Better Days To Come Quotes

If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and ~ Robert Baden-Powell

O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love....Thou didst say to me that our teaching was an enemy of life; and I answer thee now, that, if from the beginning of this letter I had been repeating only the three words, 'I am happy!' I could not have expressed my happiness to thee. To this thou wilt answer, that my happiness is Lygia. True, my friend. Because I love her immortal soul, and because we both love each other in Christ; for such love there is no separation, no deceit, no change, no old age, no death. For, when youth and beauty pass, when our bodies wither and death comes, love will remain, for the spirit remains. Before my eyes were open to the light I was ready to burn my own house even, for Lygia's sake; but now I tell thee that I did not love her, for it was Christ who first taught me to love. In Him is the source of peace and happiness. It is not I who say this, but reality itself. Compare thy own luxury, my friend, lined with alarm, thy delights, not sure of a morrow, thy orgies, with the lives of Christians, and thou wilt find a ready answer. But, to compare better, come to our mountains with the odor of ~ Henryk Sienkiewicz

I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that even my love for those closest to me had become only an attempt to love, that my casual relations -- with an editor, a tobacco seller, the child of a friend, were only what I remembered I should do, from other days. All in the same month I became bitter about such things as the sound of the radio, the advertisements in the magazines, the screech of tracks, the dead silence of the country -- contemptuous at human softness, immediately (if secretively) quarrelsome toward hardness -- hating the night when I couldn't sleep and hating the day because it went toward night. I slept on the heart side now because I knew that the sooner I could tire that out, even a little, the sooner would come that blessed hour of nightmare which, like a catharsis, would enable me to better meet the new day. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

He shook his head again. "I'm afraid I don't feel much of anything these days. Especially not hope. I have no time or energy to waste on false wishes and dreams that won't come true."

"Hope isn't about ignorant wishing." She surprised even herself with her
defensive backlash. "Hope is about believing - believing there are better
things in store for us if we just wait for them. It's about understanding we're not left completely on our own here, regardless of the way things appear."

Lamont snorted. "That ain't much for a body to go on."

"Perhaps not, but I reckon it's enough. Sometimes it's gotta be, anyhow.
Without hope, what would drive one onward?"

He was silent for a long moment before he looked up and met her eyes.
His own eyes displayed no emotion when he answered in a weary, grim
tone, "Fear." He took a drink and fell silent again as she quietly scrutinized him, attempting to discern in his haggard face the thoughts behind what he had said. ~ Josh Strnad

Last night I thought I kissed

the loneliness from out your belly button.
I thought I did, but later you sat up,
all bones and restless hands, and told me
there is a knot in your body that I cannot undo.

I never know what to say to these things.
"It's okay." "Come back to bed."
"Please don't go away again."

Sometimes you are gone for days at a time
and it is all I can do not to call the police,
file a missing person's report, even though
you are right there, still sleeping next to me
in bed. But your eyes are like an empty house
in winter: lights left on to scare away intruders.

Except in this case I am the intruder and you
are already locked up so tight that no one
could possibly jimmy their way in.

Last night I thought I gave you a reason
not to be so sad when I held your body like
a high note and we both trembled from the effort.

Some people, though, are sad against all reason,
all sensibility, all love. I know better now.
I know what to say to the things you admit to me
in the dark, all bones and restless hands.

"It's okay." "You can stay in bed."
"Please come back to me again. ~ Donna-Marie Riley

Here are the world's first brothers, Abel and Cain, sons of Adam and Eve. They lived when the world was young, when everything was much different than it is today. It was before the days of income tax and smog and clogged highways and the terrible problems we struggle with. Yet, despite the fact that they enjoyed what we call "the simple life," they longed for something better, they hungered after God. For no matter how good life is, it is never good enough if you do not have God. Man is never satisfied without Him, and these boys hungered for God. Both had been told the way by which they could come to Him; this is implied in the account. But Cain chose to believe a lie, the lie that is still very evident today, that "one way is as good as another." He took the way that was easiest for him to work out and as a result he was rejected; for, of course, it is always a lie that one way is as good as another. That never works in anything- nature, life, or with God. ~ Ray C. Stedman

As soon as the period of mourning for Dona Ester was over and the big house on the corner was finished, Esteban Trueba and Clara del Valle were married in a modest ceremony. Esteban gave his wife a set of diamond jewelry, which she thought beautiful. She packed it away in a shoe box and quickly forgot where she had put it. They spent their honeymoon in Italy and two days after they were on the boat. Esteban was as madly in love as an adolescent, despite the fact that the movement of the ship made Clara uncontrollably ill and the tight quarters gave her asthma. Seated by her side in the narrow cabin, pressing cold compress to her forehead and holding her while she vomited, he felt profoundly happy and desired her with unjust intensity considering the wretched state to which she was reduced. On the fourth day at sea, she woke up feeling better and they went out on deck to look at the sea. Seeing her with her wind-reddened nose, and laughing at the slightest provocation, Esteban swore that sooner or later she would come to love him as he needed to be loved, even if it meant he had to resort to extreme measures. He realized that Clara did not belong to him and that if she continued living in her world of apparitions, three-legged chairs that moved of their own volition, and cards that spelled out the future, she probably never would. Clara's impudent and nonchalant sensuality was also not enough for him. He wanted far more than her body; he wanted control over that undefined and ~ Isabel Allende

You can choose daily to brace up and face the harsh realities of life . . .
Or while away the days that come by daydreaming . . .
Better still, you can make your dreams your realities. ~ Ufuoma Apoki

As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead--she did not know why--they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. ~ George Orwell

Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead ... ~ Og Mandino

You know... or maybe you don't know... I don't know how to write this-but never mind: Now you know that there will never be a day for me, or a morning, or a springtime, without you. Because for me R is nothing more than... but you don't care about this. At any rate, I'm very grateful to him. I don't know what I would have done, alone, without him, these last few days. During these days and nights I've lived through ten or maybe twenty years. My room has seemed round and not square, and endless, round and round and all the same, with no doors anywhere.

I can't live without you-because I love you. because I see. I understand, that you don't need anybody, anybody on earth, except her, that other one, and... look, that's just it, if I love you, then I have to...

I just need two or three more days to try and put the pieces of myself back into some semblance of the former O-90-and then I'll go and fill our the form myself, that I'm withdrawing my registration for you, and you'll be better off, you'll be fine. I'll never come again. Goodbye.

O. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Is it better to strive for success as a self-representing artist or try to get your feet wet in the gallery world? That is such a common question these days among artists. I truly believe that most artists will come to a cross road where they will have to decide on which route to take as it's extremely hard to be successful in both worlds. ~ Matt LeBlanc

Nice shack," I tell him.
"Trade you."
"Any day."
"Really? You like it?" He seems genuinely pleased.
"What's not to like?"
He stands back and studies it as if for the first time. He nods. "Huh. Good to know."
We climb the three steps on the porch, but I grab his arm as he reaches for the door handle. The contact sends heat through my body, roasting me to the core. "Wait."
He pauses mid-motion and stares at my hand. "What? Is something wrong? You're not changing your mind are you?"
"No. I just...have to tell you something."
"What?"
I forced a nervous laugh. "Well, the good news is, you don't have to worry about me rejecting you anymore."
He shakes his head. "That is good news. But you say it like it's not."
I take a deep breath. Where is a good lightning bolt when you need one? Because even if I take a hundred deep breaths, this will still be humiliating...
"Emma?"
"I told my mom we were dating," I blurt. There. Doesn't that feel better? Nope. Nope, it doesn't.
While his smile surprises me, it mostly mesmerizes me beyond rational thought. "Are you kidding?" he says.
I shake my head. "It's the only thing she would believe. So now...now you have to pretend that we're dating if you come to my house. But don't worry, you don't ever have to go over there again. And in a few days, I'll pretend that we broke up."
He laughs. "No, you won't. I told her the same thing."
"Shut. Up."
"Why? What'd ~ Anna Banks

If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major's speech. Instead–she did not know why–they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over–very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before. ~ George Orwell

I let her stay a few feet ahead of me and try to memorize her exactly as she is: running, laughing, tan and happy and beautiful and mine; blond hair flashing in the last rays of sun like a torch, like a beacon of good things to come, and better days ahead for us both. ~ Lauren Oliver

When I was young, Monsieur," he said, "I used to think a lot about God. But He seems to have grown thinner with the years. He is still in that cornfield you painted, and in the sunset by Montmajour, but when I think about men ... and the world they have made ... " "I know, Roulin, but I feel more and more that we must not judge God by this world. It's just a study that didn't come off. What can you do in a study that has gone wrong, if you are fond of the artist? You do not find much to criticize; you hold your tongue. But you have a right to ask for something better." "Yes, that's it," exclaimed Roulin, "something just a tiny bit better." "We should have to see some other work by the same hand before we judge him. This world was evidently botched up in a hurry on one of his bad days, when the artist did not have his wits about him. ~ Irving Stone

There's still a place for someone to come up with a strong headline, some copy in a commercial that's well written. I'm not saying it was better in the old days; it's just a totally different way of communicating. ~ Jerry Della Femina

You might start by thanking me."
For what? For finding something else that was so important to do that it took you all the way from midnight on Samhain ‗til four days later to come for me? I'm not going to thank you for saving me from something you failed to save me from to begin with."

You look fine to me.
In fact, you're better than fine, aren't you? You walked right through my wards, without a word. Didn't even leave a note by the bedside. Really,after all we shared, Ms. Lane. But do I get any thanks for doing the
impossible and bringing you back from being Pri-ya? No. What do I get? You steal my guns. ~ Karen Marie Moning

In the old days, farmers would keep a little of their home-made opium for their families, to be used during illnesses, or at harvests and weddings; the rest they would sell to the local nobility, or to pykari merchants from Patna. Back then, a few clumps of poppy were enough to provide for a household's needs, leaving a little over, to be sold: no one was inclined to plant more because of all the work it took to grow poppies - fifteen ploughings of the land and every remaining clod to be built; purchases of manure and constant watering; and after all that, the frenzy of the harvest, each bulb having to be individually nicked, drained and scrapped. Such punishment was bearable when you had a patch or two of poppies - but what sane person would want to multiply these labours when there were better, more useful crops to grow, like wheat, dal, vegetables? But those toothsome winter crops were steadily shrinking in acreage: now the factory's appetite for opium seemed never to be seated. Come the cold weather, the English sahibs would allow little else to be planted; their agents would go from home to home, forcing cash advances on the farmers, making them sign /asámi/ contracts. It was impossible to say no to them: if you refused they would leave their silver hidden in your house, or throw it through a window. It was no use telling the white magistrate that you hadn't accepted the money and your thumbprint was forged: he earned commissions on the oppium adn would never let you off ~ Amitav Ghosh

Over the course of two years, from June 2004 to June 2006, two separate deaths did nothing to ease my overall anxiety. Steve's beloved Staffordshire bull terrier Sui died of cancer in June 2004. He had set up his swag and slept beside her all night, talking to her, recalling old times in the bush catching crocodiles, and comforting her.
Losing Sui brought up memories of losing Chilli a decade and a half earlier. "I am not getting another dog," Steve said. "It is just too painful."
Wes, the most loyal friend anyone could have, was there for Steve while Sui passed from this life to the next. Wes shared in Steve's grief. They had known Sui longer than Steve and I had been together.
Two years after Sui's death, in June 2006, we lost Harriet. At 175, Harriet was the oldest living creature on earth. She had met Charles Darwin and sailed on the Beagle. She was our link to the past at the zoo, and beyond that, our link to the great scientist himself. She was a living museum and an icon of our zoo.
The kids and I were headed to Fraser Island, along the southern coast of Queensland, with Joy, Steve's sister, and her husband, Frank, our zoo manager, when I heard the news. An ultrasound had confirmed that Harriet had suffered a massive heart attack.
Steve called me. "I think you'd better come home."
"I should talk to the kids about this," I said.
Bindi was horrified. "How long is Harriet going to live?" she asked.
"Maybe hours, maybe days, but not ~ Terri Irwin

The world awakens on the run And will soon be earning With hopes of better days to come It's a morning yearning. ~ Ben Harper

Accept That You Often Won't Know Why Other People Have Acted in a Particular Way

Humans like to have explanations for why things happen. When we don't have one, we tend to invent something. Sometimes the explanations involve personalizing. Personalizing is when you take something more personally than it was meant in reality. If a work colleague is rude and abrupt, you might think it's because she's annoyed at you, and not consider that it might be because she's feeling flustered by something unrelated. Anxiety-prone people who don't like uncertainty can be especially likely to ruminate about why something has happened and come up with explanations involving excessive personalizing. To overcome this, you need to learn to tolerate that you're not always going to know why people behave the way they do.
Recognize that if someone acts strangely, there's a very high likelihood that the behavior has something to do with what's happening for that person, rather than being about you, and you're probably never going to know what the reason was. You can save yourself hours or days of rumination and upset if you can tolerate the idea of not knowing. While there might be some cases in which you try to find out what the issue was, in many cases your only real choice is to let it go. Try to arrive at this insight before you've done hours of ruminating!
Experiment: Was there a time recently when in retrospect it would've been better to accept not knowing the reason for s ~ Alice Boyes

They were one unto the other, a circle whirling evenly, effortlessly, endlessly. He knew beauty and the intensity of a dream and he was meshed in a womb he called happiness. He did not think: This must come to an end in time. A circle had no beginning or end; it existed. He did not allow thought to enter the hours that he waited for her, laved in memory of her presence. He seldom left the apartment in those days. In the outside world there was time; in time, there was impatience. Better to remain within the dream. ~ Dorothy B. Hughes

Spending extended amounts of time inside other religious worldviews has loosened the screws on my own, which is beginning to seem like a good thing. Disowning God has been a great help to me. Owning my distinct view of God has helped me understand it much better. Although I can see the places where religious truth claims collide, this does not bother me as much as it could. I am far more interested in how people live than what they believe. When other Christians threaten or disappoint me, I work as hard to see God in them as in people of other (or no) faiths. It helps to remember that these are often the same Christians whom I threaten and disappoint in equal measure. The only clear line I draw these days is this: when my religion tries to come between me and my neighbor, I will choose my neighbor. That self-canceling feature of my religion is one of the things I like best about it. Jesus never commanded me to love my religion. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

16Then the Lord said to Moses, "Gather for Me seventy of Israel's elders of whom you have experience as elders and officers of the people, and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them take their place there with you. 17I will come down and speak with you there, and I will draw upon the spirit that is on you and put it upon them; they shall share the burden of the people with you, and you shall not bear it alone. 18And say to the people: *Purify yourselves-a for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have kept whining before the Lord and saying, 'If only we had meat to eat! Indeed, we were better off in Egypt!' The Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. 19You shall eat not one day, not two, not even five days or ten or twenty, 20but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. For you have rejected the Lord who is among you, by whining before Him and saying, 'Oh, why did we ever leave Egypt! ~ Adele Berlin

So, explain this," Avery said, "You just, what, hang around the Academy all day? Are you trying to redo your high school experience?"
"Nothing to redo," said Adrian loftily. "I totally ruled my high school. I was worshiped and adored - not that that should come as a shock." Beside him, Christian nearly choked on his food.
"So. . .You're trying to relive your glory days. It's all gone downhill since then, huh?"
"No way," said Adrian. "I'm like a fine wine. I get better with age. The best is yet to come."
"Seems like it'd get old after a while," said Avery, "I'm certainly bored, and I even spend part of the day helping my dad."
"Adrian sleeps most of the day," noted Lissa, "So he doesn't actually have to worry about finding things to do."
"Hey, I spend a good portion of my time helping you unravel the mysteries of spirit," Adrian reminded her. "And," he added, "I can visit people in their dreams."
Christian held up a hand. "Stop. I can feel there's a comment coming on about how women already dream about you. I just ate, you know."
"I wasn't going to go there," said Adrian. But he kind of looked like he wished he'd thought of the joke first. ~ Richelle Mead

There's nothing I want to relive - certainly not youth - and as for what's to come, I'm in no hurry. I watch my dogs. They throw themselves into everything they do; even their sleeping is wholehearted. They aren't waiting for a better tomorrow, or looking back at their glory days. Following their example, I'm trying to stick to the present. I'm not stranded here, I know where I've been; I can conjure up details of old haunts, even former states of mind. ~ Abigail Thomas

For a long time, I stood in the circle of his arm and counted the stars. I ran out of numbers before brightness, and that felt like a promise of better days to come. ~ Ann Aguirre

When you come home, darling, I shant have your letters, but I shall have yourself, which is more
oh more, and better, than I can even think! I sit here with my little whip, cracking the time away, 'till not an hour is left of it- then you are here! And joy is here
joy now and forevermore! Tis only a few days, Susie, it will soon go away, yet I say, "go now, this very moment, for I need her- I must have her, oh, give her to me!" Sometimes when I do feel so, I think it may be wrong, and that God will punish me by taking you away; for He is very kind to let me write to you, and to give me your sweet letters, but my heart wants more. ~ Emily Dickinson

Filth, filth, filth, from morning to night. I know they're poor but they could wash. Water is free and soap is cheap. Just look at that arm, nurse.'
The nurse looked and clucked in horror. Francie stood there with the hot flamepoints of shame burning her face. The doctor was a Harvard man, interning at the neighborhood hospital. Once a week, he was obliged to put in a few hours at one of the free clinics. He was going into a smart practice in Boston when his internship was over. Adopting the phraseology of the neighborhood, he referred to his Brooklyn internship as going through Purgatory, when he wrote to his socially prominent fiancee in Boston.
The nurse was as Williamsburg girl... The child of poor Polish immigrants, she had been ambitious, worked days in a sweatshop and gone to school at night. Somehow she had gotten her training... She didn't want anyone to know she had come from the slums.
After the doctor's outburst, Francie stood hanging her head. She was a dirty girl. That's what the doctor meant. He was talking more quietly now asking the nurse how that kind of people could survive; that it would be a better world if they were all sterilized and couldn't breed anymore. Did that mean he wanted her to die? Would he do something to make her die because her hands and arms were dirty from the mud pies?
She looked at the nurse... She thought the nurse might say something like:
Maybe this little girl's mother works and didn't have time to wash he ~ Betty Smith

Perhaps they had tried to migrate in the past but had found either their winter habitat destroyed or the path so fragmented and fraught with danger that it made more sense - to these few birds - to ignore the tuggings of the stars and seasons and instead to try to carve out new lives, new ways of being, even in such a stark and severe landscape: or rather, in a stark and severe period - knowing that lushness and bounty were still retained with that landscape, that it was only a phase, that better days would come. That in fact (the snipe knowing these things with their blood, ten million years in the world) the austere times were the very thing, the very imbalance, that would summon the resurrection of that frozen richness within the soil - if indeed that richness, that magic, that hope, did still exist beneath the ice and snow. Spring would come like its own green fire, if only the injured ones could hold on. And ~ Lex Williford

You're in a combat zone one day. You come home, and then you have to readjust, and it takes a few days. We just sit in the house, hang with the family and then things get better. ~ Chris Kyle

these models are constructed not just from data but from the choices we make about which data to pay attention to - and which to leave out. Those choices are not just about logistics, profits, and efficiency. They are fundamentally moral. If we back away from them and treat mathematical models as a neutral and inevitable force, like the weather or the tides, we abdicate our responsibility. And the result, as we've seen, is WMDs that treat us like machine parts in the workplace, that blackball employees and feast on inequities. We must come together to police these WMDs, to tame and disarm them. My hope is that they'll be remembered, like the deadly coal mines of a century ago, as relics of the early days of this new revolution, before we learned how to bring fairness and accountability to the age of data. Math deserves much better than WMDs, and democracy does too. ~ Cathy O'Neil

Though our castes and institutions are apparently linked with our religion, they are not so. These institutions have been necessary to protect us as a nation, and when this necessity for self-preservation will no more exist, they will die a natural death. But the older I grow, the better I seem to think of these time-honored institutions of India. There was a time when I used to think that many of them were useless and worthless; but the older I grew, the more I seem to feel a diffidence in cursing any one of them, for each one of them is the embodiment of the experience of centuries. A child of but yesterday, destined to die the day after tomorrow, comes to me and asks me to change all my plans; and if I hear the advice of that baby and change all my surroundings according to his ideas, I myself should be a fool, and no one else. Much of the advice that is coming to us from different countries is similar to this. Tell these wiseacres: "I will hear you when you have made a society yourselves. You cannot hold on to one idea for two days, you quarrel and fail; you are born like moths in the spring and die like them in five minutes. You come up like bubbles and burst like bubbles too. First form a stable society like ours. First make laws and institutions that remain undiminished in their power through scores of centuries. Then will be the time to talk on the subject with you, but till then, my friend, you are only a giddy child. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Barth observes that the seventh day does not come at the end of a week of toil and labor for human beings as though its primary purpose is to offer a measure of respite after days of toil. Rather, since "God's seventh day was man's first,"54 the seventh day sets life's priority for human beings in the most tangible way. Better yet - and much closer to the point - the seventh day brings to view God's priorities. Seeing that human time "begins with a day of rest and not a day of work,"55 the spiritual pursuit, living life in a relationship with the Creator that is mutually meaningful, stands out as the primary meaning in life. ~ Sigve K. Tonstad

So young and so lethargic! As though he had been born to sit and stare like this. Ever since Kiyoaki had confided in him, Shigekuni, who would have been bright and confident, as befitted such an able young man, had undergone a change. Or rather, the friendship between him and Kiyoaki had undergone a strange reversal. For years, each of them had been extremely careful to intrude in no way on the personal life of the other. But now, just three days before, Kiyoaki had suddenly come to him and, like a newly cured patient transmitting his disease to someone else, had passed on to his friend the virus of introspection. It had taken hold so readily that Honda's disposition now seemed a far better host to it than Kiyoaki's. The first major symptom of the disease was a vague sense of apprehension. ~ Yukio Mishima

(Divorce)
We'll remarry someday when we've grown,
Like royalty who've earned the throne.
An aisle made of gold,
To have and to hold.
My dress made of rags,
A suit that's so torn.
All eyes are on me,
But mine only on you.
You give your hand,
A king to his queen,
But know this darling,
Mulligans aren't for the weak.
By changing the rules,
We're changing the war,
The wounds that we've known,
Battle stains on the floor.
But from this day on,
The same as before,
You are the apple,
My eyes still adore.
Worth more than one shot,
Though we'll face the worst a lot,
Better days will come,
If we stay and don't run.
And if a wave takes us out,
I know we'll figure it out.
And if the current takes us in,
I know we'll do it all again. ~ Crystal Woods

I was in college when I first saw You've Got Mail, and I loved Kathleen Kelly instantly. I was mostly past my wistful gade-school days of wishing myself into every novel I read, but I was alarmingly struck by how she echoed my old fear of settling for my real life, musing in one scene, "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

Her impetus was this: once she'd read a story about a butterfly in a subway train, and then...she saw one! The film shows Kathleen rattling along on the train, an open book in her lap, when a butterfly suddenly flits into her field of vision. You can see her visceral delight. That thing she'd only read about had come true.

Yet she wondered if her experience was cheapened because she'd read it before she lived it, and my twenty-year-old self wondered right along with her. But I'm not the girl--or the reader--I was then, and I now know the times when reading cheapens anything are few and far between. I've seen how our on -the-page experiences set the stage for our actual lives. Our books frame the scenes for us so we can better understand and experience what's happening when it happens to us-- ~ Anne Bogel

She blinked once before the most brilliant smile lit up her face. "Just when I think I can't possibly love you even more, you do something incredibly unexpected. Thank you."
The ground shifted beneath him the tiniest bit every time she told him she loved him. She'd confessed the first time two days after he'd saved her from Einar. He'd been waiting for the right moment but she'd beat him to it. The only positive thing to come out of that bastard Einar infiltrating the mountain sector was that they'd patched up a security hole. He still wasn't certain what the male had wanted; probably just to cause as much destruction as he could. It didn't matter now.
"I love you too." He moved toward her, planning to show her just how much.
But she shook her head and waved some wand thing at him. She used it to do something to her eyebrows.
Since she'd moved all her stuff into his room he'd discovered that females took up a lot of space. "I know that look. We don't have time." She disappeared into the bathroom once again.
This time he followed, his body already humming with the need to be inside her. "We have plenty of time."
She'd invited half a dozen females from their sector as well as their mates tonight to celebrate the unanimous change in the Ducereco law. They'd also started plans on her new project. Things were about to change for his people and he knew it was for the better.
Shaking her head, she turned away from him and faced the mirror. T ~ Savannah Stuart

You count the days and watch the years go by. You tell yourself, and you believe it, that you'd rather just die. You'd rather stare death boldly in the face and say you're ready because whatever is waiting on the other side has to be better than growing old in a six-by-ten cage with no one to talk to. You consider yourself half-dead at best. Please take the other half.
You've watched dozens leave and not return, and you accept the fact that one day they'll come for you. You're nothing but a rat in their lab, a disposable body to be used as proof that their experiment is working. An eye for an eye, each killing must be avenged. You kill enough and you're convinced that killing is good.
You count the days, and then there are none left. You ask yourself on your last morning if you are really ready. You search for courage, but the bravery is fading. When it's over, no one really wants to die. ~ John Grisham

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
Points to the misty main,
It drives me in upon myself
And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
And still more pleasant dreams,
I read whatever bards have sung
Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
Come thronging back to me.
In fancy I can hear again
The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
The sea at Elsinore.
I see the convent's gleaming wall
Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
And castles by the Rhine.
I journey on by park and spire,
Beneath centennial trees,
Through fields with poppies all on fire,
And gleams of distant seas.
I fear no more the dust and heat,
No more I feel fatigue,
While journeying with another's feet
O'er many a lengthening league.
Let others traverse sea and land,
And toil through various climes,
I turn the world round with my hand
Reading these poets' rhymes.
From them I learn whatever lies
Beneath each changing zone,
And see, when looking with their eyes,
Better than with mine own. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Far better is it for you to go through one small thing that frightens you than to make a thousand plans for an imagined fearless day to come. ~ Guy Finley

10 facts about abusive relationships (what i wish i'd known)

1. it's not always loud. it's not always obvious. the poison doesn't always hit you like a gunshot. sometimes, it seeps in quietly, slowly. sometimes, you don't even know it was ever there until months after.
2. love is not draining. love is not tiring. this is not how it is supposed to be.
3. apologies are like band-aids, when what you really need is stitches– they don't actually fix anything long-term. soon enough, you'll be bleeding again, but they will never give you what you really need.
4. this is not your fault. you did not turn them into this. this is how they are, how they've always been. you can't blame yourself.
5. there will be less good days than bad days but the good days will be so amazing that it will feel like everything is better than it actually is. your mind is playing tricks on itself and your heart is trying to convince itself that it made the right choice.
6. they do not love you. they can not love you. this is not love.
7. you're not wrong for wanting to run, so do it. listen to what your gut is telling you.
8. you will let them come back again and again before you realize that they only change long enough for you to let them in one more time.
9. it's okay to be selfish and leave. there is never any crime in putting yourself first. when they tell you otherwise, don't believe them. don't let them tear you down. they want to knock you off your ~ Catarine Hancock

A few days ago Tan Casipo said to me, 'Some people come here with so much dust in their eyes it's unbearable to talk to them.' What does that say about the monkhood? He can't tolerate people with 'dust in their eyes.' All that these monks have developed here is a safe little self-centred world which they call holy because villagers bow down to them. Living in a forest and wearing a robe doesn't make you better than anybody else. ~ Tim Ward

I made up my mind I was going to find someone who would love me unconditionally three hundred and sixty five days a year, I was still in elementary school at the time - fifth or sixth grade - but I made up my mind once and for all."

"Wow," I said. "Did the search pay off?"

"That's the hard part," said Midori. She watched the rising smoke for a while, thinking. "I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough."

"Waiting for the perfect love?"

"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for."

"I'm not sure that has anything to do with love," I said with some amazement.

"It does," she said. "You just don't know it. There are time in a girl's life when things like that are incredibly important."

"Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?"

"Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. "Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To ~ Haruki Murakami

And it means snapshots, because that's what all stories I write come down to; each is a snapshot of who I was during however many days and weeks it was written. A fictional reflection of my mind fossilized, set in paper and ink, instead of stone. Memorialized, for better or worse. This is who I was, and this, and this, and this, and that, and most times I look back and wince. I'm rarely kind to who I was. But other times, looking back is bittersweet. Sometimes, I'm even grateful to the me of then who left a snapshot for the me of now. Maybe I should let go and join those who pretend the past is past, but it's a falsehood I've never learned to spin. ~ Caitlin R. Kiernan

He frowned. She laughed. He brightened. She pouted. He grinned. She flinched. Come on: we don't do that. Except when we're pretending. Only babies frown and flinch. The rest of us just fake with our fake faces.
He grinned. No He didn't. If a guy grins at you for real these days, you'd better chop his head off before he chops off yours. Soon the sneeze and the yawn will be mostly for show. Even the twitch.
She laughed. No she didn't. We laugh about twice a year. Most of us have lost our laughs and now make do with false ones.
He smiled.
Not quite true.
All that no good to think, no good to say, no good to write. All that no good to write. ~ Martin Amis

The pressure is on. They've teased me all week, because I've avoided anything that requires ordering. I've made excuses (I'm allergic to beef," "Nothing tastes better than bread," Ravioli is overrated"), but I can't avoid it forever.Monsieur Boutin is working the counter again. I grab a tray and take a deep breath.
"Bonjour, uh...soup? Sopa? S'il vous plait?"
"Hello" and "please." I've learned the polite words first, in hopes that the French will forgive me for butchering the remainder of their beautiful language. I point to the vat of orangey-red soup. Butternut squash, I think. The smell is extraordinary, like sage and autumn. It's early September, and the weather is still warm. When does fall come to Paris?
"Ah! soupe.I mean,oui. Oui!" My cheeks burn. "And,um, the uh-chicken-salad-green-bean thingy?"
Monsieur Boutin laughs. It's a jolly, bowl-full-of-jelly, Santa Claus laugh. "Chicken and haricots verts, oui. You know,you may speek Ingleesh to me. I understand eet vairy well."
My blush deepends. Of course he'd speak English in an American school. And I've been living on stupid pears and baquettes for five days. He hands me a bowl of soup and a small plate of chicken salad, and my stomach rumbles at the sight of hot food.
"Merci," I say.
"De rien.You're welcome. And I 'ope you don't skeep meals to avoid me anymore!" He places his hand on his chest, as if brokenhearted. I smile and shake my head no. I can do this. I can do this. I can-
Stephanie Perkins

Six days, and I have eaten nothing. It is night. I am sitting in my chair. Ah, God! I wonder have any ever felt the horror of life that I have come to know? I am swathed in terror. I feel ever the burning of this dread growth. It has covered all my right arm and side, and is beginning to creep up my neck. To-morrow, it will eat into my face. I shall become a terrible mass of living corruption. There is no escape. Yet, a thought has come to me, born of a sight of the gun-rack, on the other side of the room. I have looked again - with the strangest of feelings. The thought grows upon me. God, Thou knowest, Thou must know, that death is better, aye, better a thousand times than This. This! Jesus, forgive me, but I cannot live, cannot, cannot! I dare not! I am beyond all help - there is nothing else left. It will, at least, spare me that final horror… … .
"I think I must have been dozing. I am very weak, and oh! so miserable, so miserable and tired - tired. The rustle of the paper, tries my brain[…] ~ William Hope Hodgson

To remember, for instance, that here just a year ago, just at this time, at this hour, on this pavement, I wandered just as lonely, just as dejected as to-day.

And one remembers that then one's dreams were sad, and though the past was no better one feels as though it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now; that one was free from the gnawing of conscience - the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now gives me no rest by day or by night.

And one asks oneself where are one's dreams. And one shakes one's head and says how rapidly the years fly by! And again one asks oneself what has one done with one's years.

Where have you buried your best days? Have you lived or not?

Look, one says to oneself, look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation.

Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . .

Oh, Nastenka! you know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret - nothing, absolutely nothing . . . for all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Because of the earth's roundness, Genghis Khan, in the fever of possession and destruction, hastened his own overthrow by invading lands that he had already razed and conquered. Not only is it impossible to know from where we come, but also from whom we come: nothing in common, in any case, with those who pass for being the "authors of our days" – which days? Better to invent a genealogy based on pure whim and the leanings of our hearts, but what if they don't agree? ~ Andre Breton

We look back through countless millions of years and see the great will to live struggling out of the intertidal slime, struggling from shape to shape and from power to power, crawling and then walking confidently upon the land, struggling generation after generation to master the air, creeping down the darkness of the deep; we see it turn upon itself in rage and hunger and reshape itself anew, we watch it draw nearer and more akin to us, expanding, elaborating itself, pursuing its relentless inconceivable purpose, until at last it reaches us and its being beats through our brains and arteries...It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has accomplished is but the dream before the awakening; out of our lineage, minds will spring that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves. A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars. ~ H.G. Wells