Christmas Isnt The Same Without You Quotes

I've inspected your profile. You are not stupid. Misguided, idealistic, naive, certainly, but not stupid. You must know how societies work. You must at least have an inkling. They work on force, power and coercion. People don't behave themselves because they're nice. That's the liberal fallacy. People behave themselves because if they don't they'll be punished. All this is known. It isn't even debatable. Civilisation after civilisation, society after society, species after species, all show the same pattern. Society is control: control is reward and punishment. Reward is being allowed to partake of the fruits of that society and, as a general but not unbreakable rule, not being punished without cause. ~ Anonymous

I haven't had any adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But not adventures. It isn't a matter of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something I longed for more than all the rest - without realizing it properly. It wasn't love, heaven forbid, nor glory, nor wealth. It was…anyway, I had imagined that at certain moments my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little order. There is nothing very splendid about my life at present: but now and then, for example when they played music in the cafés, I would l look back and say to myself: in the old days, in London, Meknés, Tokyo, I have known wonderful moments, I have had adventures. It is that which has been taken away from me now. I have just learnt, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. Adventures are in books. And naturally, everything they tell you about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It was to this way of happening that I attached so much importance. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

He says he knows someone isn't from the same race as he when that person looks at his library and asks, 'Have you read all of these?' A true book lover knows that, no, he hasn't read them all. It's about the process, it's about when the right reference comes up, you have the right book to go to; it's about never being without something to occupy your eyes and mind. ~ Jamie S. Rich

Saying It To Keep It From Happening"


Some departure from the norm
Will occur as time grows more open about it.
The consensus gradually changed; nobody
Lies about it any more. Rust dark pouring
Over the body, changing it without decay -
People with too many things on their minds, but we live
In the interstices, between a vacant stare and the ceiling,
Our lives remind us. Finally this is consciousness
And the other livers of it get off at the same stop.
How careless. Yet in the end each of us
Is seen to have traveled the same distance - it's time
That counts, and how deeply you have invested in it,
Crossing the street of an event, as though coming out of it
were
The same as making it happen. You're not sorry,
Of course, especially if this was the way it had to happen,
Yet would like an exacter share, something about time
That only a clock can tell you: how it feels, not what it
means.
It is a long field, and we know only the far end of it,
Not the part we presumably had to go through to get there.
If it isn't enough, take the idea
Inherent in the day, armloads of wheat and flowers
Lying around flat on handtrucks, if maybe it means more
In pertaining to you, yet what is is what happens in the end
As though you cared. The event combined with
Beams leading up to it for the look of force adapted to the
wiser
Usages of ag ~ John Ashbery

Writing about sex is a challenge for the same reason sex is a challenge. Because it's complicated. Because it doesn't always make sense and it isn't always perfect and it's sometimes awful and it's sometimes hilarious. But underneath all the clever wordplay, it's about hope. Hope that someone will see us, and accept us, and perhaps - after all that - choose us. It's the barest we will ever be. The barest a character will ever be. That's why it's difficult.
As for what makes a good sex scene, a romance novelist would have told you that when done well and with a skilled hand, the best sex scenes can at once arouse and empower. Sex on the page gives readers the freedom to explore their own sexuality, their own pleasures, their own identities. With hope. And without judgment. ~ Sarah MacLean

Naturally – she's an actress." He laughed wryly to himself. "Complications. Oh, yes." The doctor reflected and then said, "I always think a life without complications isn't really a life, you know. In life things go wrong, nothing stays the same and there's nothing you can do about it. Friends betray you, family is a nightmare, lovers are fickle. This is the norm, no?" He smiled to himself, as if remembering something pertinent. "What kind of a world would it be where nothing ever went wrong, where everything stayed the same, life followed a designated path – family was adorable, friends and lovers were faithful and true?" He paused. "You know, I don't think I'd like that kind of a world. We're made for complications, we human beings. Anyway, such a perfect world could never exist – at least not on this small planet. ~ William Boyd

The glamorous side is all they want to hear, the real part of war isn't believed or [is] listened to with a bored feeling, such as: the constant waiting, baking in the sun all day the flies all day & the mosquitoes all night, the hr. on & hr. off all night, the rain & shivering all night, the thirst & the same canned ration all the time till it becomes tasteless paste that you spit out, the always incomplete "word" never being told what the situation is. Furthermore an admission of fear is either regarded as weakness or modesty in a combat veteran. They don't realize that without fear there can be no courage. ~ Dan Levin

I've looked over what I wrote yesterday and I see it wasn't as clear as it should be. It's perfectly clear for any of us, I mean. But who knows? Maybe you unknown people who'll get my notes when the INTEGRAL brings them - maybe you've read the great book of civilization only up to the page our ancestors reached about 900 years ago. Maybe you don't even know the basics - like the Table of Hours, Personal Hours, Maternal Norm, Green Wall, Benefactor. It feels funny to me, and at the same time it's very hard to talk about all this. It's just as if a writer of the twentieth century, for instance, had to explain in his novel what he meant by "jacket" or "apartment" or "wife." Still, if his novel was translated for savages, there's no way he could write "jacket" without putting in a note.
...
But what of that? After man's tail fell off, it was probably some little while before he learned to shoo away the flies without a tail. I don't doubt that during that first time he probably missed his tail. But now - can you even imagine yourself with a tail? Or: Can you imagine yourself walking down the street naked - without your "jacket"? (Maybe you still run around in "jackets.") Well, it's the same here: I can't imagine a city that isn't girdled about with a Green Wall. I can't imagine a life that isn't clad in the numerical robes of the Table. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

I made a vow to God [in 2010], after so many letdowns and the relationship with my ex, I knew I really didn't want to continue making the same mistakes anymore. Women nowadays, we connect physically too soon without actually getting to know the person. If you don't actually give this person your body and then they let you down, there really isn't a great disappointment; not like it would be if you have already connected physically. I started going on that journey, and I thought to myself, you know what, the next man that I give my body to will be the man that God brought into my life. ~ Jessica White

Some questions are okay. You can't have people without questions. People are too curious for that, they'd get all gummed up and stop working right if you didn't let them have questions once in a while. But there's a big difference between asking for things and only asking. 'Do you think there will be grapes sometime this week' isn't the same as 'can I have some of those grapes.' Do you understand? ~ Seanan McGuire

Sometimes it's just lying in bed and staring at the ceiling listening to the same song over and over again as it slowly loses its meaning. Sometimes it's how people go mad because they couldn't tame the darkness that was growing within them over time. Some days it's a girl waking up without her soul. Some nights it's a boy falling asleep with his spirit crushed. Sometimes it's someone wanting to lose themselves to a person, but instead, they push that person away.

Solitude only becomes a prison when you do not love yourself. And even if you do love yourself it's still a very dangerous thing, and the very benefits of it are the stars shining in its purest darkness.

Solitude isn't always pretty but also are the truths that we find within ourselves when we learn to find solace in it. ~ Juansen Dizon

Love is funny thing. I don´t know if you can call it a "thing" precisely. It´s a force. An energy. A feeling. A moment. A look, a kiss, a smile. All those things in one. It sneaks up on you; you never see it coming. And when it does finally hit you, It isn´t a small little poke. It´s like a rhinoceros rammed itself against your chest. Or you just got run over by a car. It knocks the wind out of you. Slams you against wall. Kick-starts yout heart. You lose your apetite. You can´t sleep. Some can call love a sickness. Seriously, you´re sick over another human being. You belong to them. They control your feelings with the look in their eye. They change the way you see yourself, feel about yourself. You feel like your world shifted, and everything´s the same, but you aren´t. I say it´s funny because it seems to bend and twist every concept of reality you have. You can survive off nothing. The only thing sustaining you is the feeling, energy, force. You can go days without decent sleep. You´re not hungry for anything exept that one person who seems to occupy your every thought. Time slows down when you´re without them. Seconds feel like hours, minutes like days, And whenn you´re together, time moves at the spped of light. It´s alla blur, and when it´s over, you don´t remember half the things you were doing but you just remember this feeling. This bliss. And it is all over in a flash. And you´re back to counting the long, eternal minutes until you see him again. ~ Katy Evans

God is the Self of the world, but you can't see God for the same reason that, without a mirror, you can't see your own eyes, and you certainly can't bite your own teeth or look inside your head. Your self is that cleverly hidden because it is God hiding. You may ask why God sometimes hides in the form of horrible people, or pretends to be people who suffer great disease and pain. Remember, first, that he isn't really doing this to anyone but himself. Remember, too, that in almost all the stories you enjoy there have to be bad people as well as good people, for the thrill of the tale is to find out how the good people will get the better of the bad. ~ Alan W. Watts

I know, to be useful," broke in Abel impatiently. "When I said that, I had no idea you would be leaving us so soon. I also said that I couldn't give you advice, and I say the same now. But you're leaving tomorrow and we might never see each other again. I decided that, even if I can't advise you, I can at least tell you that a life without love, a life like the one you described just now, isn't live at all, it's a dung heap, a sewer. ~ Jose Saramago

I thought killing was easy for you," said Laurent. His voice was rather quiet. "I thought you did it without thinking."
"I'm a soldier," said Damen, "and I have been for a long time. I've killed on the sawdust. I've killed in battle. Is that what you mean by easy?"
"You know it isn't," said Laurent, in that same quiet voice. ~ C.S. Pacat

People die of love. I'm one of the few who'll admit it. That doesn't mean it isn't true.
Take all the people who died yesterday, or last week, or last year. Subtract all the suicides and the so-called accidents of the brokenhearted. Take away the men who got blown away for being in the wrong bed at the wrong moment, the women in abusive marriages who died of cancer because they couldn't find any other exit from their lives. All the AIDS deaths except from the needles and the transfusions, the ones they call the innocent victims. Like if you have sex, you're guilty. Deserved just what you got.
Now tell me who all you've got left.
Without love the world would be overpopulated, except that without love it wouldn't be populated at all. Love giveth and love taketh away and all that crap. You'll probably say all those people died from the lack of love, but I say it's two sides of the same coin. So it's the same coin. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

The creatures who act as though they belong to the world follow the peace-keeping law, and because they follow that law, they give the creatures around them a chance to grow toward whatever it's possible for them to become. That's how man came into being. The creatures around Australopithecus didn't imagine that the world belonged to them, so they let him live and grow. How does being civilized come into it? Does being civilized mean that you have to destroy the world?" "No." "Does being civilized make you incapable of giving the creatures around you a little space in which to live?" "No." "Does it make you incapable of living as harmlessly as sharks and tarantulas and rattlesnakes?" "No." "Does it make you incapable of following a law that even snails and earthworms manage to follow without any difficulty?" "No." "As I pointed out some time ago, human settlement isn't against the law, it's subject to the law - and the same is true of civilization. ~ Daniel Quinn

How do you ensure someone feels the same way about you without telling them how you feel? This isn't grade school. I can't pass on ~ Karina Halle

Maybe physical intimacy isn't always about touching. Maybe it's also about being able to sit next to someone at dinner and not care if he takes something off your plate or reaches across you for the salt. Maybe it's about being able to sprawl out on the floor and read a book in the same room with someone who's grading papers and muttering about 'incompetent boobs who couldn't write a good paper if their lives depended on it.' Maybe it's about sharing the same space with another person and not going fucking crazy because you can't get away from them.

That's it, I guess: true intimacy is really just the run of the mill, day to day stuff that happens without thinking - thousands of simple, meaningless, comfortable ways you can be close to someone, never dreaming how shitty you'll feel when you wake up one morning with all of it gone. ~ Bart Yates

Loving someone isn't about what you can live with, accept or tolerate. For me, it's about the one person you can't live without. Too know that part of your life will never be the same without that one person being apart of it. ~ Piper Kay

They dream of the happiness of stretching out one's legs and of the relief one feels after going to the toilet. In Orotukan the earth thaws only in the summer and only to the depth of three feet - and only then can they bury the bones of those who died during the winter. And you have the right to arrange your own life under the blue sky and the hot sun, to get a drink of water, to stretch, to travel wherever you like without a convoy [escort]. So what's this about unwiped feet? And what's this about a mother-in-law? What about the main thing in life, all its riddles? If you want, I'll spell it out for you right now. Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade, and is confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is, after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes see, if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart - and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Cash was running low, so I'd applied for a job as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit arts group. Without question, my organizational skills were as sharp as my vision, and I had no office experience to speak of. Luckily for me, none of this surfaced during the interview.

'Ryan, pretend it's a rough morning for a sec. Handle this situation for me. When you arrive at work to open the arts resource centre, several people are already at the door. Two clients want immediate help with grant applications - you know those artists, they just can't wait! - and a third wants to use our library, which isn't open till noon. Entering the office, you hear the phone is ringing and see the message light is blinking. The fax machine looks jammed again, and we're expecting an important document. Among the people waiting is a courier with a package you need to sign for. Think about it, though. The lights haven't been turned on yet, and the sign put out front. The alarm needs the code within a minute, too. So, wow, rough morning. I'd like to know what you'd do first.'

'First I'd tell everybody how weird this is. I'm in the same test situation from my job interview. What are the chances?'

I started the next day. ~ Ryan Knighton

I dispelled my invisibility for a few seconds in his full view, a finger resting provocatively on my lower lip, giving him a come-hither look under a streetlight. His jaw and the bottle of Żubrówka dropped at the same time. It shattered, drawing his eyes to the sidewalk, and I took the opportunity afforded by his distraction to disappear again.

"That was mean," Oberon said, watching the man look wildly around for me and pawing at his eyes as if to clear them.

Why? I asked. I've done him no harm.

"Yes, you have. You will haunt him for the rest of his life. I know from experience."

You're haunted by someone flashing you on a street corner?

"No. It was a dog park. Atticus and I were just arriving and she was leaving."

Oh, here we go.

"She was so fit and her coat was tightly curled and she had a perfect pouf on the end of her tail like a tennis ball. I saw her for maybe five seconds, until she hopped into a Honda and her human drove her away. And now I can't see a Honda without seeing her."

But that's a good thing, isn't it? Kind of romantic? A vision of perfection you can treasure forever, unspoiled by reality.

"Well, I don't know. In reality I'd like to try spoiling her, if she was in the mood."

Look, Oberon, that man is lonely. He's too skinny and sweaty, and I'm willing to bet you five cows that he's socially awkward or he wouldn't be staggering drunk at this hour. Bu ~ Kevin Hearne

It may be that there is no solution or it may be that I'm not clever enough to find it. Ramakrishna looked upon the world as the sport of God. "It is like a game," he said. "In this game there are joy and sorrow, virtue and vice, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil., The game cannot continue if sin and suffering are altogether eliminated from the creation." I would reject that with all my strength. The best I can suggest is that when the Absolute manifested itself in the world evil was the natural correlation of good. You could never have had the stupendous beauty of the Himalayas without the unimaginable horror of a convulsion of the earth's crust. The Chinese craftsman who makes a vase in what they call eggshell porcelain can give it a lovely shape, ornament it with a beautiful design, stain it a ravishing colour, and give it a perfect glaze, but from its very nature he can't make it anything but fragile. If you drop it on the floor it will break into a dozen fragments. Isn't it possible in the same way that the values we cherish in the world can only exist in combination with evil? ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Life is also about balance, just the way recipes are about balance. When your recipe isn't balanced, it doesn't taste right. Too much salt, or too little can make all the difference. Lack of acid, too much bitter or sweetness, if you don't find the balance your food will never be all it can be. The same is true of your life. You need it all. Work that makes you happy and fulfilled and supports you financially. Family and friends to lean on and celebrate with. Hopefully someone special to share your life with, and a family of your own if you want that. Some way of giving back, in honor of your own blessings. A sense of spirituality or something that keeps you grounded. Time to do the things you need for good health, eating right and exercising and managing your stress. If you have too much of one and not enough of another, then your life isn't balanced, and without that balance, nothing else will matter. ~ Stacey Ballis

Honesty is the foundation of a sound character and the keystone of all other virtues. It is the cement without which all other redeeming features are fractured and without anchor. A dishonest person may be kind, witty, and very capable, but the strength of character simply isn't there. Honesty does not come by degrees. A person is either all honest or he is dishonest. You can be true or you can be false, but you can't be both at the same time. ~ William Grant Bangerter

Yes, I do. I think I'm very observant. I observe that the rash on your left hand isn't going to get better if you continue to use the same ointment. You're allergic to it. I observe that the gentleman in the third row on the left has a bad case of conjunctivitis-pinkeye, in the layman's terms. And the woman in the second row has a bag of candies in her purse, and she's trying to figure out away to eat them without making noise. They're M&M's. I also observe that your associate attorney at the defense table keeps looking at his watch and is very anxious to get out of here because he appears to have something going on with the court reporter. And I observe you're unzipped. ~ Julie Garwood

Understand that this isn't love. I have been in love but this is not the same. This is not my feeling, but some external force taking possession of me. I left because I decided it could not be, you understand, like a happiness that doesn't exist on earth; but I have struggled with myself and I see that without it there is no life. ~ Leo Tolstoy

In the fall, you don't grieve because the leaves are falling and dying. You say, "Isn't it beautiful!" Well, we're the same way. There are seasons. We all fall sooner or later. It's all so beautiful. And our concepts, without investigation, keep us from knowing this. It's beautiful to be a leaf, to be born, to fall, to give way to the next, to become food for the roots. It's life, always changing its form and always giving itself completely. We all do our part. No mistake. ~ Byron Katie

I should have known what you would do," Jem said in a low voice. "I always know what you will do. I should have known you would put your hands into the fire."

"And I should have known you would throw that packet away," said Will, without rancor. "It was - it was a madly noble thing to do. I understand why you did it."

"I was thinking of Tessa." Jem drew his knees up and rested his chin on them, then laughed softly. "Madly noble. Isn't that meant to be your area of expertise? Suddenly I am the one who does ridiculous things and you tell me to stop?"

"God," said Will. "When did we change places?"

The firelight played over Jem's face and hair as he shook his head. "It is a very strange thing, to be in love," he said. "It changes you."

Will looked down at Jem, and what he felt, more than jealousy, more than anything else, was a wistful desire to commiserate with his best friend, to speak of the feelings he held in his heart. For were they not the same feelings? Did they not love the same way, the same person? But, "I wish you wouldn't risk yourself," was all he said.

Jem stood up. "I have always wished that about you."

Will raised his eyes, so drowsy with sleep and the tiredness that came with healing runes that he could see Jem only as a haloed figure of light. "Are you going?"

"Yes, to sleep." Jem touched his fingers lightly to Will's healing hands. "Let yourself rest, Will. ~ Cassandra Clare

Encino is a small community in the San Fernando Valley smashed up against and completely indistinguishable from all other Valley communities. You can drive from one to the other, passing the same dry cleaners, dubious sushi restaurants, and gas stations, without so much as a sign to mark your transition. It does, frankly, matter much where are you. If anything at all marks Encino from its clone neighbors, it's that it isn't aging quite as well. Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills have kept their figures and shown up on time for regular collagen injections while Encino is really starting to let itself go. ~ Ashley Ream

My Caroline,
If you're reading this endnote then I can assume you've suffered your way through the story, our story once again. I suppose having you relive our time together is the ultimate proof of my sadism, as if you of all people needed further proof.
At the end I find myself surprised by how easy it was to write this book about us. I found I missed you so much that a terrible vacuum had formed; all the words came and filled it and for a little while you were home with me again. I didn't want it to end but a story must have an end, I suppose.
I have no secrets to reveal on this final page. I loved you. At least I tried to. And I failed you. I failed you with great success. Forgive me if you can. I will not apologize anymore.
I'm done writing now. I may go into the garden and read until evening. It isn't quite the same without your head on my knee and your ill-informed criticisms of my reading material, but I shall carry on alone, page by page, until the end. And when evening comes and the sun is sitting on the edge of the earth, I will look out, searching for a break in the horizon as that father did once so many thousands of years ago…the father waiting for his prodigal child to return.
I hope you are happy. As for me, I…continue. If you ever miss me, miss… But some things are best left unwritten. Just know I have kept your room for you. I'll say no more. I know I sent you away. I know it was the right thing to do. But I also know that perhaps no ~ Tiffany Reisz

One of my favourite things to do when I write is to bring a sense of wonder to a normal everyday setting... Yes, there are magical elements, but there are also very down-to-earth elements and often what shines through isn't the magic, but the lanterns that the characters light against the dark... If you substitute the words "fairy tale" or "myth" for "fantasy," the reason I use these elements in my own work is that they create resonances that illuminate solutions to the real world struggle without the need for an authorial voice to point them out. Magic never solves the problems–we have to do that on our own–but in fiction it allows the dialogue to have a much more organic approach than the talking heads one can encounter in fiction that doesn't utilize the same tools.

[from the interview Year's Best 2012: Charles de Lint on "A Tangle of Green Men"] ~ Charles De Lint