Left Empty Quotes

As I spoke, I realized I'd held these words in for so long and so tightly that I felt the space they left empty once released. It was vast enough that I could think of nothing to follow them. ~ Sarah Dessen

THE BARROW

In this high field strewn with stones
I walk by a green mound,
Its edges sheared by the plough.
Crumbs of animal bone
Lie smashed and scattered round
Under the clover leaves
And slivers of flint seem to grow
Like white leaves among green.
In the wind, the chestnut heaves
Where a man's grave has been.

Whatever the barrow held
Once, has been taken away:
A hollow of nettles and dock
Lies at the centre, filled
With rain from a sky so grey
It reflects nothing at all.
I poke in the crumbled rock
For something they left behind
But after that funeral
There is nothing at all to find.

On the map in front of me
The gothic letters pick out
Dozens of tombs like this,
Breached, plundered, left empty,
No fragments littered about
Of a dead and buried race
In the margins of histories.
No fragments: these splintered bones
Construct no human face,
These stones are simply stones.

In museums their urns lie
Behind glass, and their shaped flints
Are labelled like butterflies.
All that they did was die,
And all that has happened since
Means nothing to this place.
Above long clouds, the skies
Turn to a brilliant red
And show in the water's face
One living, and not these dead."

- Anthony Thwaite, from The Owl In The Tree ~ Anthony Thwaite

Time lost is time not filled, time left empty. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bad guys are selfish and cruel. All they do is take and take until you're left empty. But a bad boy is different. He can be reckless and a little dangerous, but he challenges you and gets you to take risks. He pushes you beyond what's comfortable and safe, into something exciting and new. It forces you to truly embrace life instead of settling. And sometimes, just sometimes, that bad boy turns out to be a real good man. ~ Stephanie Hoffman McManus

Certain memories, certain thoughts,are holes...holes ripped in you, through which precious things escape and leave you wanting, needing, gaping open. Laughter and belonging and comfort gush out, leaving their tracks but not their substance.
And you are left empty, a skeleton,a shell with wind rushing through you and a sensation of sinking, barely existing... ~ Danielle Younge-Ullman

There aren't any rules to running away from your problems. No checklist of things to cross off. No instructions. Eeny, meeny, pick a path and go. That's how my dad does it anyway because apparently there's no age limit to running away, either. He wakes up one day, packs the car with everything we own, and we hit the road. Watch all the pretty colors go by until he finds a town harmless enough to hide in. But his problems always find us. Sometimes quicker than others. Sometimes one month and sometimes six. There's no rule when it comes to that, either. Not about how long it takes for the problems to catch up with us. Just that they will - that much is a given. And then it's time to run again to a new town, a new home, and a new school for me.

But if there aren't any rules, I wonder why it feels the same every time. Feels like I leave behind a little bit of who I was in each house we've left empty. Scattering pieces of me in towns all over the place. A trail of crumbs dotting the map from everywhere we've left to everywhere we go. And they don't make any pictures when I connect dots. They are random like the stars littering the sky at night. ~ Brian James

We will never have any memory of dying.

We were so patient
about our being,
noting down
numbers, days,
years and months,
hair, and the mouths we kiss,
and that moment of dying
we let pass without a note -
we leave it to others as memory,
or we leave it simply to water,
to water, to air, to time.
Nor do we even keep
the memory of being born,
although to come into being was tumultuous and new;
and now you don't remember a single detail
and haven't kept even a trace
of your first light.

It's well known that we are born.

It's well known that in the room
or in the wood
or in the shelter in the fishermen's quarter
or in the rustling canefields
there is a quite unusual silence,
a grave and wooden moment as
a woman prepares to give birth.

It's well known that we were all born.

But if that abrupt translation
from not being to existing, to having hands,
to seeing, to having eyes,
to eating and weeping and overflowing
and loving and loving and suffering and suffering,
of that transition, that quivering
of an electric presence, raising up
one body more, like a living cup,
and of that woman left empty,
the mother who is left there in her blood
and her lacerated fullness,
and its end and its beginning, and disorder
tumbling the pulse, the floor, the covers
till ev ~ Pablo Neruda

The fact was that one was left empty-handed. There was no system to soothe the unfairness of things; justice was without scope; it might snag the stealer of chickens, but great evasive crimes would have to be dismissed because, if identified and netted, they would bring down the entire structure of so-called civilization. For crimes that took place in the monstrous dealings between nations, for crimes that took place in those intimate spaces between two people without a witness ... ~ Kiran Desai

you treat them like they
have a heart like yours
but not everyone can be as
soft and as tender

you don't see the
person they are
you see the person
they have the potential to be

you give and give till
they pull everything out of you
and leave you empty. ~ Rupi Kaur

Welcome to the Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona that is packed to capacity ... with some patches of seats left empty. ~ George Hamilton

Don't let a stranger that comes to you leave empty handed without food, water, shelter, or word of encouragement. Whether you believe in God or s**t, it's a bad omen when you let a stranger that came to you left empty handed. ~ Uzoma Nnadi

wasn't Lily; it was Craig Simmons, the landscaper. Holding a sweat-stained baseball cap in his hand, the fortyish-something sandy-haired man stood on the front porch, still wearing his work boots, faded jeans and stained T-shirt. "Hello, Ms. Boatman, I just got back from lunch, noticed your car in the back drive and wondered if you had a chance to look through your house. I wanted to make sure everything is all right." "Yes, we went through the house, and nothing seems to be missing." That wasn't entirely true. She had only been to the library and kitchen, but according to Walt, Adam and Bill left empty ~ Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

First, I emptied the closets of your clothes, threw out the bowl of fruit, bruised from your touch, left empty the jars you bought for preserves. The next morning, birds rustled the fruit trees, and later when I twisted a ripe fig loose from its stem, I found it half eaten, the other side already rotting, or-like another I plucked and split open-being taken from the inside: a swarm of insects hollowing it. I'm too late, again, another space emptied by loss. Tomorrow, the bowl I have yet to fill. ~ Natasha Trethewey

How many young people, how many young people of our Europe, whom we have left empty of ideals, who do not have work ... they take drugs, alcohol, or go there to enlist in fundamentalist groups. ~ Pope Francis

The problem is that for women, the average time is just over 14 minutes ... men are left with about 12 minutes during which time they need to think of something to do! ~ Phil McGraw

It should be a matter of honour on the Left to write at least as well, without redundancy or clutter, as its adversaries. ~ Perry Anderson

The witch reached into the picnic basket and pulled out a light brown chamois bag about the size of a playing card. "Maybe this will help you. It'll boost your self-esteem."
Now we're getting somewhere. Riley took the bag and opened it. She looked to the bottom to find ... nothing.
"Ah, it's empty."
"Of course," Ayden replied. "It's up to you to fill it. Find things that mean something to you, that represent times where you've overcome an obstacle, learned something important. Put those items in the bag and they'll help you find your strength. ~ Jana Oliver

Tom Hanks is a huge superstar. And people tell me he's a very nice guy, not arrogant, not an entitlement guy. But very quietly, Mr. Hanks has become a left-wing power player in Hollywood. ~ Bill O'Reilly

Talked my head off
Worked my tail off
Cried my eyes out
Walked my feet off
Sang my heat out
So you see,
There's really not much left of me. ~ Shel Silverstein

Every defeat of the capitalist class is a defeat for fascism. Every time the workers obtain a reduction in their hours of work and a rise in salaries, every time they affirm workers' solidarity by defending a victimised fellow worker, every time they abolish degrading methods of production, every time they achieve a victory over their boss, they win a victory against fascism and pave the way to socialism.

THE LEFT & WORLD WAR II: Selections from the Anarchist Journal 'War Commentary' 1939-1943 ~ Marie Louise Berneri

And eventually there is no one left in the world except people who don't look at other people's faces and who don't know what these pictures mean and these people are all special people like me. And they like being on their own and I hardly ever see them because they are like okapi in the jungle in the Congo, which are a kind of antelope and very shy and rare. And I can go anywhere in the world and I know that no one is going to talk to me or touch me or ask me a question. But if I don't want to go anywhere I don't have to, and I can stay at home and eat broccoli and oranges and licorice laces all the time, or I can play computer games for a whole week, or I can just sit in the corner of the room and rub £1 coin back and forward over the ripple shapes on the surface of the radiator. And I wouldn't have to go to France. ~ Mark Haddon

My Life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships ... I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever-and it has grown with my advancing years-the lonliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope-hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy. Dr Van Helsing to Mia Seward. ~ Bram Stoker

Feelings are best left concealed. They can bite you if you're not careful. They can eat you alive. ~ Alice Hoffman

i'd go out and party
then come home to the moon
an empty home
and cold bed

this was no way to live
i needed more ~ R.H. Sin

I can't impose on my friends for too long. I'm not sure what to do." He tipped her face up and brushed a kiss across her lips. "You'll marry me, of course. As soon as it can be arranged." Her pulse skipped, and she pulled back. "Right away?" His eyes were smiling and full of love. "I'd marry you tomorrow if we could arrange it that quickly." The thought of being a family with him and Edward brought heat rushing to her cheeks. "I'd like that more than anything in the world," she said. "Tell me what to do and I'll arrange it." "There are so many things to do, I don't know where to start," she said, laughing. The smile left his face. "When, my love?" The possessiveness in his voice heated her cheeks even more. "I need at least two weeks. I have to make a dress." "I'll buy you one." "I want to make it. I'll only have one wedding day. ~ Colleen Coble

Why did the room packed with married people seem empty? Because there wasn't a single person there. ~ Various

Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and plates, up and over, in and out, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them. ~ Evelyn Waugh

So, now I am left with two unfortunate facts in my life. Mondays are creepy Chuck day, and even my mother thinks I'm getting desperate in the man department. ~ Lindsay Detwiler

And, in this staunch little portrait, it's hard not to see the human in the finch. Dignified, vulnerable. One prisoner looking at another. But who knows what Fabritius intended? There's not enough of his work left to even make a guess. The bird looks out at us. It's not idealized or humanized. It's very much a bird. Watchful, resigned. There's no moral or story. There's no resolution. There's only a double abyss: between painter and imprisoned bird; between the record he left of the bird and our experience of it, centuries later. ~ Donna Tartt

The only exercise I got as a kid was fork to mouth. Food was equated with love in my household. I thought you left the table when the zipper was down and you'd explode if you took another bite. I'd eat my plate and then everyone else's leftovers. ~ Paul Stanley

It makes the ocean seem inconsequential, the moon unimportant, everything else nonexistent.
It fills all the empty spaces inside him, the ones he didn't know were there, and the ones he thought he'd already filled. And the future is laid plain before him. Their future. ~ Anna Banks

I have dealt with a pretty interesting mix of young people, many of whom have never been involved in any form of politics at any level who are interested in alternatives to austerity and debt, and older people who left the Labour party, mainly over Iraq, who are coming back in. ~ Jeremy Corbyn

I never should have left you. I'll never stop loving you, even if you hate me for walking away. ~ Tara Sivec

Conversation. In Laches, he discusses the meaning of courage with a couple of retired generals seeking instruction for their kinsmen. In Lysis, Socrates joins a group of young friends in trying to define friendship. In Charmides, he engages another such group in examining the widely celebrated virtue of sophrosune, the "temperance" that combines self-control and self-knowledge. (Plato's readers would know that the bright young man who gives his name to the latter dialogue would grow up to become one of the notorious Thirty Tyrants who briefly ruled Athens after its defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War.) None of these dialogues reaches definite conclusions. They end in aporia, contradictions or other difficulties. The Socratic dialogues are aporetic: his interlocutors are left puzzled about what they thought they knew. Socrates's cross-examination, or elenchus, exposes their ignorance, but he exhorts his fellows to ~ Plato

Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender. ~ William H. Whyte

Our party cannot be all things to all people. It can't be. Our loudest opponents on the left are never going to like us so let's stop trying to curry favor with them. ~ Rick Perry

I felt like the Last Man, neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in mid-heaven, a forgotten relic of a vanished world. ~ Mark Twain

Fanfare for the Makers

A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?
To the small fire that never leaves the sky.
To the great fire that boils the daily pot.

To all the things we are not remembered by,
Which we remember and bless. To all the things
That will not notice when we die,

Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.

So fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many who do run, as a family grows

At times like sunflowers turning towards the light.
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night.

As sometimes one man's kindness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades

Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them, as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes

And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest greenprint when the lives began

Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counter assault,

As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite

In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
The ~ Louis MacNeice

We've come a long way, we've come a long way and we never even left L.A. ~ Michelle Shocked

She lifted her lantern high, and he allowed her to free him from the shadows, casting his face in warm, golden light. He had aged marvelously, grown into his long limbs and angled face. Penelope had always imagined that he'd become handsome, but he was more than handsome now... he was nearly beautiful.
If not for the darkness that lingered despite the glow of the lantern- something dangerous in the set of his jaw, in the tightness of his brow, in eyes that seemed to have forgotten joy, in lips that seemed to have lost their ability to smile.
He'd had a dimple as a child, one that showed itself often and was almost always the precursor to adventure. She searched his left cheek, looking for that telltale indentation. Did not find it.
Indeed, as much as Penelope searched this new, hard face, she could not seem to find the boy she'd once known. If not for the eyes, she would not have believed it was him at all.
"How sad," she whispered to herself.
He heard it. "What?"
She shook her head, meeting his gaze, the only thing familiar about him. "He's gone."
"Who?"
"My friend."
She hadn't thought it possible, but his features hardened even more, growing more stark, more dangerous, in the shadows. For one fleeting moment, she thought perhaps she had pushed him too far. He remained still, watching her with that dark gaze that seemed to see everything. ~ Sarah MacLean

Growing up, I considered [my dad] to be an exemplar of fidelity. For instance, he didn't believe in removing his wedding ring, no matter what. Whenever he washed his hands, he would thoroughly scrub his right hand, then align his two ring fingers tip to tip, slide the ring from his left ring finger to his right, then scrub his left hand. ~ Steven Rinella

Sometimes it is easier to feel the veins wilted and empty than to sense the coldness of blood in fear ~ Munia Khan

Be careful not to hurt people, they can begin to love you less. The pain you cause can chisel their hearts, until there's nothing left. ~ Brigitte Nicole

Away

There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share.
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over;
Flowers preen their beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there. ~ Walter De La Mare

He felt the heat blasting from the vents of the Jeep and he gave a lot of grateful thought to the fact that he was finally in a comfortable enough place to fall asleep, not driving a stolen car and not sleeping in said stolen car in a copse of trees in twelve-degree weather; not in an unfamiliar bed that smelled like someone else; not in the series of try-hard cots in the Interim Room at Lathrop House but instead in the soft bucket seat of a Jeep that smelled like someone he knew; homeward bound, God what a queer thing to say but he hardly had the wherewithal to correct himself, so heavy were his eyelids, his head full of newfound knowledge, his belly full of egg rolls, and he didn't even notice falling asleep; he just drifted off, Wendy to his left, because he knew, somehow, that she'd get them home. ~ Claire Lombardo

As a kid I had a dream - I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed. ~ John Lennon

As long as my sixth graders showed an average improvement of five years, the principal and district pretty much left me alone to create my own curriculum and teach whatever I wanted. ~ Dan Simmons

I came here to escape. You know that, I told him. Why didn't you rescue me from those awful people? I hate people.
I told you they wouldn't snub you.
I only want to be left in peace.
They can't do that. It's snubs or kisses with that bunch. I guessed it would be kisses today. ~ D.E. Stevenson

Gap...
A gesture, incomplete!
Something unfinished,
Left. A trust of heart, Faith!


Hope...
A few Stories yet to be completed!
Perhaps. A side yet to be unfolded,
Filled, completed... Finished! ~ Tahreem Rahat

People don't shake a dirty hand particularly when it is empty ~ M.F. Moonzajer

Don't you see?" She addressed the entire room. "We either fight here and win, or die trying, because there won't be anything left if we fail. This is the moment. This is the crucial point where the future of yet unborn generations will be decided either by our action or inaction. For centuries to come, people will look back at this time and rejoice at our courage or curse our weakness." She looked directly at Royce now. "For we have the power. Here. Now. In this place. We have the power to alter the course of history and we will be forever damned should we not so much as try! ~ Michael J. Sullivan

You are so addicted and you have become so habituated that you cannot allow the cup to be empty even for a single moment. The moment you see emptiness anywhere you start filling it. You are so scared of emptiness, you are so afraid.: emptiness appears like death. You will fill it with anything, but you will fill it. ~ Rajneesh

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again. ~ Jane Austen

I wonder if we name storms because naming is the only power we're left with. ~ Paige Lewis

When the sky explodes, trees will be left standing on their head, and you shall marvel at the color of their sorrow as you gaze up at the sky above. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

The welts and scars left behind were pieces of me. ~ Rae Z. Ryans

What do you want me to do?" Amy repeated, then added. "Is there any pizza left in that box?"
Ambrosia shook her head. "You want me to order pizza?"
With all my freaking heart," Amy said, smiling. "Think of it as the last supper. Oh, and ask for extra bacon and cheese, okay. I've been craving bacon like you wouldn't believe. ~ Patti Roberts

She knew that he would stop her. Perhaps he would be cunning about it. Maybe he would go to the steward behind her back, tell him of the theft and challenge, and ask to be brought before the judge and Irex. If that plan didn't suit Arin, he would find another.
He was going to be a problem.
"You're right," she told him.
Arin blinked, then narrowed his eyes.
"In fact," she continued, "if you had let me explain, I would have told you that I had already decided to call off the duel."
"You have."
She showed him the two letters. The one addressed to her father was on top. She let the mere edge of the other letter show. "One is for my father, telling him what has happened. The other is for Irex, making my apologies and inviting him to collect his five hundred gold pieces whenever he likes."
Arin still looked skeptical.
"He'll also collect you, of course. Knowing him, he'll have you whipped until you're unconscious and even after that. I'm sure that when you wake up, you'll be very glad that I decided to do exactly as you wanted."
Arin snorted.
"If you doubt me, you're welcome to walk with me to the barracks to watch as I give my father's letter to a soldier, with orders for its swift delivery."
"I think I will." He opened the library door.
They left the house and crossed the hard ground. Kestrel shivered. She hadn't stopped to fetch a cloak. She couldn't risk that Arin would change his mind.
When they entered the barra ~ Marie Rutkoski

This book is a compilation of the stories of eight gay and lesbian people that left straight marriages and came out as gay. Six of the eight have children. Each story is different. I wrote the book to help those people going through this difficult transition to help them realize they are not alone and that their lives will be much better once they are true to themselves and their families. ~ Michael Testa