Every morning I worry that somebody I know will be killed in a terrorist attack that day. That means the terrorists have won, Ben tells me. He doesn't understand that I'm fighting off the terrorists by worrying about them. It's my own personal War on Terror. That ~ Liane Moriarty

Music is really everything I know. To be honest every experience I've ever had has been brought up from music and everything I do is because of music. I don't know anything else, I think about music before I go to sleep and it just really is everything that I am. ~ James Vincent McMorrow

I love you," I said firmly. "That might change over time, but for right now, you're the first person I think about when I wake up and the last before I go to sleep. When I'm happy, I want to tell you, and when I'm scared or upset, I know you're the only one who can make things right. We may never work as a couple, but we're linked for the rest of eternity. And I don't know about you, but that's too long for me to wonder 'what if. ~ Kaitlin Bevis

Generally, I have to be able to get the lines out of my mouth without making a mistake before I go to sleep. ~ Brent Spiner

I need some downtime before I go to sleep. ~ Andie MacDowell

Before you go,mate,turn on the telly. Something raunchy too. Think I'll rub off one before I go to sleep ~ Jeaniene Frost

I pray as part of my mindfulness practice and try to recount my day, all my triumphs and foibles, before I go to sleep at night. These practices keep me calm for the most part. ~ Emily Saliers

Then I said, "Matt's got a big mouth."
"They all got big mouths, girl, learn that quick. These boys talk more than a pack of women. I lost fifty bucks on you."
I was stunned speechless again, this time it didn't last as long.
"What?"
"See, Lee nailed Indy the first night they were together. Not nailed her nailed her but she was in his bed. Eddie, with Jet, it took a few days. Hank and Roxie, like, a day. Vance, like three, but Jules was a virgin and he had to interrupt the festivities once to go out and shoot someone."
I was blinking rapidly and feeling kind of faint at the amount and sensitivity of information Shirleen was imparting, not to mention what it might mean to me.
"So we had a pool. Everyone threw down money on when they thought Luke would nail you. Mace won five hundred dollars."
Ho-ly crap.
"So," she went on. "Did he nail you nail you or did you two just sleep?"
For some reason, I answered her unbelievably nosy question. "We just slept."
"New pool!" she shouted. ~ Kristen Ashley

I'd have to be a complete idiot to leave this girl. An absolute moron. I buried my face in her hair, holding on to her for a long time, and then I kissed her cheek before letting go. ~ Julie Cross

There's a thing I really mind hearing, when someone says: "That's not my kind of film, I don't want to go and see that ... " I don't believe that, I don't believe that it's possible to write off a whole genre of filmmaking - "oh I don't like subtitled films", or "I don't like black and white films", or I don't like films made before or after, a certain date" - I don't believe that. ~ Tilda Swinton

You okay?" Keefe asked, flicking a strand of her blonde hair to get her attention. "And before you answer, remember: You're talking to an Empath. Plus, you've already pulled put two eyelashes since we got here, and I can tell you're dying to go for a third."

She was. ~ Shannon Messenger

This needs fixing, and I am the one who is going to fix it. I'm okay with that."
Arianna nodded. "But how? What are you going to do?"
"I have some ideas. But first I need something in my stomach before I fall over. So let's go eat and plot and then save the world."
David sighed, looking thoughtful.
"What's up, Dad?" Lend asked.
"I'm trying to figure out if there's any way I can lock you two in your rooms. I don't think a simple grounding will do it."
Raquel laughed. "Good luck trying to force Evie to do anything else once she has made up her mind. She is the definition of a stubborn, headstrong teenager."
"And you love me for it."
"I do." She hugged me, the spontaneity of the gesture surprising me. Even Lend's expression softened slightly toward her. ~ Kiersten White

I don't see any option except to stick to the plan. Split up, infiltrate, find out why they're here. If things go bad - " "We use the backup plan," Piper said. Jason hated the backup plan. Before they left the ship, Leo had given each of them an emergency flare the size of a birthday candle. Supposedly, if they tossed one in the air, it would shoot upward in a streak of white phosphorus, alerting the Argo II that the team was in trouble. At that point, Jason and the girls would have a few seconds to take cover before the ship's catapults fired on their position, engulfing the palace in Greek fire and bursts of Celestial bronze shrapnel. ~ Rick Riordan

I had a dream , okay, go do a swim off Antarctica, and I'd train in Gauteng and just dive into the sea off Antarctica ... You've really got to do a simulated test as best you can in South Africa before you go off. ~ Lewis Pugh

I wasn't going to argue with you. Why ever would you think that? I never argue."
Lucian smiled at her. She was so small, it amazed him she was such a strong person. "Of course you do not argue. What was I thinking? Go to sleep, honey, and allow my poor body to rest."
"I'm already asleep. You're the one gabbing. ~ Christine Feehan

Dru Anderson: Thanks.
Graves: No problem. First one's free. Look, you really can't go home? What happened.
Dru Anderson: You wouldn't believe me if I told you.
Graves: Try me.
Dru Anderson: I just can't go home, not until tomorrow.
Graves:Do you need a place to sleep?
Dru Anderson: I'll find somewhere.
Graves: I know a place.
Dru Anderson: Why is it there's always a guy who thinks he can get something out of the new girl? Every goddamn town, it's the same thing. Some guy thinks he's God's gift to the displaced.
Graves: I just asked if you wanted a place to sleep, Jesus.
Dru Anderson: Sorry.
Graves: No problem. So, I'll take you someplace you can sleep tonight. Someplace safe. Okay?
Dru Anderson: How much?
Graves: I keep telling you, first one's free. You want to play some air hockey? Good way to get your mind off stuff.
Dru Anderson: Sure.
Graves: Cool. You finished?
Dru Anderson: Yeah, I guess. Graves?
Graves: Huh?
Dru Anderson: Thanks. Nice gloves.
Graves: Hey, you know. Chicks dig guys in gloves. ~ Lilith Saintcrow

I think Hannah had two brothers. Yes, I'm sure she did. Theo and, and--this boy."
I shook my head. "If he's Hannah's brother, why isn't he in any of the other pictures?"
Aunt Blythe didn't answer right away. In the silence, rain pattered against the windows and dripped through holes in the roof. The wind crept in through cracks and stirred the folds of a long white dress hanging from the rafters.
Finally, my aunt raised her eyes from the photograph. "I think his name was Andrew. Isn't that strange? You share a face and a name with a boy who died years before you were born."
My throat tightened. "He died? Andrew died?"
Aunt Blythe looked at me. "Oh, dear," she said, "I didn't mean to frighten you."
"I'm not scared!" My voice came out as high and squeaky as a girl's. Furious at myself for being such a baby, I leapt to my feet and headed for the stairs.
"Slow down, Drew," my aunt called. "You'll go through the floor!"
Before the words were out of her mouth, a board split under my weight, and I fell flat on my face.
In seconds my aunt was beside me. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Did you hurt yourself?"
"I'm fine." Too embarrassed to meet her eyes, I peered into the hole I'd made. ~ Mary Downing Hahn

The last great escape. I was done gambling, done betting on a ship that would never come in. I would cash in my chips while I was ahead. I didn't want to suffer the growing old, didn't want to wait until my memory went. It was all so tiresome. I would just go out in a blaze of glory before the parasites of sadness got at me and made me bitter. After that's the American way: take your own life before everything else takes it from you. ~ Brian James

As Stepanov turned to go, Alexander said, "Sir ... " He was so weak he almost couldn't get the words out. He didn't care how cold the wall was, he could not stand on his own anymore. He pressed his body against the icy concrete and then sank down to the floor. "Did you see her?" He lifted his gaze to Stepanov, who nodded. "How was she?" "Don't ask, Alexander." "Was she - " "Don't ask." "Tell me." "Do you remember when you brought my son back to me?" Stepanov asked, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "Because of you I had comfort. I was able to see him before he died, I was able to bury him." "All right, no more," said Alexander. "Who was going to give that comfort to your wife?" Alexander put his face into his hands. Stepanov left. Alexander sat motionlessly on the floor. He didn't need morphine, he didn't need drugs, he didn't need phenobarbital. He needed a bullet in his fucking chest. ~ Paullina Simons

Amanda! Where are you?" Michael called. Laughing, she stood on tiptoe. "Over here," she called back and then ran down the row to hide. "All right," he said, laughing. "Where did you go?" She whistled at him from her hiding place. She and Ruthie had played hide-and-seek in the rows the day before, and she was in a joyous mood today, ready to tease Michael. "What do I get if I find you?" "What have you got in mind?" "Oh, a little of this and that. ~ Francine Rivers

Doug, you have to prepare yourself. You have to prepare Sarah. It won't be long before they have some answers. You have to get ready, Doug.'Jesus, Pete,' yelled Doug. 'Don't you think I've fucking been ready every day for the last four months? Every hour of every day for the last four months? I can't breathe in without being ready. I know all those statistics. They quoted them at me when they wanted me to go home. If a kid isn't found within the first twenty-four hours there's a chance he will never be found alive. I know that, Pete. Don't you think I fucking know that? Every time that fucking phone rings I can see Sarah's heart hit her feet. We're ready, Pete. We've been ready since the day we lost him. We're ready but we will never be ready. There is no way to be ready for this. No way . . .'Doug had sunk into silence and all Pete had heard was his ragged desperate breathing on the other end of the phone. Finally he said, 'I can't tell her, Pete. I can't tell her until they know for sure. She's hanging on by a thread, Pete, and I can't lose her as well. Tell me when they know for sure and then I'll tell her.' His voice trailed off, all the anger leaving him exhausted and trembling. ~ Nicole Trope

When it's time for you to write how you want your life to go just write right before your pen run out of ink because i know the opportunity is jusT once and if u miss it, then you hustle very hard to get it ~ Efiba Progress

(Frances has gotten out of bed again and come to her parents' room ... )
'How can the wind have a job?' asked Frances.
'Everybody has a job,' said Father.
'I have to go to my office every morning at nine o'clock. That is my job. You have to go to sleep so you can be wide awake for school tomorrow. That is your job.'
Frances said, 'I know, but ... '
Father said, 'I have not finished. If the wind does not blow the curtains, he will be out of a job. If I do not go to the office, I will be out of a job. And if you do not go to sleep now, do you know what will happen to you?'
'I will be out of a job?' said Frances.
'No,' said Father.
'I will get a spanking?' said Frances.
'Right!' said Father.
'Good night!' said Frances, and she went back to her room. ~ Russell Hoban

Here is how I spend my days now. I live in a beautiful place. I sleep in a beautiful bed. I eat beautiful food. I go for walks through beautiful places. I care for people deeply. At night my bed is full of love, because I alone am in it. I cry easily, from pain and pleasure, and I don't apologize for that. In the mornings I step outside and I'm thankful for another day. It took me many years to arrive at such a life. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh

Will you at least have some coffee with me before you leave?" Furi pouted, immediately feeling silly for it.

"Dude. You're way too tatted up to ever make that face." Doug laughed. He bent over and pressed a kiss to Furi's forehead. "I will not have a cup of your nasty coffee. I will however, take you to breakfast and drink some real coffee with you."

Furi felt better already. He stood, wrapped his arms around Doug, and whispered, "Thank you for last night. I needed it."

"I know. Now go get dressed." Doug popped him on the shoulder. ~ A.E. Via

We could go back to the way things were before, him accusing me of stuff and me pretending like I don't have a clue what he's talking about.
Right.
I'm not that good a liar, even when I'm lying to myself. ~ Cynthia Hand

The look he gave me ... My stomach quivered in that exact same way when I watched Before Sunset, yearning for a guy to know me so deeply and truly, we were only really complete when we were together. That I could talk, go on wild tangents, make obtuse references, and he would divine my meaning before I knew what I was trying to say myself. Erik had fallen asleep next to me on the couch, complaining later that the movie was "just people talking." He had no idea that this movie could have been a love letter written for me. ~ Justina Chen

Runaway"

There are sparkles of rain on the bright
Hair over your forehead;
Your eyes are wet and your lips
Wet and cold, your cheek rigid with cold.
Why have you stayed
Away so long, why have you only
Come to me late at night
After walking for hours in wind and rain?
Take off your dress and stockings;
Sit in the deep chair before the fire.
I will warm your feet in my hands;
I will warm your breasts and thighs with kisses.
I wish I could build a fire
In you that would never go out.
I wish I could be sure that deep in you
Was a magnet to draw you always home. ~ Kenneth Rexroth

Faith Poem

I don't know how to do anytthing
I am trying to move mountains with words
But I am an ant
I scribble
I drool
I move like a worm
whose world
(words)
encompassed a mile
How do I rise above?
Where will this worm
find wings?
I look in the mirror
and I see filth
Who is that?
Where did The Angel go?
Why is there dirt
staring back at me?
Why is the soil of
incompetence beneath my nails
Why does doubt paint
blue rings
beneath my eyes and
stain my skin
Why does my spine assume failure
Why do my lips
flirt with they sky;
why do I try to lasso
Beauty with such a
pitiful rope?
Where is the hair of Rapunzel
or Samson?
Where is my sling
Where is my stone,
My gun?
Where is the weapon with which
I may fight this apathy
that feels like sleep
in my limbs
that loosens my brother's smile
That kills my neighbor's daughter
This pen is scrawny and hardly
seems able to ink out
or erase this plague that
infests my
Generation
This Giant, This Ogre
This Beast, This Death
that assumes a million faces,
that borrows my own. ~ Jewel

He had taken wounds before, but never like this. He had never known there could be such pain. Sometimes, unbidden, old prayers bubbled from his lips, prayers he had learned as a child and never thought of since, prayers he had first prayed with Cersei kneeling beside him in the sept at Casterly Rock. Sometimes he even wept, until he heard the Mummers laughing. Then he made his eyes go dry and his heart go dead, and prayed for his fever to burn away his tears. Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him. ~ George R.R. Martin

There was no Mamaw to comfort me. But there were my two dogs on the floor, and there was the love of my life lying in bed. Tomorrow I would go to work, take the dogs to the park, buy groceries with Usha, and make a nice dinner. It was everything I ever wanted. So I patted Casper's head and went back to sleep ~ J.D. Vance

That was amazing," she told him.
He kissed the top of her thigh. "For me, too."
She heard him sit up and prepared to pass over the condom. But before she could, she felt his finger enter her again. Just the finger.
It shouldn't have been that exciting, but there was something about the way he touched her. She'd just had more than her fill of orgasms, but she couldn't help clamping around him, drawing him in deeper.
"Good?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah. Don't stop."
Without thinking, she reached down and grabbed his wrist. Holding his hand still, she thrust her hips forward and back, finding the right pace until the heavy tension returned, and she felt the telltale contractions begin again.
He swore softly. "Can you do that while I'm inside of you?"
"Absolutely."
She pulled his hand free and pressed the condom into his palm. "Can you put this on in the dark?"
He chuckled. "With you as motivation, I could probably put it on after I was dead."
Then he was pressing against her.
She reached between them and guided him inside of her. As he entered her, she contracted around him. He filled her slowly, stretching her, delighting her. Each thrust was enough to send her flying.
Zane shifted so he could hold on to her hips. "I can feel you coming," he murmured. "You're killing me. I can't hold on much longer."
"Go for it," she told him.
He took her at her word. Moving faster and faster, he pulled out of her, then slippe ~ Susan Mallery

Seven o'clock and you watched it and then you turned it off. The Fifties. It's like that in movies and television programs, but its plot there. The characters get some information from the newscaster and then they turn it off so they can speak. But we were the characters then. We still are, I guess, so it's only a matter of time before we start seeing television shows where the people turn on the news to get some information and then, instead of turning it off so they can speak, they leave it on, and we get swept into some endless video vortex, some film loop, which has us by the eyes and won't let us go. ~ Alberto Alvaro Rios

I have used movies to go to sleep at night. You flip from channel to channel to channel and see just enough to make your brain mushy and go to sleep. ~ Kip Thorne

Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that's just me) as if you've never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you'll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time. ~ Neil Gaiman

Thus even as servers die or are put to sleep, even as operating systems come and go, I can carry the work forward-despite all of the progress around me. [ ... ] But really, no complaints-it's fun to wander around in the middle of so much waste and progress, and I'd rather be here than anywhere. You just have to keep working out how to travel light and stay portable. ~ Paul Ford

Before Google, I spent the summer building a program that would look at what websites you would go to and what websites other people would go to - and built a collaborative filtering program that helped you find related sites to look at. ~ Marissa Mayer

Thanks. Hey, before I go, how's the romance coming with that vampire, what's his name?" "Vlad? I staked him. He was going to cheat on me and break my heart." Sasha shrugged. "I broke his first." Never screw around with a psychic. Especially not murderous ones. ~ Eve Langlais

She was smart like that, and lucky like that, and people loved the hell out of her. They didn't love the hell out of me; they ran the hell away from me. It wasn't like I was a bad person or anything, I just … had a lot of accidents. I didn't mean accidents like I ate glue and then peed myself on a regular basis. I just tripped more than usual, and accidently set things on fire more than what would be considered 'normal'. I got kicked out of the village school only one moon-cycle before graduation for accidently making one of the teachers bald. How do you accidently make someone bald? That's a good question. All you really need is a bucket of warm tar to accidently toss onto the back of their head. How do you get a bucket of warm tar? You don't go looking for it or anything - or at least I didn't. It was just sitting on the road outside the school and I thought I should carry it inside to ask what it was. ~ Jaymin Eve

My breast cancer was caught very early thanks to my doctor a wonderful woman named Elsie Giogi, who just recently passed away after practicing medicine into her 80's. At the time, she had suggested I go for a baseline mammogram before age 40 because I had fibrocystic breasts. The mammogram discovered a tiny tumor, and it was so small that they were able to take it out very easily. I had a lumpectomy. Unfortunately, they did miss a little of the cancer, and two years later I had a mastectomy. But hey, I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm going to live to be 100! ~ Kate Jackson

we all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever," she said. "Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement."
"You and George didn't go back on your promises."
She laughed. "Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and - well, the rest is none of your business."
"But people change," he said quietly.
"Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I'm figuring something out now." She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy reali ~ Mary Doria Russell

When she was dying, it was impossible to see forward to the next minute. What was happening - for whole weeks - was all that was happening and happening and happening. Months before that, I got the dumb soup wrong. How awful. It was all she wanted and I had gotten it wrong. Then, in the airless days when it was really happening, we started to power panic that we didn't know enough. What should we do with your ashes? Water or dirt. Water or dirt. Once, she asked to just be thrown into the river where we used to go, still alive, but not living anymore. After it was done, I couldn't go back to my life. You understand, right? It wasn't the same. I couldn't tell if I loved myself more or less. It wasn't until later, when I moved in with him and stood outside on our patchy imperfect lawn, that I remembered what had been circling in me: I am beautiful. I am full of love. I am dying. ~ Ada Limon

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies All manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Moses

Come.
When?
Now. This way. I will guide you.
Wait! Not so fast.
Hurry. You. I said you.
Who am I?
Certainly I will be with thee.
Is nothing, then, what it is? I had rather the rod had
stayed a rod and not become a serpent.
Come. Quickly. While the blast of my breath opens the sea.
Stop. I'm thirsty.
Drink water from this rock.
But the rock moves on before us.
Go with it and drink.
I'm tired. Can't you stop for a while?
You have already tarried too long.
But if I am to follow you I must know your name.
I will be that I will be.
You have set the mountain on fire.
Come. Climb.
I will be lost in the terror of your cloud.
You are stiff-necked and of a stiff-necked people.
YOUR poeple, Lord,
Indubitably.
Your wrath waxes hot. I burn.
Thus to become great.
Show me, then, they glory.
No man may see my face and live. But I will cover you with my hand while I pass by.
My people turn away and cry because the skin of my
face shines
Did you not expect this?
I cannot enter the tent of the congregation while your
cloud covers it and your glory fills the tabernacle.
Look. It moves before us again. Can you not stay still?
Come. Follow.
But this river is death. The waters are dark and deep.
Swim.
Now will I see your face? Where are you taking me
now?
Up the mo ~ Madeleine L'Engle

My earliest thought, long before I was in high school, was just to go away, get out of my house, get out of my city. I went to Medford High School, but even in grade school and junior high, I fantasized about leaving. ~ Paul Theroux

I don't do well without you," he said. "Who I was before
I never want to be that person again. But I told you when I took you away from here that when everything was over, it would be your choice. You would get to choose where you wanted to go and who you wanted to be. ~ Alexandra Bracken

My mind is a chest of drawers. When I wish to deal with a subject, I shut all the drawers but the one in which the subject is to be found. When I am wearied, I shut all the drawers and go to sleep. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte