Kyung Sook Shin Quotes

When he came home with the traditional gift of underwear bought with his first paycheck, she barely looked at it, and coldly shot at him, "What about what you were going to be? ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

I have so many dreams of my own, and I remember things from my childhood, from when I was a girl and a young woman, and I haven't forgotten a thing. So why did we think of Mom as a mom from the very beginning? She didn't have the opportunity to pursue her dreams, and all by herself, faced everything the era dealt her, poverty and sadness, and she couldn't do anything about her very bad lot in life other than suffer through it and get beyond it and live her life to the very best of her ability, giving her body and her heart to it completely. Why did I never give a thought to Mom's dreams? ~ Shin Kyung-sook

I walked behind my father on the way to her headstone, he looked like a house that was caving in. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Maybe if we hug a hundred strangers, he said, something will change. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Yes, I had turned a deaf ear to my girlhood with my silence. It was a time when I was unable to love myself, so I had to go from fifteen straight to twenty. Whether I started walking out of my past or walked into it from the present, my footprints always came to a stop in the same place. I would go from being fifteen to twenty, or go from being twenty to fifteen, If I set out from the past, I had to ignore sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and skip straight to twenty. If I set out from the present, I had to ignore nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, and skip straight to fifteen. Those years always remained vacant, like naked sunlight, like the well with its bottom completely covered. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

I used to think that sharing secrets always brought people closer. So I revealed secrets I did not want known in order to feel closer to someone. Oh, the loss I felt when I found out the secrets that I had held dear, that were so difficult to say out loud, that I had kept to myself, were being spread around the next day as if they were nothing! I think that was the moment I realized that pouring your heart out to someone might not bring you closer but in fact make you poorer instead. I even though maybe growing close to someone was better achieved by empathizing in silence. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

as heavy as the load we shoulder is the world that we tread upon. Earthbound beings unfortunately cannot break free of gravity. Life demands sacrifice and difficult decisions from us at every moment. Living does not mean passing through a void of nothingness but rather through a web of relationships among beings, each with their own weight and volume and texture. Insofar as everything is always changing, so our sense of hope shall never die out. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

It seems that whether we are aware of it or not, memory carries a dagger in its breast. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

You left this house whenever you wanted to, and came back at your whim, and you never once thought that your wife would be the one to leave. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

We may be the protagonists of tragedy, but we are also the heroes of our most beautiful and thrilling experiences. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

The future rushes in and all we can do is take our memories and move forward with them. Memory keeps only what it wants. Images from memories are sprinkled throughout our lives, but that does not mean we must believe that our own or other people's memories are of things that really happened. When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, I take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. Yet as imperfect as memories are, whenever I am faced with one, I cannot help getting lost in thought. Especially when that memory reminds me of what it felt like to be always out of place and always a step behind. Why was it so hard for me to open my eyes every morning, why was I so afraid to form a relationship with anyone, and why was I nevertheless able to break down my walls and find him? ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

She said that cats were more attached to places than to people. And that was why cats are often found in abandoned houses. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Until last fall, you thought you knew your mom well-what your Mom like, what you had to do to appease her when she was angry, what she wanted to hear... But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest...Maybe you'd become a guest even before then, when you moved to the city. After you left home, your mom never scolded you. Before, Mom would reprimand you harshly if you did something even remotely wrong. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Architects have to know everything there is to know about a space. You have to know its past and present. That way you can build its future. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

You should only ask someone if they love you if you love them, regardless of what the answer might be. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Life is sometimes amazingly fragile, but some lives are frighteningly strong. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Try thinking of sleep as a kind of rebirth. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Now I know that anytime you see a "no trespassing" sign, it means you've got to go in and take a look. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

One thing i am sure of is that our brief conversation in the dark showed him who i really am. I am a dumb fuck. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

I guess saying goodbye makes us reach out for those we would ordinarily ignore. Maybe we care about them more, too, when it is time to part. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

How far back does one's memory of someone go? ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

The first thing she did after she found out she was sick was to send me to live with my older female cousin in the city. I was in middle school at the time. For my mother, sending me away was her way of loving me. She said I was too young to be tied down to a sick mother and that I had too much to live for. Everybody has to say goodbye eventually, she told me, so you may as well start practicing. I cannot say she was right. I think that if we all have to say goodbye eventually then the best we can do is try to stay together as long as we possibly can. But it's not that one of us was right and the other was wrong. We just saw things differently. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

You realize how selfish you were to wish that your wife survived you. It was your selfishness that made you deny that your wife had a serious illness. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

People say that when a baby is crying the paternal grandmother will say, "The baby is crying, you should feed her," and the maternal grandmother will say, "Why is that baby crying so much, making her mom so tired? ~ Shin Kyung-sook

If you only do what you like, who's going to do what you don't like? ~ Shin Kyung-sook

I'm trying to think about what I can do. But instead all that comes to mind are the things I can't do. How do we judge truth and goodness? Where are justice and righteousness hiding? A society that is violent or corrupt prohibits mutual communication. A society that fears communication is unable to solve any problem. It looks for someone to shift the responsibility to and turns even more violent. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Only after Mom went missing did you realize that her stories were piled inside you, in endless stacks. Mom's everyday life used to go on in a repeating loop, without a break. Her everyday words, which you didn't think deeply about and sometimes dismissed as useless when she was with you, awoke in your heart, creating tidal waves. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Viewing the world from a different angle made it all look strange and dynamic, as if seeing it for the first time. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Do you know what happens to all the things we did together in the past? When I asked my daughter this, although it was you I wanted to ask, my daughter said, "It's so strange to hear you say something like this, Mom," and asked, "Wouldn't they have seeped into the present, not disappeared?" What difficult words! Do you understand what that means? She says that all the things that have happened are actually in the present, that old things are all mixed in with current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it's just that we can't feel it. But now I can't go on. Do ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

To you, Mom was always Mom. It never occurred to you that she had once taken her first step, or had once been three or twelve or twenty years old. Mom was Mom. She was born as Mom. Until you saw her running to your uncle like that, it hadn't dawned on you that she was a human being who harbored the exact same feeling you had for your own brothers, and this realization led to the awareness that she, too, had had a childhood. From then on, you sometimes thought of Mom as a child, as a girl, as a young woman, as a newlywed, as a mother who had just given birth to you. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

He looked so silly that I could not stop laughing, even as my tears kept flowing. Is the root of laughter also sorrow? As I laughed, I was filled with both joy and sorrow. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

You never wondered, Did Mom like being in the kitchen? ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

I though it was weird to see people sleeping. It scared me to see them with their eyes closed. Like they might never wake up again. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

i can't wait for the years to pass Jung Yoon, he said in hollow voice. Can't wait to be older, when i will understand, even if i can't forgive. Can't wait to become strong. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Even though nobody knew that you were in my life, you were the person who brought a raft at every rapid current and helped me cross that water safely. I was happy that you were there. I came to tell you I was able to travel through my life because I could come to you when I was anxious, not when I was happy. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Everyone has his or her own means of defining value. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

The boy's walk was as distinct as hers. He looked like someone who walked on air, rather than someone who lived with his feet on the ground. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Leave her be," he said. "She'll stop when she's ready. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

That your wife truly loved the world, and that you loved her. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

The thought of life without her makes me feel like I'm trapped inside a cave. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Each time i thought about him, the idea that i would never be able to reach him spread through my mind like a shadow. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

If there were no sea between you and me...there wouldn't be this painful goodbye ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

If your wife had asked you to read her the novel, would you have read it to her? Before she went missing, you spent your days without thinking about her. When you did think about her, it was to ask her to do something, or to blame her or ignore. Habit can be a frightening thing. You spoke politely with others, but your words turned sullen toward your wife. Sometimes you even cursed at her. You acted as if it had been decreed that you couldn't speak politely to your wife. That's what you did. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Myungsuh scratched his head and smiled. It was a bashful smile, but it spread from ear to ear. You couldn't help but smile, too, when you saw it. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

My brothers were still catching sparrows when my cousin told me to give him the baby bird. I didn't want to, but I took the squirming bird out of my pocket anyway. I wanted another look at it. It was so small. I don't think it could fly yet. My cousin plucked the bird from my palm and went off with it. I should never have taken it out of my pocket. When he returned, the birds were all burnt to a crisp. Their bones were popping out of their skin. I couldn't even tell which of the birds was mine. I looked at their burnt feathers and blackened skin and burst into tears. I cried for him to give me back my bird, but it was too late. My yelling must have irritate him, because he grabbed the smallest one and shoved it in my face, and said, 'Here it is.' When I took that charred baby bird from him, I felt the world crash down on me. It was the first time I had ever held something that had died. I love you as much as the sorrow I felt. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

When someone stubbornly insists that they saw something with their own eyes, i take it as a statement mixed with wishful thinking. As what they want to believe. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Without even having to think about it, I said, "I hope you all have someone who always makes you want to say, Let's remember this day forever." The students oohed and aahed, and then laughed at each other's reactions. I laughed with them. "Also..." They'd thought I was done but they quieted down again. "I hope you will never hesitate to say, I'll be right there. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

How can you live without trusting people? There are more people who are good than people who are bad! ~ Shin Kyung-sook

We each get one life that is our own. We each in our own way struggle to get ahead, love, grieve, and lose our loved ones to death. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

If you don't want to cook, you should try throwing a dish. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Nature reminds me that I am human. Nature reminds me that I am a weak being, standing with my feet, upon thus perilous Earth. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

He said that the plane was too fast, that his body had arrived fast. That he was just ill because his soul could not keep pace with the speed of the plane and was still on its way home, and he would feel better once his soul had caught up. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

She says that all the things that have happened are actually in the present, that old things are all mixed up in current things, and current things mingle with future things, and future things are combined with old things; it's just that we can't feel it. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

But last fall, your belief that you knew her was shattered. You went for a visit without announcing it beforehand, and you discovered that you had become a guest. Mom was continually embarrassed about the messy yard or the dirty blankets. At one point, she grabbed a towel from the floor and hung it, and when food dropped on the table, she picked it up quickly. She took a look at what she had in the fridge, and even though you tried to stop her, she went to the market. If you are with family, you needn't feel embarrassed about leaving the table uncleared after a meal and going to do something else. You realized you'd become a stranger as you watched Mom try to conceal her messy everyday life. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

I had no way of knowing where it began or where it ended. Only that it flowed without restraint. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Growing old does not make us any better at loving one another or understanding the meaning of life or death. Nor does knowledge come with the passage of time. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

your and your wife's fingers and toes after your deaths. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Life demands sacrifice and difficult decisions from us at every moment. Living does not mean passing through a void of nothingness but rather through a web of relationships among beings, each with their own weight and volume and texture. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

Full of questions and pleas, her eyes seemed to be asking for rescue. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Taking his hand and letting it go was my way of saying goodbye. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

The trust that had been building inside each of us spread throughout the classroom. Had one of the windows broken at that moment, not even the sound of breaking glass could have disturbed the gentle stillness. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

He laughed and said, I don't believe it either but i want to believe it! ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

I wanted to write not because I thought writing would bring about change. I simply loved it. Writing, in itself, allowed me to dream about things that in reality were impossible to achieve, things that were forbidden. From where had that dream seeped in? I consider myself as a member of society. If I can dream through my writing, doesn't that mean the society can dream, too? Oppa. When I think about writing, I think I am reminded of the penetrating eyes of a dog gazing at his master. The beauty of the face in those eyes, the sadness that comes from submitting to love, the silence that comes from having seen what it should not have. ~ Shin Kyung-sook

A house is such a strange thing. Everything else gets more worn when people handle it, and sometimes you can feel a person's poison if you get too close to him, but that's not what happens to a house. Even a good house falls apart quickly when nobody stops by. A house is alive only when there are people living in it, brushing against it, staying in it. ~ Kyung-Sook Shin

Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell a C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "beauty," yet here she is, in these soundproof chambers of my heart. ~ David Mitchell

Eating is an absolute, repetitive activity. The same as love. Once you start you can't stop. So if you can't eat when you're hungry, it's worse than being stricken with the gravest illness. ~ Kyung-ran Jo

Sport can be used for messaging, for example, making the connections between shin guards or a helmet that protects you, and protection in terms of HIV and AIDS. There has also been a very active program in Africa called 'Kick Polio out of Africa,' where soccer players have spoken out in terms of polio. There is also going to be a swim for malaria. ~ Carol Bellamy

Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help practitioners realize unification of mind and body. Besides yoga, it is a synthesis of methods, influenced by Japanese meditation, healing arts, and martial arts; along with Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan, although it is almost unknown in other countries. Through its principles of mind and body coordination people have an opportunity to realize their full potential in everyday life.A remarkable man created this path, and he led an equally remarkable life. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story. ~ H.E. Davey

Shin: a device for finding things in the dark. ~ Madison Nevil

If we fail to realize our full potential as human beings, we live more on an animalistic level. This is fine for dogs, cats, and chimpanzees but doesn't work quite so well for women and men. Without the capacity to freely shape our own lives, much as a sculptor might carve stone, we inevitably slip into negativity and depression. ~ H.E. Davey

Abruptly, she yanked the covers over her crippled one, hiding it from him.
Tohr marched right back over to her, and resolutely pulled the duvet back where it had been. Tracing the badly healed wounds with his fingertips, he met her squarely in the eye.
"You're beautiful. Every inch of you. Don't think for a moment there's anything wrong with you. We clear?"
"But-"
"Nope. I'm not hearing that." Bending down he pressed his lips to her shin, her calf, her ankle, tracing the scars, caressing them. "Beautiful. All of you."
"How can you say that," she whispered blinking back tears.
"Because it's the truth."Straightening, he gave her a final squeeze. "No hiding from me, okay. And after I feed you, I think I'm going to have to show you just how serious I am."
That made her smile ... then laugh a little.
"That's my girl." he murmured. ~ J.R. Ward

Dekker kicked out, connecting with my left shin, and I dropped him for a second. That was all the time he needed to grab a weapon. Without thinking I pulled out a similar item for the box. And that was how we ended up fighting a duel with plastic lightsabers. We must have looked strange - two middle aged men slashing away at each other with toy swords complete with sound effects. ~ Leslie Langtry

It is just a matter of time,' Shin told me, before North Korea decides to destroy the camps. 'I hope that the United States, through pressure and persuasion, can convince [the North Korean government] not to murder all those people in the camps. ~ Blaine Harden

The young should not think of themselves as immature and the elderly need not view themselves as feeble. Our minds control our bodies. Have no age, transcend both past and future, and enter into naka-ima - the eternal present. ~ H.E. Davey

Thank you," she said, running her foot over his shin, "for loving me enough to let me fight my own battles. ~ Nalini Singh

Just as there's usually a space or interval between people passing on the street, even if it sometimes seems very small, a space also exists between thoughts. In your meditation, see if you can perceive this gap between thoughts. What is it, and does it belong to the realm of time? If it does not, then it's unborn and undying, beyond all conditioning, which is a psychological carry-over from the past to the present.

Whatever thoughts or internal conflicts come up - do nothing. Do not try to force them to cease or change. And don't "do nothing" to still the mind, quiet fears, or resolve conflicts - all of this is doing something. It only leads to more struggling and prevents you from seeing the actual nature of thought and internal conflict. Genuine attention has no motive.

This observation or listening doesn't involve effort. Effort merely distracts you from what's taking place in the instant. A kind of concentration exists that's not forced. We've all experienced listening or paying attention to something we truly enjoyed. At that moment, was effort required for concentration to take place? ~ H.E. Davey

Yes, yes," Gee Sook said. "Look how Jung stands like a man today. ~ Wayson Choy

The bragging was the worst. I hear this in schools all over the country, in cafés and restaurants, in bars, on the Internet, for Pete's sake, on buses, on sidewalks: Women yammering about how little they eat. Oh, I'm Starving, I haven't eaten all day, I think I'll have a great big piece of lettuce, I'm not hungry, I don't like to eat in the morning (in the afternoon, in the evening, on Tuesdays, when my nails aren't painted, when my shin hurts, when it's raining, when it's sunny, on national holidays, after or before 2 A.M.). I heard it in the hospital, that terrible ironic whine from the chapped lips of women starving to death, But I'm not hun-greeee. To hear women tell it, we're never hungry. We live on little Ms. Pac-Man power pellets. Food makes us queasy, food makes us itchy, food is too messy, all I really like to eat is celery. To hear women tell it we're ethereal beings who eat with the greatest distaste, scraping scraps of food between our teeth with our upper lips curled.

For your edification, it's bullshit. ~ Marya Hornbacher

This is absurd," Colin grumbled. "At this rate, we'll arrive next Tuesday."
"Stop talking. Start moving." Bram nudged a sheep with his boot, wincing as he did. With his leg already killing him, the last thing he needed was a pain in the arse, but that's exactly what he'd inherited, along with all his father's accounts and possessions: responsibility for his wastrel cousin, Colin Sandhurst, Lord Payne.
He swatted at another sheep's flank, earning himself an indignant bleat and a few inches more.
"I have an idea," Colin said.
Bram grunted, unsurprised. As men, he and Colin were little more than strangers. But during the few years they'd overlapped at Eton, he recalled his younger cousin as being just full of ideas. Ideas that had landed him shin-deep in excrement. Literally, on at least one occasion.
Colin looked from Bram to Thorne and back again, eyes keen. "I ask you, gentlemen. Are we, or are we not, in possession of a great quantity of black powder? ~ Tessa Dare

He didn't know if she was awake or asleep, but he felt her heart beating and the further pulse of it in her hands when he held them. He felt the ridge of her shin against his, the softness of her thigh. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt deeply comforted by her skin, her warmth, and the way she always let him in. The things he most loved about holding on to Alice were the same. The feel of a body he trusted. ~ Ann Brashares

And someone else wrote me, "What I want is to know your own experience of illness."

Why the interest?

People on their ailments are not always interesting, far from it. But we all hope for a - must I say the word - recipe, we all believe, however much we know we shouldn't, that maybe somebody's got that recipe and can show us how not to be sick, suffer and die. ~ Nan Shin

I wasn't scared (during his first at-bat). I just told them (Mo Vaughn & Kevin Mitchell') to give me all that hockey equipment (forearm pad & shin guard respectively). ~ Roger Clemens

The latter. She had a good run, Sook said, doing a little shrug. It was his usual response to death at Mapleshade, and it was a safe bet that he felt that way about himself. Like most twice-widowed, Korea-vet, nature-loving, gun-enthusiast, bilingual, weed-connoisseur great grandfathers of five, he'd lived a full life. ~ Lisa Lutz

Let him who thinks war is a glorious, golden thing, who loves to roll forth stirring words of exhortation, invoking honour and praise and valour and love of country … Let him but look at a little pile of sodden grey rags that cover half a skull and a shin-bone and what might have been its ribs, or at this skeleton lying on its side, resting half crouching as it fell, perfect that it is headless, and with the tattered clothing still draped round it; and let him realize how grand and glorious a thing it is to have distilled all youth and joy and life into a fetid heap of hideous putrescence! Who is there who has known and seen who can say that victory is worth the death of even one of these? ~ Wade Davis

It's not important whether someone is a gourmet. Everyone wants to eat and knows that food is crucial to live. But everyone has his own special reaction toward food. One person can become so excited about a certain dish that his eyes sparkle and his muscles harden, while someone else shovels in the same dish without paying any thought to what he's eating. A gourmet appreciates beauty. Gourmets eat slowly and thoughtfully experience taste - they don't rush through a meal and leave the table as soon as they're done. People who are not gourmets don't see cooking as an art. Gourmandism is an interested in everything that can be eaten, and this deep affection for food birthed the art of cooking. Other animals have limited tastes, some eating only plants and others subsisting solely on but, but humans are omnivores. They can eat everything. Love for delicious food is the first emotion gourmets feel. Sometimes that love can't be thwarted, not by anything. ~ Kyung-ran Jo

Those who seek death shall live. Those who seek life shall die. ~ Yi Sun-sin

Nine-year-old Laila rose from bed, as she did most mornings, hungry for the sight of her friend Tariq. This morning, however, she knew there would be no Tariq sighting.
- How long will you be gone? - She'd asked when Tariq had told her that his parents were
taking him south, to the city of Ghazni, to visit his paternal uncle.
- Thirteen days
- Thirteen days?
- It's not so long. You're making a face, Laila.
- I am not.
- You're not going to cry, are you?
- I am not going to cry! Not over you. Not in a thousand years.
She'd kicked at his shin, not his artificial but his real one, and he'd playfully whacked
the back of her head.
Thirteen days. Almost two weeks. And, just five days in, Laila had learned a fundamental truth about time: Like the accordion on which Tariq's father sometimes played old Pashto songs, time stretched and contracted depending on Tariq's absence or presence. ~ Khaled Hosseini

She was not unacquainted with these sudden shocking illuminations, but they were among those experiences which are ever-new - like love, orgasms, or barking your shin. You never really got used to them.

This one wasn't the light that cleaves the darkness, the one bright shining truth that slashes through the murk and banishes all doubt, the divine radiance that heals all wounds before plodding Father Time gets his boots on. She had no faith in those counterfeit notions, though it wasn't the thing itself that was false. It was the yearning for it - the yearning that must cleave to something (anything) because it was bright, not because it was true; that confused letting go with running away; that believed healing was the mere dead absence of pain. ~ Owen R. O'Neill

I do a lot of dancing. I don't like to run much because I get shin splints. I love being outside so I do a lot of hiking. It's very good for toning. I also do lots of light weights. ~ Julianne Hough

Sixsmith,

Eva. Because her name is a synonym for temptation: what treads nearer to the core of man? Because her soul swims in her eyes. Because I dream of creeping through the velvet folds to her room, where I let myself in, hum her a tune so-so-so softly, she stands with her naked feet on mine, her ear to my heart, and we waltz like string puppets. After that kiss, she says, "Vous embrassez comme un poisson rouge!" and in moonlight mirrors we fall in love with our youth and beauty. Because all my life, sophisticated, idiotic women have taken it upon themselves to understand me, to cure me, but Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "be ~ David Mitchell

Being unhappy means ... Even if you want to love, because of a scar, you can't. Even though you don't want to be alone, because of that scar, you can't help but be alone. Even in bright sunshine, alone, you feel like you are lost in dark darkness. ~ Min Sook Lee

At ten I asked my mother if I could start shaving my legs. My dark shin fur was hard to ignore in shorts weather, ~ Tina Fey

The corridor was still empty of all the feet in sad generations seeking water. yet the eyes unseeing clenched like teeth not disbelieving doubting even the absence of pain shin ankle knee the long invisible flowing of the stair-railing where a misstep in the darkness filled with sleeping Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury door I am not afraid only Mother Father Caddy Jason Maury geting so far ahead sleeping I will sleep fast when I door Door door It was empty too, the pipes, the porcelain, the stained quiet walls, the throne of contemplation. ~ William Faulkner

After losing four of his children and his wife to cholera five years ago, Shin found that he could not speak much about loss. Everything a person said sounded glib and foolish. ~ Min Jin Lee

He cleared his throat. "I did get carried away with you. Couldn't help myself. And when I said it wouldn't happen again ... " He risked skimming his fingers up her smooth shin. "I hope I lied. ~ Tracy March

I would contend that it is more accurate to say there's no good person or evil person among those who die...Many [Shin commentaries] say the good person relies on self-power in an effort to achieve birth in the Pure Land, while the evil person does not operate in that way. Various explanations are brought forth, but the peaceful composure of the faces of the dead are completely oblivious to these weary arguments. ~ Shinmon Aoki

After a while of watching me, he stands and punches me in the face. "If you punch me back, you will be sent home, Pixie." I kick him in the shin. He limps away, laughing like a drunk Uncle Narol. I'm not sent home. ~ Pierce Brown

You'll love Philadelphia," she said. "But watch out for the ladies who are putting on your shin-dig. There's a romance writing group near here in Erie, and let me just say - we've been called out to a few of their parties. Some of those chicks are decently hard-core. ~ K.C. Dyer