Lost Myself Quotes

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage -
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. ~ Sylvia Plath

I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway. ~ Terry Pratchett

I clap so that I can hold on to this feeling. I clap because I know what will happen when I stop. It's the same thing that happens when I turn off a really good movie - one that I've lost myself to - which is that I'll be thrown back to my own reality and something hollow will settle in my chest. ~ Gayle Forman

And babe, when I kissed you and you kissed me back, not knowing that the fuck you were doin' but doin' it anyway, not carin', just feelin', I fuckin' lost myself in that kiss. Couldn't remember ever losin' myself in a kiss until then.
That fuckin' kiss, Eva, has gotten me through some pretty bad nights. That fuckin' kiss reminds me that life ain't all bad. ~ Madeline Sheehan

I'd lost myself somewhere along the way, and maybe my subconscious was telling me it was time I found that person again, because I sure as hell wasn't happy with who I'd become. ~ A.L. Jackson

I had totally lost my way. I lost focus. I lost myself. ~ Britney Spears

I lost myself in finding you, nothing has made me feel so wasted ever. ~ Nigar Siddiqui

I was a girl, I learned, who got what she wanted, but not without sadness, not without cutting a swath of destruction so wide it consumed my family. I almost fell into it, with them. I almost lost myself. ~ Anton DiSclafani

He drove his hips forward, connecting our bodies. For a second, time stopped. We were all that was left. He broke the kiss and stared down at me, unspoken questions in his eyes.

My heard pounded against my ribs as I lost myself in the ocean of his eyes. "You're mine," I whispered, wonder in my voice.

He nodded slowly, his hand caressing my cheek. "I am. ~ Lisa Kessler

There are times when I worry that I've already lost myself. That is, that my self is so inseparable from being with you that if we were to separate, I would no longer be. I save this thought for when I feel the darkest discontent. I never meant to depend so much on someone else. ~ David Levithan

I only saw glimpses of the real world around me. Reality dissolved beneath the press of his lips against mine. I lost myself. In that moment there was We...
He enveloped me. I felt his strength. He seemed gigantic to me. And yet gentle. His breath was inside me. I tasted what he tasted like. All the scents of that instant cascaded upon me. His sweet. The roses. The nectar of the feeders. The wood that hat hammered into with nails. The sweet raspberries on his mouth. ~ Dan Skinner

and there was a birthday present waiting to be read, a boxed set of the Narnia books, which I took upstairs. I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway. My ~ Neil Gaiman

Once upon a time
I fell in love
Lost myself
And find another one. ~ Arzum Uzun

I lost myself trying to find happiness in things that didn't love me back. ~ Sarah Addison Allen

I also remember my own smugness… that somehow, because I was so careful and well behaved - the attentive listening, the regular sex, my self-appointed role as #1 Fan of Adam Carver - our marriage was insulated. That what happened to those other foolish couples would never happen to us because I was so on guard against it. I lost myself in becoming Adam's wife, and later, the girls' mother. I forgot to be a person, too, a person who was well within her rights to say, "I'm too tired, tonight, honey. How about a back rub instead? I would really appreciate it. ~ Kristan Higgins

I quickly lost track of time. I forgot that my avatar was sitting in Halliday's bedroom and that, in reality, I was sitting in my hideout, huddled near the electric heater, tapping at the empty air in front of me, entering commands on an imaginary keyboard. All of the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself in the game within the game. In ~ Ernest Cline

You said you have faith in us. You told me to come to you when I was ready to be fearless. The truth is, I don't know if I can be fearless. I've lost myself, Reid, and I'm still so scared.
But I'm ready to try. If you still want to, I'm ready. ~ Tammara Webber

I lost myself in her eyes then found my future in her heart. ~ R.H. Sin

I have often lost myself in the sea, ears full of newly cut flowers, tongue full of love and agony. ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

I'm not sure what happened to me over the last few days. I lost myself, I think. I sank down into a hole for a while. They're tricky things, holes. You don't know you're in one until you get out. ~ Kevin Brooks

All I've ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I've ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching.
I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness. ~ Fernando Pessoa

They're going to say I lost my mind they won't know I'm becoming more myself than I've ever been. ~ Nitya Prakash

All the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself in the game within the game. ~ Ernest Cline

I feel like I have lost myself. I want to find the "Me" that went away with you. The part of me that loved so unceasingly without condition. The part of me that loved the way you taught me how to love. The part of me that felt more real than I ever felt before. No one seems to find that "Me" and I can't find Me either. ~ Kate McGahan

I became so consumed with trying to live up to what the public expected that I lost myself. I don't know of anyone else who can say this. ~ Victoria Principal

You're what gives me strength. If I am what centers you, Nikki, then you are what anchors me. Every time I touch you, every time I bury myself deep inside you - Nikki, don't you see?
You are the talisman of my life, and if I lose my grip on you, then I have lost myself. ~ J. Kenner

Lilac Wine"

I lost myself on a cool damp night
Gave myself in that misty light
Was hypnotized by a strange delight
Under a lilac tree
I made wine from the lilac tree
Put my heart in its recipe
It makes me see what I want to see...
And be what I want to be
When I think more than I want to think
Do things I never should do
I drink much more that I ought to drink
Because I brings me back you...

Lilac wine is sweet and heady, like my love
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, like my love
Listen to me... I cannot see clearly
Isn't that she coming to me nearly here?

Lilac wine is sweet and heady where's my love?
Lilac wine, I feel unsteady, where's my love?

Listen to me, why is everything so hazy?
Isn't that she, or am I just going crazy, dear?

Lilac Wine, I feel unready for my love... ~ Nina Simone

Clothes used to perplex me. I could never understand how to piece together an outfit the way Warner did. I thought it was a science I'd never crack; a skill beyond my grasp. But I'm realizing now that my problem was that I never knew who I was; I didn't understand how to dress the imposter living in my skin. What did I like? How did I want to be perceived? For years my goal was to minimize myself-- to fold and refold myself into a polygon of nothingness, to be too insignificant to be remembered. I wanted to appear innocent; I wanted to be thought of as quiet and harmless; I was worried always about how my very existence was terrifying to others and I did everything in my power to diminish myself, my light, my soul. I wanted so desperately to placate the ignorant. I wanted so badly to appease the assholes who judged me without knowing me that I lost myself in the process. But now? Now, I laugh. Out loud. Now, I don't give a shit. ~ Tahereh Mafi

Free will, huh? Damn. It is a bitch.' And then he smiled-he smiled-at me, a real smile, revealing those deep dimples. 'I lost myself the moment I found you. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

Well that woman has crept into my mind. Somehow, she has stolen my very sanity because now I want her hands on me. I begged for her to touch me until I, too, lost myself in the beauty of a fantasy- a fantasy I still don't fully understand. ~ Ella Frank

I kinda went through a semi-depression. Honestly. Like, I lost myself. ~ Laura Bell Bundy

The pleasure was in the staging, the idea of ourselves as a repetition of others. I knew this without saying it, felt my femininity as the game of all women, a mysterious identification in which I lost myself. ~ Siri Hustvedt

At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Songs of the Soul

On a dark night,
Inflamed by love-longing -
O exquisite risk! -
Undetected I slipped away.
My house, at last, grown still.
Secure in the darkness,
I climbed the secret ladder in disguise -
O exquisite risk! -
Concealed by the darkness.
My house, at last, grown still.

That sweet night: a secret.
Nobody saw me;
I did not see a thing.
No other light, no other guide
Than the one burning in my heart.

This light led the way
More clearly than the risen sun
To where he was waiting for me

- The one I knew so intimately -
In a place where no one could find us.

O night, that guided me!
O night, sweeter than sunrise!
O night, that joined lover with Beloved!
Lover transformed in Beloved!
Upon my blossoming breast,
Which I cultivated just for him,
He drifted into sleep,
And while I caressed him,
A cedar breeze touched the air.

Wind blew down from the tower,
Parting the locks of his hair.
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.

I lost myself. Forgot myself.
I lay my face against the Beloved's face.
Everything fell away and I left myself behind,
Abandoning my cares
Among the lilies, forgotten. ~ Juan De La Cruz

Someone once asked me if I've ever been in love. ..
I wasn't sure how to answer her.
Out of all the billions of people in the world, I've had a few mysterious encounters, a few scattered occasions where I met someone who seemed to awaken some unknown part in me. On the rare occasion, I've lost myself in someone. I became so consumed with her that I lost all sense of time and space. I forgot where I was, what I was, who I was, until there was only the two of us, melting together like a soul on fire, and the world around us faded into oblivion, until we were the only thing left in the entire universe.
I felt my skin tingle and my heart grow so full I thought it might explode, and I could not stop thinking about her, and I saw the untapped potential of an alternate future flash before my eyes, all the myriad memories of passion and pain and searing romance all overlapping, layers upon layers, like the stars. Then the world returned and there we were again, two ordinary people full of desperate, trembling longing, with only a dim recollection of the moment we both shared. But the vision of that alternate future still lingered in my mind's eye. In that world between worlds, I could still feel her, could practically taste her on my lips.
Have I ever been in love?
I'd like to think so.
Because if that's not love, then I don't know what is. ~ James Michael Rice

I lost myself in religion, but found myself in love. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The clouds won't shatter my dreams, but this is a story about how I lost myself to the storm."
"And something's got me tethered to you ... "
"Always to you ... "
"They think I'm crazy ... I love him. I swear, I do."
"Then why are you here, T?"
"Esto es complicado, Eli. It's all the lies I made up to get away from you, the distance I drove to free myself, that's brought me here. It's that moment before your kiss and the sound of my name on your lips. It's you that's taken me the five miles I needed to be where you are. I won't run again."
"What are we doing?"
"We're LIVING. ~ Nadege Richards

When I touch you, it makes me trembling.
I feel like I've lost myself, existentially.
Your lips on mine makes me feel like
I'm flying across the universe, without aimlessly. ~ Tamara Stamenkovic

Then his lips were on mine and I lost myself, overwhelmed by the surge of Trey's emotions as they flooded through me. I kissed him back wanting to forget my fear of being discovered of putting him in danger and focus only on how good it felt being in his arms. After all relinquishing some control was a sacrifice worth making if it meant I could continue to live in this fantasy with Trey. But the dreaded tingling in my teeth started up again and I reluctantly pulled away. ~ Heather Jensen

It is not trivial to lie in a report ... At the time I wrote it I actually believed what I wrote to be true, fervently ... Yet, when I wrote it, I also knew it wasn't true. I call this the lie of two minds.
"I" convinced "myself." The I that did the convincing was the one who needed desperately to justify the entire experience, to make it sane and right and okay and approved. Myself was convinced as the moral self, the part of me I would want to be a judge in a legal system. This moral part of us, however, in these extreme situations, is vulnerable to the overwhelming force of that part of us that needs to justify our actions ... With this lie I'd lost myself. Perhaps this too adds to the shame. ~ Karl Marlantes

You are like the first drops of the wet rain
You are like the first rays of the warm sun
I call myself a madman
For I have lost myself within you
Somewhere... ~ Avijeet Das

I've often lost myself,
in order to find the burn that keeps everything awake ~ Federico Garcia Lorca

For a couple hours, I was a kid, doing something simple that I had never done when I was actually a kid. For a short time, I lost myself in doing something for no other reason than that it was fun. ~ Mia Sheridan

I lost myself within your eyes, when I first saw you... ~ Avijeet Das

Lord, I'm gettin' addicted to your kisses, AJ. I feel plain, damn drugged when you're kissin' me. I feel plain, damn lost myself when you ain't around. ~ Lorelei James

But if with time, when a maze of wrinkles claims my skin and the neighborhood strays purr at the sound of my footsteps; long after I've loved eagerly and hated without shame -- if even then I am unchanged, unfound, well, perhaps that is simply because I never lost myself in the first place. And that would be just fine by me. ~ Oksana Marafioti

I remembered the pain as clearly as if I were shifting - the pain of loss. I felt the agony of the single moment that I lost myself. Lost what made me Sam. The part of me that could remember Grace's name. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

What are you doing, Sophie?"

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"Do you want to leave? Is that it? You want to run away from everything? You want to hide and pretend like it's not happening? You never let up in that department, do you?"

"You don't understand, Oliver, and I'm not going to explain it to you."

"Yeah, well, go ahead, if this is what you want then leave. Leave me. But know that if you leave and anything happens to you, I will lose myself. You hear me? I will lose myself."

"What about me? I've lost myself already."

"I'll bring you back. This is your home. Whatever it takes, I'm here. Look at me. I'm here. I want to be with you. Don't keep me away. Not now. ~ Elisa Marie Hopkins

The day I met you, was the day I lost myself…
The day you left me, was the day I found myself… ~ Ama H. Vanniarachchy

I wonder if that's why it was so painful when we split up? Because we'd fallen so hard, so fast. I lost myself in him. ~ Charles Sheehan-Miles

Then for no reason at all, I felt magnificent. It was as though my body until that instant had simply been lazy as though the aches and exhaustion were all imagined, created from nothing in order to keep me from truly exerting myself. Now my body seemed at last to say, "Well, if you must have it, here!" and an accession of strength came flooding through me. Buoyed up, I forgot my usual feeling of routine self-pity when working out, I lost myself, oppressed mind along with aching body; all entanglements were shed, I broke into the clear. ~ John Knowles

Having been pondering while slowly walking along, he now stopped as these thoughts caught hold of him, and right away another thought sprang forth from these, a new thought, which was: That I know nothing about myself, that Siddhartha has remained thus alien and unknown to me, stems from one cause, a single cause: I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself! I searched Atman, I searched Brahman, I was willing to to dissect my self and peel off all of its layers, to find the core of all peels in its unknown interior, the Atman, life, the divine part, the ultimate part. But I have lost myself in the process. ~ Hermann Hesse

I lost myself somewhere. And that's a very sad thing. Losing yourself is sad and heartbreaking. Fucking sad and fucking heartbreaking. Losing yourself isn't like losing a key to your house. It isn't like losing an expensive pair of sunglasses or even the only copy of the greatest screenplay you've ever written. ~ Benjamin Alire Saenz

I had lost my mother and my father and my sister, and sometimes when I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window, I wondered if perhaps I hadn't lost myself as well ~ Alice Hoffman

But as much as the town believed in her, they still didn't value her enough to save her. And I lost myself to the world outside the town's borders. I forgot about her too. ~ Marieke Nijkamp

I'd lost myself in the abyss of someone else's tyranny ... again. ~ Cassandra Giovanni

Karma Police

Karma police
arrest this man,
he talks in maths,
he buzzes like a fridge,
he's like a detuned radio.

Karma police
arrest this girl,
her Hitler hairdo
is making me feel ill
and we have crashed her party.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

Karma police
I've given all I can,
it's not enough,
I've given all I can
but we're still on the payroll.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself. ~ Radiohead

Now - after years of knowing what real problems were, after living with a man who was cautiously loving but no longer fawningly committed, a man who was rational and smart but not quite passionate or spontaneous, after slowly spinning away from the person I vowed to be true to for the rest of my years, after feeling like I lost myself in his shadows and goals - the arguments over restaurants, over who took the trash out last seemed futile, silly, and so much easier than the hurdles that Henry and I would come to face in the road of the future. ~ Allison Winn Scotch

I love you; my heart belongs to you; I am you; I lost myself in you; you are my expression, my beauty, my life and living. You are my mirror, my sun, and my moon. ~ Debasish Mridha

I lost myself in the bubble of music - driving myself to be a success. ~ Dan Hill

After my bedroom, this was my favourite place in the world. It was carpeted, and had heavy bookcases and ticking clocks and velvet chairs, just like someone's living room. It smelled of unturned pages and unseen adventures, and on every shelf were people I had yet to meet, and places I had yet to visit. Each time, I lost myself in the corridors of books and the polished, wooden rooms, deciding which journey to go on next. Mrs ~ Joanna Cannon

I found you, but in finding you, I lost myself. ~ Rick Yancey

My character was tested because I didn't think I would have to compromise so much of who I was as a person. I changed so much because I gave so much of me and lost myself in the process. Sadly, when I lost myself, I did not notice. It just happened; it was more of a habit I formed to adjust. I was damaged from the inside out because my life wasn't mine anymore. I was someone I had to be; not who I wanted to be. I wasn't someone that made "me" happy. I made everyone else happy, and it wasn't enough.

Losing yourself is scary. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Somewhere along the journey i lost myself; i learnt to be who they told me to be, i lived that girl for decades until their truth showed me; the words they were preaching didnt match the the steps they were walking, so i was done with their opinion and went on my unique way. ~ Nikki Rowe

I lost myself the moment I found you. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

I lay on the bed and lost myself in stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyways. ~ Neil Gaiman

Stubble or what?"
Eyes still closed he chuckled. "I'm not shaving until our parents let us date again."
He kissed my cheek.
"What if it takes ... a ... while?"
I asked struggling to talk. He'd made his way down to my neck. His tongue circled there slowly.
"There are only six or seven weeks until August football practice starts right?"
"Hm." His mouth moved up my neck toward my ear. Oh.
"Will you be able to stuff your beard into your helmet?" I croaked.
In answer he put his lips on my ear.
I forgot the next joke I'd planned to make and lost myself in Adam. ~ Jennifer Echols

Old friend, I am writing to you again
The infamous tale of squandered love

To have my denial broken by myself
To have accepted past for my behove

To have grown into a man of honor
To have embraced the code of chivalry

To have been reborn as a bird of myth
To have caught lies in nightly reverie

Lost myself in this chronic transition
I regret the love wasted, in-between

Who knew life can just be happy or full
If only the great men ere had foreseen

As humbled as I have become due this
I'm failing to see the point of these rhymes

So old friend, do tell me what is better
Death, endured once or a zillion times? ~ Zubair Ahsan

I didn't know I was lost
Until you found me
I never knew what love was
Until you touched my hand
I lost myself long ago
In between your lips
And now here you are
You steal my breath away
Until you I never really knew heaven
Cause until you it was only ever hell
I didn't know I was so far gone
Until you brought me home
I promise you, girl
I know you're shattered
I'll pick up your pieces
And make you whole again
Cause until you girl
I've been shattered too
Since my very first kiss
It's only been you ~ Christine Zolendz

Afterward, we lay on our sides facing each other. I murmured, "I know it couldn't possibly be worth the wait for you, but was it-"
"By all gods, it was worth the wait." He cupped my face, had to clear his throat before he could say, "Do you understand how precious you are to me? Not because I can touch you - that merely allowed me to recognize you." I laid my hand over his heart. For two thousand years, it'd been one way. Now it was changed. His brows drew together, as if he was trying to sort through chaotic thoughts. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, then tried again: "That wild storm was a tiny fraction of what was going on inside of me. I look at you...and I soar. I make love to you, and everything is new; I feel...so much. I'm certain my chest will explode from it...Gods, I make no sense, do I?" Color tinged his broad cheekbones. "Tonight has boggled my mind. You have boggled my mind." He held my gaze with his own. "Sieva, I am a planet off its axis." I lost myself in his eyes. "I love you too, Aric." The corner of his lips curled. ~ Kresley Cole

The hard part is that I lost myself. In the midst of life happening all around me, I lost the ability to be okay, I lost the ability to trust. I lost the ability to love myself, and when that happens, you lose everything. And when the one person in the entire world who loves you unconditionally is gone, then you start wondering who will love you? And then when you start wondering, you get scared that you have to even ask that question. But since you have already asked yourself that, you can't ignore it. Who will love you now? Who could possibly love everything about you, now that the only person in the world who could, is gone? Hell, you don't even love yourself. Why would someone else? And then when you realize that, the relationship you're in seems pointless. Because you start believing that they won't ever be able to withstand your problems and craziness. And then that snowballs to even more insecurities and fear, and you feel trapped in this broken body that can't ever be healed. And then you feel lost, torn, broken, unfixable, damaged, and like nothing in the entire world could ever possibly be okay again. Because you know from the past, that even when everything seems okay, another devastating blow comes around again and knocks you back down. So you feel even smaller, even weaker. By that point you're at the bottom, you're looking up in tears, ready to scream for help. But you're not sure who's going to be there, and if the person who does show up, is going to be the pe ~ Sabrina K

We Are Spending Precious Time regretting what we have lost instead of appreciating what we accomplished in our life ~ Sami Abouzid

One way we could describe the struggle of life would be to say it is a battle between agency and addiction. Agency is our power to choose, and addiction is what happens when we have lost that power and we are controlled by something else. ~ John Bytheway

You became lost in the maze of me - forgive me Love, for keeping you close ... ~ John Geddes

An archer, the moment he thinks he's experienced, is lost; every lion we encounter in our brief life is different from every other lion; woe to us if we stop to make comparisons, to deduce our movements from norms and premises. ~ Italo Calvino

You only reveal your game plan when you know you're winning, or losing. ~ Ahmed Mostafa

The purified heart is obnoxious to the devil and to all the forces of the lost world. They will not rest until they have won back what they have lost. ~ A.W. Tozer

I love you." He combed her fingers through her hair,drawing her head back so that their eyes met. "I don't like it, I may never get used to it, but I love you." With a sigh,he brought her close again. "You make my head swim."
With her cheek against his chest, Gennie closed her eyes. "You can take time to get used to it," she murmured. "Just promise you won't ever be sorry it happened."
"Not sorry," he agreed on a long breath. "A little crazed, but not sorry." As he ran a hand down her hair, Grant felt a fresh need for her, softer, calmer than before and no less vibrant. He nuzzled into her neck because he seemed to belong there. "Are you really in love with me, or did you say that because I made you mad?"
"Both.I decided this morning I'd have to bend to your ego and let you tell me first."
"Is that so?" With his brows drawn together, he tilted her head back again. "My ego."
"It tends to get in the way because it's rather oversized." She smiled, sweetly.In retaliation, he crushed his mouth to hers.
"You know," he managed after a moment. "I've lost my appetite for breakfsat."
Smiling again, she tilted her face back to his. "Have you reall?"
"Mmm. And I don't like to mention it..." He took his fingertips to the lapel of the robe,toying with it before he slid them down to the belt. "But I didn't say you could use my robe."
"Oh, that was rude of me." The smile became saucy. "Would you like it back now?"
"No hurry." He slipped his h ~ Nora Roberts

But it's only when we allow ourselves to get lost that we can have the opportunity to find and be found. ~ Brandan Roberston

We've all done foolish, foolish things, dear. In my experience, good people punish themselves far more than any external body can manage. And I believe you are a good person. You may have lost your way more than a little bit, but I believe you can find your way back. That's the trick. Finding your way back. ~ Eleanor Brown

One does not set fire to a world which is already lost. ~ Friedrich Durrenmatt

They promised me you wouldn't be hurt," he said. "And you haven't been, really. I mean, suppose you'd had a baby and lost it; wouldn't it be the same? And we're getting so much in return, Ro. ~ Ira Levin

Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.
Something from far off: it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.
Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind
as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood - -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent. ~ Pablo Neruda

Suppose that 'Unsolved Mysteries' called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people - like the lost identical twin, only younger than you. ~ Nathan Myhrvold

For many Westerners, "it's natural" seems to mean "it's good." This view is wrong and comes from shopping in supermarkets and living in landscaped environments. Plants evolved toxins to deter animals, fungi, and bacteria from eating them. The list of "natural" foods that need processing to detoxify them goes on and on. Early potatoes were toxic, and the Andean peoples ate clay to neutralize the toxin. Even beans can be toxic without processing. In California, many hunter-gatherer populations relied on acorns, which, similar to manioc, require a labor intensive, multiday leaching process. Many small-scale societies have similarly exploited hardy, tropical plants called cycads for food. But cycads contain a nerve toxin. If not properly processed, they can cause neurological symptoms, paralysis, and death. Numerous societies, including hunter-gatherers, have culturally evolved an immense range of detoxification techniques for cycads. By contrast with our species, other animals have far superior abilities to detoxify plants. Humans, however, lost these genetic adaptations and evolved a dependence on cultural know-how, just to eat. ~ Joseph Henrich

I was a hotshot as a junior. When I was 18, I really got into fiddling around. I completely lost interest in golf, and I guess all I could think about was going to college, getting married and having babies. ~ Hollis Stacy

Life wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't scary until she met a man who touched her without taking and made her miss the pieces she had lost. ~ Cora Carmack

We have a fictional "I" that we try to love and protect. We spend most of our life playing this futile game. "What will happen? How will it go? Will I get something out of it?" I, I, I - it's a mind game of illusion, and we are lost in it. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck

AN ESTIMATED 1,100 Londoners were killed during the April 16 raids - the most devastating night of the Blitz thus far. But it held that distinction for only three days; on April 19, German bombers hit London again, killing more than 1,200 persons. Almost half a million London residents lost their homes in the two attacks. The ~ Lynne Olson

Flora hadn't signed my yearbook. When I got it back from the cheerleaders, I skimmed over the last few pages and saw that every one of them signed except for her. I was disappointed but I wasn't surprised.

We were too much of everything to be summed up in a few sentences. -Sean Foster ~ Rainbowbrook

Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: ~ Ernest Dowson

It was really sad Bobby Neuwirth's and my affair. The only true, passionate, and lasting love scene, and I practically ended up in the psychopathic ward. I had really learned about sex from him, making love, loving, giving. It just completely blew my mind it drove me insane. I was like a sex slave to this man. I could make love for forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, without getting tired. But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills. ~ Edie Sedgwick

Lost'

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still.
The forest knows Where you are.
You must let it find you. ~ David Whyte

Khione's eyes flared pure white. For once, she seemed at a loss for words. She stormed back up the stairs - literally. Halfway up, she turned into a blizzard and disappeared. ~ Rick Riordan

When I was 11, I moved to the United States with my two brothers and my mom. We moved to northern New York, up near the Canadian border, from Argentina, and there was nobody there that spoke Spanish, and because there was no internet at the time, not even cable TV yet, I lost the connection with my childhood friends and the culture I had been brought up with for my first decade completely. ~ Viggo Mortensen

People aren't tidy creations to be stacked neatly in the Tupperware or poured in premeasured quantities from a box into the Cuisinart with no spills; everybody alive is a lost and disastrous mess. ~ Joel Derfner

But at home, that same day he'd jumped into the fountain, he'd gotten so anxious, pacing around the living room listening to his parents try to calm him, that he suddenly just lost it completely and slapped his face. He immediately started crying, confused and guilty, looking up at his parents like he had no idea how it happened. And, really, that's the way it always was with the hitting. It would happen so fast, his body shaking to release the tension that built up from all the thoughts swirling through his mind and all the air he was having trouble breathing and all the loud beating of his own heart ringing in his ears. It had to get out and that was the path it chose. Slap. Instant relief. ~ John Corey Whaley

No one is less happy than I am with the performance of Microsoft stock! I've lost tens of billions of dollars this year - if you check, you'll see that's more than most people make in a lifetime! ~ Bill Gates

In Joy, to lose one's life is to gain it, and Joy never loses an opportunity to be lost in the other. ~ Geoffrey Wood