Had I Known Quotes

It takes just a step to show the other side of you that you never wanted to show. It takes just a word to start the words you never wanted to say. It all begins with something and it all starts somewhere. Mind the starting point and note the beginning. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Had I known that coffee could taste so good, I would have gotten drunk on it every day. ~ Rabih Alameddine

You knew, didn't you? It's why you came running in here like you did."
"I didn't know it was another IED. I just knew you'd been arrested and that you were being targeted by assassins."
"And you came running," Talyn repeated.
"It's what I would have been doing your whole life, had I known I had you."
-Talyn & Fain ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Had I known back then just how cheap it was to employ Poles, I might as well have leapfrogged their country. ~ Timur Vermes

It marked the beginning and, of course, an end. At that moment a chapter, no, a whole stage of my closed. Had I known, and had there been a spare second or two, I might have allowed myself a little nostalgia. ~ Ian McEwan

I used to wonder if we were destined to fail from the start, two people who lived hard and loved fast. Afraid to slow down. But now I know that my fingers weren't long enough to reach your wounds, to caress the places that ached from the sharp words and careless actions of others. People had confused your gentleness for weakness. You carried everything heavy.

Had I known, I would have danced delicate language all around you. I would've told you that your internal brightness illuminated mine. And that I only saw the beauty in myself when I looked at my reflection in your eyes. If only I had known that behind that strong gaze was everything else. Everything you didn't want me to know. Your shine came from what you felt when you looked at me. And you feared that I would be yet another to use your light and leave you alone. In even more darkness.
But I wouldn't have.
I didn't know how to tell you, but I know that pain too. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

I'm so sorry. I read of it only yesterday. Otherwise, I would have come sooner.' And what good that reassurance was, he had no idea. I would not have come if her were alive, but I would have come at the very moment of his death, had I known of it. Yes, that must be very comforting to her. ~ Meredith Duran

Pinterest has been helpful to my business. Making inspiration boards is really key to developing products. When I was getting married, I literally cut out tear sheets and put my own boards together. Had I known about Pinterest, I would have been able to do it so much more easily. ~ Dylan Lauren

Had I known you had pure, or what you thought were pure intentions, in that silly mind of yours, I wouldn't have tried to kill you."
Philip let out a bark of laughter. "Well, as far as apologies go, that wasn't half bad. Not every day a man comes in and apologises for wishing you dead. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

How To Save A Life"

Step one, you say, "We need to talk."
He walks, you say, "Sit down. It's just a talk."
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through

Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

[Chorus]
Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
[Chorus]

Let him know that you know best
'Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence

Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
Pray to God, he hears you
And I pray to God, he hears you

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed

He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came ~ The Fray

Had I known anything about the elegance of quitting at the right time, I would have made so many people, starting with myself and Dennis, so much happier. ~ Ann Patchett

Oh, my love," Erienne breathed as he pressed his lips to her brow, "I was afraid you would come, and yet I hoped you would."
Light kisses rained upon her cheek and brow as he held her close, savoring the nearness of her while he could. "I would have come sooner had I known where they had taken you. I had not expected this of your father, but he will answer. I promise you that."
Erienne shook her head and replied in the same muted tone. "He is not my real father."
Christopher held her away, looking down at her wonderingly. "What is this?"
"My mother married an Irish rebel and got with child before he was hanged. Avery married her, knowing the facts, but he never told her that it was he who had given the final orders to hang my father."
Christopher gently brushed a tumbled curl from off her cheek. "I knew you were too beautiful to be kin to him."

-Erienne & Christopher ~ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Teren smiles at me. He takes a step closer. "Ah, mi Adelinetta," he says. His eyes soften in a way that surprises me. "I have missed you. You, more than any other abomination, understand what we truly are." He shakes his head. "Had I known you when I was a young boy ... " He lets that sentence die, leaving me curious. ~ Marie Lu

Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin! ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

She looked up, her face pink as a Christmas ham. "You ever try chasing down a car?" she gasped. "I'll one-up you. I gave Scott my hot dog and asked if he'd go to Summer Solstice with me." "What does the hot dog have to do with anything?" "I said he'd be a wiener if he didn't go with me." Vee wheezed laughter. "I'd have run harder had I known I'd get to see you call him a wiener. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

When I was starting, I was very much influenced by the straight up, eyes to camera style of August Sander. He is really the only one. Had I known then the work of people like Ken Russell, Vivian Maier, Helen Levitt, and Steven Berkoff, they would undoubtedly have influenced me too. ~ Derek Ridgers

Had I known you were going to pull a pretty ribbon out of your sleeve like some two-bit magician, tie me up with it, and indulge your mental torture fetish in your basement, I would've shot you. Many times."
"Two-bit magician?"
"Men like you enjoy being flattered. ~ Ilona Andrews

By Jove, it's great! Walk along the streets on some spring morning. The little women, daintily tripping along, seem to blossom out like flowers. What a delightful, charming sight! The dainty perfume of violet is everywhere. The city is gay, and everybody notices the women. By Jove, how tempting they are in their light, thin dresses, which occasionally give one a glimpse of the delicate pink flesh beneath!

"One saunters along, head up, mind alert, and eyes open. I tell you it's great! You see her in the distance, while still a block away; you already know that she is going to please you at closer quarters. You can recognize her by the flower on her hat, the toss of her head, or her gait. She approaches, and you say to yourself: 'Look out, here she is!' You come closer to her and you devour her with your eyes.

"Is it a young girl running errands for some store, a young woman returning from church, or hastening to see her lover? What do you care? Her well-rounded bosom shows through the thin waist. Oh, if you could only take her in your arms and fondle and kiss her! Her glance may be timid or bold, her hair light or dark. What difference does it make? She brushes against you, and a cold shiver runs down your spine. Ah, how you wish for her all day! How many of these dear creatures have I met this way, and how wildly in love I would have been had I known them more intimately.

"Have you ever noticed that the ones we would love the most distractedly ~ Guy De Maupassant

Had I known that you would be my first glimpse of spring, I would've kissed every fallen petal of my hope along the way. ~ Sai Pradeep

I'd like to think that had I known the truth, I might have been a kinder, more loving person. If only we knew the Truth, mightn't we all? ~ Tom Robbins

Had I known, I would not have left you,
alone beneath those stars,
on the night when I last saw you,
not knowing it was the last. ~ Lang Leav

Had I known then what I know now, I would have clung to him. I would have looked him in the eyes to see that spark of mischief, that undying intelligence that belied his gruff exterior. If I'd known the inevitable, I would have said everything I felt in my heart and soul. I would have told him thank you for being my father. I would have said that if I'm ever going to be a good man, it's going to be because of the way he'd raised me ...
... I would have told him I loved him.
But I didn't. I didn't because I didn't know. I didn't even say goodnight. Or goodbye. ~ T.J. Klune

Had I known that the Germans would not succeed in producing an atomic bomb, I would not have lifted a finger. ~ Albert Einstein

Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light. ~ Elizabeth Kostova

Ya were going to turn me into a rat? Had I known that I wouldn't have tried to turn ya into a snake. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem,
"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom upon the bough.
It stands among the woodland ride,
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my three-score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again ... "
and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples. ~ Garrison Keillor

Nykyrian left The League. He could stop killing any time he wanted to. (Kiara)
And had he done that, princess, you'd be dead right now and so would I. Believe me, baby, no one ran harder or faster from their past than I did. And in one moment, one fucking whore brought it all home and laid it back at my feet. Even though I'd crawled my way out of the gutter, turned my back on everyone and everything I'd ever known and become respectable. Even though I'd buried my past so deep that I thought I was untouchable. It didn't matter. I was still shit to the world and the moment the woman I'd sold my soul to saw me for what I was, she ruined me and left me with nothing except the drunken bitterness you see now. You want to know why I drink? It's because I can't escape my past and I hate what I am. What I was forced to endure just to survive. I hate this fucking life and, most of all, I hate people like you who can't see past the surface. You judge us on one deed alone without seeing all the other things we are. Damn you for that, Kiara Zamir. Had I known you were just like everyone else, I would have left you chained in Chenz's ship. Do whatever you want. But stay away from me. (Syn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Naturally, I was thrilled but being the first year, the Academy Awards had no background or tradition, and it naturally didn't mean what it does now. Had I known then what it would come to mean in the next few years, I'm sure I'd have been overwhelmed. At the time, I think I was more thrilled over meeting Douglas Fairbanks. ~ Janet Gaynor

Are there any who don't heal?"
Christian's throat tightened at her question - that she would be so compassionate, when any other lady of her stature would be demanding the lives of the men who had assaulted her. It was something his mother would have done. "Unfortunately, aye. There are always some who can't adjust. Some kill themselves once they arrive home. A few have gone mad, and some, such as the Scot, live in perpetual torment and seclusion from the world."
She reached up to place her fingertips to his lips as she stared up at him with a warm, tender expression. "I wish you had come home to me so that I could have helped you."
He pulled the cloth away from her face and stared at her for a hard second. "Had I known what was waiting for me, my lady, I would have."
-Adara & Christian ~ Kinley MacGregor

Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel ~ Joan Didion

I am quite sure that very few of the so-called Reds in Spain were really Communists. We were badly deceived, for, had I known the real state of affairs, I would never have allowed our aircraft to bombard and destroy a starving population and at the same time re-establish the Spanish clergy in all their horrible privileges. (10th February 1945) ~ Adolf Hitler

Because of the way the business is structured, I have sometimes turned down scripts that I might otherwise have accepted had I known who was directing them. ~ Jack Nicholson

Had I known how sweet they were
I would have saved more of these memories ~ Richard L. Ratliff

Last night I placed a handwritten note on the front door of my neighbor's house that said, "Sorry, we're closed. Come back tomorrow after 9 am." I wouldn't have done it had I known he'd knock on my door and ask to spend the night because he thought I was open. ~ Jarod Kintz

I spent the first few months under the full weight of those regrets, thinking of a thousand different things I would've done differently had I known they were going to be the last. ~ Jessi Kirby

I had seen faces in photographs I might have found beautiful had I known even vaguely in what beauty was supposed to consist. And my father's face, on his death-bolster, had seemed to hint at some form of aesthetics relevant to man. But the faces of the living, all grimace and flush, can they be described as objects? ~ Samuel Beckett

I would have stolen it for you, had I known you were interested." His voice was muffled by the door to the lumber room down the hallway, and I heard thumps and a crash.
I raised my voice a trifle more than mere volume required. "I'm interested because she was. Both of them, come to that
Damian's art is infused with mystic symbols and traditions."
Holmes' voice answered two inches away from my ear, making me jerk and spray a handful of maps across the floor. "Religion can be a dangerous thing, it is true," he remarked darkly, and went out again. ~ Laurie R. King

Mums answer is so unexpected and I am a litte stunned, actually. I wonder whether, had I known the reason for my name as a child, I would have tried to live up to it. Instead of being a failed Arabella, I might have become a Shakespearean plucky Beatrice. ~ Rosamund Lupton

Had I known that these legs were to carry a Lord Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I was a lad. Duke of Grafton ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Everyone says that I have no sense of humor, then I construct a perfectly sound pun around a well-known psychological condition, and it is ignored. ~ Eoin Colfer

Israel has a fantastic film industry, and many times we are known for our political films or films that have to do with the army. I love the fact that we can show that there are films coming out of Israel that are just for fun. ~ Yael Grobglas

How had I fetched up into this strange new life, where drunk foreigners shouted around me in the night, and all my clothes were dirty, and nobody loved me? ~ Donna Tartt

This I have always known - that if I did not live my life immersed in the one activity which suits me, and which also, to tell the truth, keeps me utterly happy and intrigued, I would come someday to bitter and mortal regret. ~ Mary Oliver

Well, Neighbours wanted to do a song on the show, and they asked me what songs I had. I told them I'd just written this song, called Born to Try, and I had just gone overseas and spoken to some people from Song about it. ~ Delta Goodrem

You can't blame me. I mean that literally. You're incapable of blaming me. You're human. Being human is choosing freedom over imprisonment, autonomy over dependency, liberty over servitude. You can't blame me because you know (come on, man, you've always known) that the idea of spending eternity with nothing to do except praise God is utterly unappealing. You'd be catatonic after an hour. Heaven's a swiz because to get in you have to leave yourself outside. You can't blame me because
now do please be honest with yourself for once
you'd have left, too. ~ Glen Duncan

In the eulogy by the graveside, I told everyone how my sister and I used to sing to each other on our birthday. I told them that, when I thought of my sister, I could still hear her laughter, sense her optimism, and feel her faith. I told them that my sister was the kindest person I;ve ever known, and that the world was a sadder place without her in it. And finally, I told them to remember my sister with a smile, like I did, for even though she was being buried near my parents, the best parts of her would always stay alive, deep within our hearts. ~ Nicholas Sparks

IT'S HARDLY a coincidence that "Shipping Out," Wallace's most well-known essay, appeared only a month before Infinite Jest, his most well-known novel, was published. Both are about the same thing (amusing ourselves to death), with different governing données (lethally entertaining movie, lethally pampering leisure cruise). In an interview after the novel came out, Wallace, asked what's so great about writing, said that we're existentially alone on the planet - I can't know what you're thinking and feeling, and you can't know what I'm thinking and feeling - so writing, at its best, is a bridge constructed across the bridge of human loneliness. ~ David Shields

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I've ever known. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

You can't break into and rob Magus Silvanus's town house."
"I never said I was."
"You didn't have to say it; I know what you're thinking."
I half smiled. "And because I'm a Benares, you assumed that I'd opt for the larcenous approach."
"No, ma'am." He grinned. "Because you're you."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "How long have you known me, Vegard?"
"A little over two weeks. ~ Lisa Shearin

The whole set of stylizations that are known as "camp" (a word that I was hearing then for the first time) was, in 1926, self-explanatory. Women moved and gesticulated in this way. Homosexuals wished for obvious reasons to copy them. The strange thing about "camp" is that it has been fossilized. The mannerisms have never changed. If I were now to see a woman sitting with her knees clamped together, one hand on her hip and the other lightly touching her back hair, I should think, "Either she scored her last social triumph in 1926 or it is a man in drag. ~ Quentin Crisp

It was a strange thing, to still be in love with your wife and to not know if you liked her. What would happen when this was all over? Could you forgive someone if she hurt you and the people you love, if she truly believed she was only trying to help?
I had filed for divorce, but that wasn't what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for all of us to go back two years, and start over.
Had I ever really told her that? ~ Jodi Picoult

I wondered had I really oversold the Hubble. I have to admit that, since, I have been convinced that I didn't. ~ Nancy Roman

I drank some of that lake! I might have choked on a fish or a frog or a...a...a turtle!"
"It is wisest to keep one's mouth shut while sifting."
She skewered him with a frosty stare. "Now you tell me." Damn the fairy, anyway. There she stood, feeling ragtag and bedraggled, and he only looked more beautiful wet, all drippy and shimmery gold-velvet, his hair a wet tangle to his waist.
"Come Gabrielle," he said, extending his hand, "we must keep moving. They can track me by what little magic I'm using to sift, but only to a general vicinity. We need to keep sifting, to spread out their search."
"Is there anything else it's wisest to do that I should know about before we just pop off again?" She tucked her hands behind her back so he couldn't grab her and just sift rather than answering her. Besides, she needed a minute to brace herself for the next bout of traveling in a manner that defied all the known laws of physics.
"You might try kissing me. Better my tongue than a frog, no?" Dark eyes sparking gold, he reached for her.
"Close contest. ~ Karen Marie Moning

I known I'm only a child, yet I know we're all in the this together and should act as one single world towards one single goal ~ Severn Cullis-Suzuki

I feel like I've been known for having long black hair, so when I took all my extensions out and cut my own hair, it was the most freeing thing, I think, I've ever done. That was my 21st year: I cut my hair, I was doing Broadway; I was living in New York, and I was really having a moment of becoming my individual self, and it was amazing. ~ Keke Palmer

Feb 6 1945 St. Ann, Jamaica, Daddy was born. I remember us celebrating one of his birthdays in Jamaica at 56 Hope Road with him, no big superstar party, just us kids, Mommy, some cake, few laughs and that was it. Even if he wasn't known to the world on Feb 6th I would still think of him and in my heart say Happy Birthday Daddy. Love. ~ Ziggy Marley

I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry. ~ John Lewis

How can beauty and ugliness dwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and her face of dislike; disenchanted of the belief that clung around her; known for a living, walking sepulchre, faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt notwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful. ~ George MacDonald

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. ~ Plato

I don't see Hollywood as the big enemy, because this is where the money is, and not all of the companies are doing studio movies. I'm not tempted to sell out. If I'm going to become well known, I want it to be for something I'm proud of. ~ Baltasar Kormakur

Had I been a dictator, I would still be governing. ~ Augusto Pinochet

In April 2002, I saw the Bush family once again during a JJRTC tour similar to the one we had conducted for the Clintons. It was strange to see George W. Bush grown up and president. It took me back to when I first arrived at the White House - a rookie being cued in by old hats. I hoped President Bush could bring back what was so sorely missed and what once existed under his father. Dynasties made me nervous, but I sorely hoped Bush 43 (our forty-third president) would restore the White House to the level of dignity that Papa Bush had promoted. I thought of my own father, the life I led, and what my son might be like. Was I as strong as my father? Had I kept my promise to protect others? Would my children retain their character? I was honored that the new president remembered me and shook my hand, just as his father would have. I asked about Bush 41 (our forty-first president). It was blast. ~ Gary J. Byrne

I probably never would have been hired on Broadway had I not moved out to L.A. and pursued acting and film, which is sad, really. ~ Amy Adams

It was then that I saw the business of writing for what it truly was and is to me. It is your penance for not being lucky. It is an attempt to reach others and to make them love you. It is your instinctive protest, when you find you have no voice at the world's tribunals, and that no one will speak for you. I would give my entire output of words, past, present and to come, in exchange for easier access to the world, for permission to state "I hurt" or " I hate" or " I want". Or indeed, "Look at me". And I do not go back on this. For once a thing is known it can never be unknown. It can only be forgotten. And writing is the enemy of forgetfulness, or thoughtlessness. For the writer there is no oblivion. Only endless memory. ~ Anita Brookner

Now, we are agreed, I and my destinies. The total world, Above, below, whate'er is seen or known, And all that men, and all that gods enact, Hopes, fears, imaginations, purposes; With joy, and pain, and every pulse that beats In the great body of the universe, I give to the eternal sisterhood, To make my peace withal! And cast this husk, This hated, mangled, and dishonour'd carcase Into the balance; so have I redeem'd My proper birthright, even the changeless mind, The imperishable essence uncontroll'd. ~ Hartley Coleridge

I'm thrilled when I get nominated. I don't count how many and I don't remember how many I've had. I just know it's a lot. ~ Meryl Streep

I whirled around, but Edan was gone. I let out an exasperated sigh. Never had I met anyone so insufferably pleased with himself. ~ Elizabeth Lim

It was a time when I imagined getting married in a simple, wishful way. The time when someone promised to take care of you, promised they would notice if you were sad, or tired, or hated food that tasted like the chill of the refrigerator. Who promised their lives would run parallel to yours. My mother must have known and stayed anyway, and what did that mean about love? It was never going to be safe - all the mournful refrains of songs that despaired you didn't love me the way I loved you. ~ Emma Cline

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way." ~ Minnie Louise Haskins

Gert was always of the mind that she wouldn't go to another church except the Catholic Church. So when I would date her in New York City, and later when we went to Oxford before we got married, we always went to the Catholic church. ~ Wesley Clark

The center that I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. ~ W. H. Auden

I can explain nothing to you unless I first draw your attention to patent inadequacies in your knowledge; discontinuities in the relations between objects, or the presence of anomalies you cannot account for by any of the laws known to you. You will remain deaf to my explanations until you suspect yourself of falsehood. ~ James P. Carse

Tomorrow was my second chance to make things right but it never came. I'm sorry I never treasured the time we had for those regrets I take the blame. You gave everything you had. I took without giving back." Sed paused in his song, feeling ridiculous for singing it to her while they made love.
"Baby, you realize this song is about Trey's dead dog, don't you? ~ Olivia Cunning

Every person I have known who has been truly happy has learned how to serve others. ~ Albert Schweitzer

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers. ~ Nat King Cole

Each generation identifies with a small group of people said to have lived lives exemplifying the vices and virtues of that generation. If one were to choose a trial lawyer whose life reflected the unique characteristics of America's "Wild West" of a criminal justice system in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, that person likely would be my father.

New York City of the 1960s until the turn of the 21st century was the world's epicenter of organized and white-collar crime. During those four decades, the most feared mafia chiefs, assassins, counterfeiters, Orthodox Jewish money launderers, defrocked politicians of every stripe, and Arab bankers arriving in the dead of night in their private jets, sought the counsel of one man: my father, Jimmy La Rossa.

Once a Kennedy-era prosecutor, Brooklyn-born Jimmy La Rossa became one of the greatest criminal trial lawyers of his day. He was the one man who knew where all of the bodies were buried, and everyone knew it. It seemed incomprehensible that Jimmy would one day just disappear from New York. Forever.

After stealing my dying father from New York Presbyterian Hospital to a waiting Medevac jet, the La Rossa Boys, as we became known, spent the next five years in a place where few would look for two diehard New Yorkers: a coastal town in the South Bay of Los Angeles, aptly named Manhattan Beach.

While I cooked him his favorite Italian dishes and kept him alive using the most advanced ~ James M. LaRossa Jr.

I have been known for some time as a person who speaks the truth and speaks it strongly. I have always called a liar a liar and a hypocrite a hypocrite. ~ Cindy Sheehan

In the end, I'm not interested in that which I fully understand. The words I have written over the years are just a veneer. There are truths that lie beneath the surface of the words... truths that rise up without warning, like the humps of a sea monster and then disappear. What performance and song is to me is finding a way to tempt the monster to the surface, to create a space, where the creature can break through what is real and what is known to us. This shimmering space, where imagination and reality intersect... this is where all love and tears and joy exist. This is the place. This is where we live. ~ Nick Cave

The world must be romanticized. Only in that way will one rediscover its original senses. Romanticization is nothing less than a qualitative raising of the power of a thing ... I romanticize something when I give the commonplace a higher meaning, the known the dignity of the unknown, and the finite the appearance of the infinite. ~ Novalis

I've always known we were two puzzle pieces that fit together in a hollow that is our pain. There was a time when I was certain we were too damaged not to destroy each other. Now I think we are saving each other. ~ Lisa Renee Jones

If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary; and after one's original conversion, every time one thinks one has made an advance, that is the test to apply. Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in an illness 'feeling better' is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by its results. Christ told us to judge by results. A tree is known by its fruit; or, as we say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The war-time posters told us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world taking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself. ~ C.S. Lewis

my phone rings. I sense my hard-won optimism is about to get a smackdown. The Angel of Death, also known as my mother, Lenore Tate, long-suffering widow and professional pessimist. ~ Kristan Higgins