Loved Ones We Have Lost Quotes

Heavy is the head that holds the pen of creation. We construct these characters from nothing, molding them from our imaginations. We give them hopes and dreams and unique personalities until they feel so real you're mind believes it must be so. We watch them grow by our hands, not always knowing the paths they will choose with the obstacles we throw at them. They take on a life of their own and often surprise even us by their actions we couldn't have imagined before it poured out of us onto the paper. We could change it if we really wanted to, but it would be forced and not be true to the characters. And when something tragic happens and one is lost, we feel that loss even though we know they were not a friend, a family member or even ourselves. It can be a hard thing to voice sometimes, to give tribute to the one's left behind with the real sadness over something not so real. But we find the words and press on to the next challenge, because that's what good writers do. ~ Jennifer A. Marsh

And Rocky still sounds angry at me for drilling a hole through his skull. I only did it to keep him close. Woulda lost him otherwise. Do we have to hurt the ones we love to keep them close? ~ Hugh Howey

We mourn; we sorrow for our loved ones that go - our wives, our husbands, our children, our parents; we sorrow for them; and it is well and proper that we should moum for them and shed tears for the loss, for it is our loss; but it is their gain, for it is in the march of progress, advancement and development. It will be all right when our time comes, when we have finished our work and accomplished what the Lord required of us. ~ Francis M. Lyman

Even though I complain sometimes," it said, "it's because I'm the heart of a person, and people's hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moments that could have been good but weren't, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly." "My ~ Paulo Coelho

God makes it clear that his image bearers must live in dynamic communion with one another, thereby discovering and celebrating the good gift of one's own gender and that of the other. With a cross-shaped lens, we behold the beauty of man for woman and woman for man. None of us has ever lost that original design. No matter how broken we have become, we have never lost the potential to be good gifts for others! ~ Andrew Comiskey

In Arizona we have passed laws to free our people so that they can defend themselves and their loved ones. You cannot predict where evil will raise its head, but you can be prepared for it. ~ Russell Pearce

Porridge is our soup, our grits, our sustenance, so it's pretty much the go-to for breakfast. For the first time, I ate with a bunch of other Taiwanese-Chinese kids my age who knew what the hell they were doing. Even at Chinese school, there were always kids that brought hamburgers, shunned chopsticks, or didn't get down with the funky shit. They were like faux-bootleg-Canal Street Chinamen.
That was one of the things that really annoyed me about growing up Chinese in the States. Even if you wanted to roll with Chinese/Taiwanese kids, there were barely any around and the ones that were around had lost their culture and identity. They barely spoke Chinese, resented Chinese food, and if we got picked on by white people on the basketball court, everyone just looked out for themselves. It wasn't that I wanted people to carry around little red books to affirm their "Chinese-ness," but I just wanted to know there were other people that wanted this community to live on in America. There was on kid who wouldn't eat the thousand-year-old eggs at breakfast and all the other kids started roasting him.
"If you don't get down with the nasty shit, you're not Chinese!"
I was down with the mob, but something left me unsettled. One thing ABCs love to do is compete on "Chinese-ness," i.e., who will eat the most chicken feet, pig intestines, and have the highest SAT scores. I scored high in chick feet, sneaker game, and pirated good, but relatively low on the SAT. I had made Na ~ Eddie Huang

I know you are tired. I know you are hurting. I know that even among the crowds and or with your closest loved ones, you feel terribly alone in the world. I know that in the quietness, a thousand hell hounds are barking and snarling at your heels.
They tell you, "Everything is wrong with you. You are a failure. You will never live to see your dreams and visions come to pass. You know you should just throw in the towel. No one would even miss you if you were gone. Exit from this cruel insane assylum you call home. We will even tell you how to end 'it'."
But don't you dare entertain those hounds of hell, no, not even for one moment. See, you not only have the elixir of Life inside of your organs and your veins; you are the Elixir of Life of a Celestial domain. For every hell hound nipping at your ears, there are eight hundred angels rushing to you with every holy breath....you take. Every step you make fuels the fire of Love in your behalf.
See, nothing is wrong with you. Every thing is right with you. You are cut from iron. You have long exchanged your velveteen fabric and cotton stuffing for blazen guts and a heart of gold. You are the head and not the tail. You are the water in the desert, the ripple in the steam, the sword AND the stone and you, glorious being, are not alone!
We are one and we are many. We've known lack, but we are plenty. We are not on the cusp of a break through. We are the cusp and we are the break --- through. We are the old and we a ~ Mishi McCoy

You seem to have this strange image of me as a lost child, like I've just been thrown on the side of the road like garbage or roadkill. But kids like me, we're not lost; we may be the only ones who never are. ~ Dot Hutchison

I understood now that all of us have that place inside that wants to be part of something, that needs the comfort and companionship of loved ones. Within each of us, there is an empty room, and when we open the door, light flows in. The wider we open it, and the longer we leave it open, the brighter our souls become. ~ Lisa Wingate

To observe and watch one's own mind is something really interesting. The untrained mind will run and follow its old habit patterns. Because it has not been trained and taught, it will get lost in all kinds of stories and issues. Therefore we have to train our mind. The meditation practice in Buddhism is all about training one's own mind. ~ Ajahn Chah

Believers have a genuine, unfailing hope of a future reunion with loved ones ... we can find joy in anticipating our future reunion. ~ Paul P. Enns

They had to die. They were killing innocent people. (Wulf)
They were surviving, Wulf. You never had to face the choice of being dead at twenty-seven. When most people's lives are just beginning, we are looking at a death sentence. Have you any idea what it's like to know you can never see your children grow up? Never see your own grandchildren? My mother used to say we were spring flowers who are only meant to bloom for one season. We bring our gifts to the world and then recede to dust so that others can come after us. When our loved ones die, we immortalize them like this. I have one for my mother and the other four are my sisters. No one will ever know the beauty of my sisters' laughter. No one will remember the kindness of my mother's smile. In eight months, my father won't even have enough of me left to bury. I will become scattered dust. And for what? For something my great-great-great-whatever did? I've been alone the whole of my life because I dare not let anyone know me. I don't want to love for fear of leaving someone like my father behind to mourn me. I will be a vague dream, and yet here you are, Wulf Tryggvason. Viking cur who once roamed the earth raiding villages. How many people did you kill in your human lifetime while you sought treasure and fame? Were you any better than the Daimons who kill so that they can live? What makes you better than us? (Cassandra)
It's not the same thing. (Wulf)
Isn't it? You know, I went to your Web site and saw the ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Angels are those beings who have been on an earth like this, and have passed through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. They have kept their first estate far enough to preserve themselves in the Priesthood. They did not so violate the law of the Priesthood and condemn themselves to the sin against the Holy Ghost as to be finally lost. They are not crowned with the celestial ones. They are persons who have lived upon an earth, but did not magnify the Priesthood in that high degree that many others have done who have become Gods, even the sons of God. ~ Brigham Young

He frowned. She laughed. He brightened. She pouted. He grinned. She flinched. Come on: we don't do that. Except when we're pretending. Only babies frown and flinch. The rest of us just fake with our fake faces.
He grinned. No He didn't. If a guy grins at you for real these days, you'd better chop his head off before he chops off yours. Soon the sneeze and the yawn will be mostly for show. Even the twitch.
She laughed. No she didn't. We laugh about twice a year. Most of us have lost our laughs and now make do with false ones.
He smiled.
Not quite true.
All that no good to think, no good to say, no good to write. All that no good to write. ~ Martin Amis

We are parting for ever; yet you may be sure that I shall never love another. Upon you my soul has exhausted all its treasures, its tears, its hopes. She who has once loved you cannot look without a certain disdain upon other men, not because you have been better than they, oh, no! but in your nature there is something peculiar -- belonging to you alone, something proud and mysterious; in your voice, whatever the words spoken, there is an invincible power. No one can so constantly wish to be loved, in no one is wickedness ever so attractive, no one's glance promises so much bliss, no one can better make use of his advantages, and no one can be so truly unhappy as you, because no one endeavours so earnestly to convince himself of the contrary. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Another way to speak of the anxiety is in terms of the gap between information and knowledge. A barrage of data so often fails to tell us what we need to know. Knowledge, in turn, does not guarantee enlightenment or wisdom. (Eliot said that, too: "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? / Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?") It is an ancient observation, but one that seemed to bear restating when information became plentiful - particularly in a world where all bits are created equal and information is divorced from meaning. The humanist and philosopher of technology Lewis Mumford, for example, restated it in 1970: "Unfortunately, 'information retrieving,' however swift, is no substitute for discovering by direct personal inspection knowledge whose very existence one had possibly never been aware of, and following it at one's own pace through the further ramification of relevant literature." He begged for a return to "moral self-discipline. ~ James Gleick

There's our homecoming picture. Last Halloween, when I dressed up as Mulan and Peter wore a dragon costume. There's a receipt from Tart and Tangy. One of his notes to me, from before. If you make Josh's dumb white-chocolate cranberry cookies and not my fruitcake ones, it's over. Pictures of us from Senior Week. Prom. Dried rose petals from my corsage. The Sixteen Candles picture.
There are some things I didn't include, like the ticket stub from our first real date, the note he wrote me that said, I like you in blue. Those things are tucked away in my hatbox. I'll never let those go.
But the really special thing I've included is my letter, the one I wrote to him so long ago, the one that brought us together. I wanted to keep it, but something felt right about Peter having it. One day all of this will be proof, proof that we were here, proof that we loved each other. It's the guarantee that no matter what happens to us in the future, this time was ours.
When he gets to that page, Peter stops. "I thought you wanted to keep this," he said.
"I wanted to, but then I felt like you should have it. Just promise you'll keep it forever."
He turns the page. It's a picture from when we took my grandma to karaoke. I sang "You're So Vain" and dedicated it to Peter. Peter got up and sang "Style" by Taylor Swift. Then he dueted "Unchained Melody" with my grandma, and after, she made us both promise to take a Korean language class at UVA. She and Peter took a ton of se ~ Jenny Han

All men fear death. It's a natural fear that consumes us all. We fear death because we feel that we haven't loved well enough or loved at all, which ultimately are one and the same. However, when you make love with a truly great woman, one that deserves the utmost respect in this world and one that makes you feel truly powerful, that fear of death completely disappears. Because when you are sharing your body and heart with a great woman the world fades away. You two are the only ones in the entire universe. You conquer what most lesser men have never conquered before, you have conquered a great woman's heart, the most vulnerable thing she can offer to another. Death no longer lingers in the mind. Fear no longer clouds your heart. Only passion for living, and for loving, become your sole reality. This is no easy task for it takes insurmountable courage. But remember this, for that moment when you are making love with a woman of true greatness you will feel immortal.
I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death. All cowardice comes from not loving or not loving well, which is the same thing. And when the man who is brave and true looks death squarely in the face like some rhino hunters I know or Belmonte, who is truly brave, it is because they love with sufficient passion to push death out of their minds. Until it returns, as it does to all men. And then you must make really good love again. Think about it. ~ Woody Allen

At the beginning of human history, as we struggled to light fires and to chisel fallen trees into rudimentary canoes, who could have predicted that long after we had managed to send men to the moon and areoplanes to Australasia, we would still have such trouble knowing how to tolerate ourselves, forgive our loved ones, and apologise for our tantrums? ~ Alain De Botton

The big question of vampires, the question that hunts governments and individuals alike, the question that bug me every night when I see their red eyes watching citizens of Coldtown the ways hungry cats watch fishin a bucket is: what are they? Are they diseased or demonic? Are they humans who have become ill, deserving hospitals and care, as some have argued? Or are they the bodies of our loved ones animated by some dark force that we ought to seek to destroy? ~ Holly Black

Limitation of scope, however, could represent a profound advantage from an ecological point of view. The sun, the wind and the earth are experiential realities to which men have responded sensuously and reverently from time immemorial. Out of these primal elements man developed his sense of dependence on - and respect for - the natural environment, a dependence that kept his destructive activities in check. The Industrial Revolution and the urbanized world that followed obscured nature's role in human experience - hiding the sun with a pall of smoke, blocking the winds with massive buildings, desecrating the earth with sprawling cities. Man's dependence on the natural world became invisible; it became theoretical and intellectual in character, the subject matter of textbooks, monographs and lectures. True, this theoretical dependence supplied us with insights (partial ones at best) into the natural world, but its onesidedness robbed us of all sensuous dependence on and all visible contact and unity with nature. In losing these, we lost a part of ourselves as feeling beings. We became alienated from nature. Our technology and environment became totally inanimate, totally synthetic - a purely inorganic physical milieu that promoted the deanimization of man and his thought. ~ Murray Bookchin

When we get down to potential versus reality in relationships, we often see disappointment, not successful achievement. In the Church, if someone creates nuclear fallout in a calling, they are often released or reassigned quickly. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury when we marry. So many of us have experienced this sad realization in the first weeks of our marriages. For example, we realized that our partner was not going to live up to his/her potential and give generously to the partnership. While fighting the mounting feelings of betrayal, we watched our new spouses claim a right to behave any way they desired, often at our expense. Most of us made the "best" of a truly awful situation but felt like a rat trapped in maze. We raised a family, played our role, and hoped that someday things would change if we did our part. It didn't happen, but we were not allowed the luxury of reassigning or releasing our mates from poor stewardship as a spouse or parent. We were stuck until we lost all hope and reached for the unthinkable: divorce.

Reality is simple for some. Those who stay happily married (the key word here is happily are the ones who grew and felt companionship from the first days of marriage. Both had the integrity and dedication to insure its success. For those of us who are divorced, tracing back to those same early days, potential disappeared and reality reared its ugly head. All we could feel, after a sealing for "time and all eternity," was bound in ~ Jennifer James

We have a very short window in which to accomplish a great deal, one measured in minutes rather than hours.

"We succeed, and we will have freed dozens of galaxies and species from tyranny. We succeed, and we will have saved our home, our friends and our loved ones from the looming threat of annihilation. We succeed, and everyone has a future. So let's get it done. ~ G.S. Jennsen

His voice bellowed with strength and courage, "People of Israel, Yahweh has spoken to me and has told me to be strong and courageous, for we will inherit this land that Yahweh had sworn to our forefathers! But we must be careful to do according to all the law that Moses commanded us! We must not turn from it to the right or to the left, and only then will we have success wherever we go! The book of the Law shall not depart from our mouths, but we shall meditate on it day and night, for Yahweh our Elohim is with us wherever we go!" The people applauded. Caleb beamed with honor. They had been through so much. They had survived thirst and starvation in a desert land, the death of loved ones, rebellion, plagues, famines, and wars. And now, finally, finally they were about to gain their inheritance. Their eternal wandering would be over. ~ Brian Godawa

You want us to fear you," she growls at me, speaking now in accented Kenettran. "You think that you can come here and destroy our homes, kill our loved ones - then make us grovel at your feet. You think we will sell you our souls for a few coins." She lifts her chin. "But I am not afraid of you."
"Is that so?" I tilt my head at her curiously. "You should be."
She challenges me with a smile. "You can't even bring yourself to spill our blood." She nods in the direction of Sergio, who has already started to draw his sword. "You have one of your lackeys do it for you. You're a coward queen, hiding behind your army. But you cannot crush our spirits beneath your Roses' heels - you cannot win. ~ Marie Lu

Lettuce harvests in Salinas, melons in Brawley, grapes in Parlier, oranges in Ontario, cotton in Firebaugh -- and, finally, Santa Clara, the prune country. And because this place was pleasing to the eye, or because they were tired of their endless migration, Juan Rubio and his wife settled here to raise their children. And, remembering his country, Juan thought that his distant cousin, the great General Zapata, had been right when, in speaking of Juan, he once said to Villa, 'He will go far, that relative of mine.'

Now this man who had lived by the gun all his adult life would sit on his haunches under the prune trees, rubbing his sore knees, and think, Next year we will have enough money and we will return to our country. But deep within he knew he was one of the lost ones. And as the years passed him by and his children multiplied and grew, the chant increased in volume and rate until it became a staccato NEXT YEAR! NEXT YEAR!

And the chains were incrementally heavier on his heart. ~ José Antonio Villareal

I have only a very brief opening statement.

I welcome these hearings because of the opportunity that they provide to the American people to better understand why the tragedy of 9/11 happened and what we must do to prevent a reoccurance.

I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11.

To them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed.

And for that failure, I would ask -- once all the facts are out -- for your understanding and for your forgiveness.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll be glad to take your questions. ~ Richard A. Clarke

You have to admit: this whole "catastrophe," which they so noisily inform us about, it doesn't really touch us. At least not until we are hit by one of its foreseeable consequences. It may concern us, but it doesn't touch us. And that is the real catastrophe.

There is no "environmental catastrophe." The catastrophe is the environment itself. The environment is what's left to man after he's lost everything. Those who live in a neighborhood, a street, a valley, a war zone, a workshop - they don't have an "environment;" they move through a world peopled by presences, dangers, friends, enemies, moments of life and death, all kinds of beings. Such a world has its own consistency, which varies according to the intensity and quality of the ties attaching us to all of these beings, to all of these places. It's only us, the children of the final dispossession, exiles of the final hour - the ones who come into the world in concrete cubes, pick our fruits at the supermarket, and watch for an echo of the world on television - only we get to have an environment. ~ Comité Invisible

My Dearest, Can you forgive me? In a world that I seldom understand, there are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane, sometimes they barely fan one's cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore. You, my darling, are the wind that I did not anticipate, the wind that has gusted more strongly than I ever imagined possible. You are my destiny. I was wrong, so wrong, to ignore what was obvious, and I beg your forgiveness. Like a cautious traveler, I tried to protect myself from the wind and lost my soul instead. I was a fool to ignore my destiny, but even fools have feelings, and I've come to realize that you are the most important thing that I have in this world. I know I am not perfect. I've made more mistakes in the past few months than some make in a lifetime. I was wrong to deny what was obvious in my heart: that I can't go on without you. You were right about everything. I tried to deny the things you were saying, even though I knew they were true. Like one who gazes only backward on a trip across the country, I ignored what lay ahead. I missed the beauty of a coming sunrise, the wonder of anticipation that makes life worthwhile. It was wrong of me to do that, a product of my confusion, and I wish I had come to understand that sooner. Now, though, with my gaze fixed toward the future, I see your face and hear your voice, certain that this is the path I ~ Nicholas Sparks

They have nothing to give. They have no power of making. All their power is to darken and destroy. They cannot leave this place; they are this place; and it should be left to them. They should not be denied nor forgotten, but neither should they be worshiped. The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men's eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness… I think they drove your priestess Kossil mad a long time ago; I think she has prowled these caverns as she prowls the labyrinth of her own self, and now she cannot see the daylight any more. She tells you that the Nameless Ones are dead; only a lost soul, lost to truth, could believe that. They exist. But they are not your Masters. They never were. You are free, Tenar. You were taught to be a slave, but you have broken free. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But novelists write for countless different reasons: for money, for fame, for reviewers, for parents, for friends, for loved ones; for vanity, for pride, for curiosity, for amusement: as skilled furniture makers enjoy making furniture, as drunkards like drinking, as judges like judging, as Sicilians like emptying a shotgun into an enemy's back. I could fill a book with reasons, and they would all be true, though not true of all. Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. ~ John Fowles

Last-Minute Message For a Time Capsule


I have to tell you this, whoever you are:
that on one summer morning here, the ocean
pounded in on tumbledown breakers,
a south wind, bustling along the shore,
whipped the froth into little rainbows,
and a reckless gull swept down the beach
as if to fly were everything it needed.
I thought of your hovering saucers,
looking for clues, and I wanted to write this down,
so it wouldn't be lost forever - -
that once upon a time we had
meadows here, and astonishing things,
swans and frogs and luna moths
and blue skies that could stagger your heart.
We could have had them still,
and welcomed you to earth, but
we also had the righteous ones
who worshipped the True Faith, and Holy War.
When you go home to your shining galaxy,
say that what you learned
from this dead and barren place is
to beware the righteous ones. ~ Philip Appleman

Several Americans, unjustly detained by Iran, are finally coming home. In some cases, these Americans faced years of continued detention, and I've met with some of their families. I've seen their anguish, how they ache for their sons and husbands. I gave these families my word. I made a vow that we would do everything in our power to win the release of their loved ones, and we have been tireless. ~ Barack Obama

There is heroism to be found in great battles, it is true; warriors with stable knees who fight and know that they will die for an idea or for the safety of loved ones back home. But there are also people who spend their entire adulthood at a soulless job they despise to make sure their children have something to eat that night so that one day those kids may lead better, more fulfilling lives than their parents. The warrior and the worker both make sacrifices. Who, then, is more heroic? Can any of us judge? I don't think I'm qualified. I'll let history decide. But I do not think we should leave it all up to warriors and rulers to speak to the future. ~ Kevin Hearne

There were many things she could have said, but we forget to forge armor against the knife-thrusts of our loved ones. ~ Angela Panayotopulos

The first language humans had was gestures. There was nothing primitive about this language that flowed from people's hands, nothing we say now that could not be said in the endless array of movements possible with the fine bones of the fingers and wrists. The gestures were complex and subtle, involving a delicacy of motion that has since been lost completely.

During the Age of Silence, people communicated more, not less. Basic survival demanded that the hands were almost never still, and so it was only during sleep (and sometimes not even then) that people were not saying something or other. No distinction was made between the gestures of language and the gestures of life. The labor of building a house, say, or preparing a meal was no less an expression than making the sign for I love you or I feel serious. When a hand was used to shield one's face when frightened by a loud noise something was being said, and when fingers were used to pick up what someone else had dropped something was being said; and even when the hands were at rest, that, too, was saying something. Naturally, there were misunderstandings. There were times when a finger might have been lifted to scratch a nose, and if casual eye contact was made with one's lover just then, the lover might accidentally take it to be the gesture, not at all dissimilar, for Now I realize I was wrong to love you. These mistakes were heartbreaking. And yet, because people knew how easily they could happen, because th ~ Nicole Krauss

Sasha's green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. "In Naples," she said, "there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they'd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will."
...
You opened your eyes, which you hadn't realized were shut again. "what I'm saying is, We're the survivors," Sasha said.
...
"Not everyone is. But we are. Okay? ~ Jennifer Egan

What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a lover of evil or to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one's friends are incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up. ~ Aristotle.

Almost nothing can be gained from pinball. The only payoff is a numerical substitution for pride. The loses, however, are considerable. You could probably erect bronze statues of every American president (assuming you are willing to include Richard Nixon) with the coins you will lose, while your lost time is irreplaceable.

When you are standing before the machine engaged in your solitary act of consumption, another guy is plowing through Proust, while still another guy is doing some heavy petting with his girlfriend while watching "True Grit" at the local drive-in. They're the ones who may wind up becoming groundbreaking novelists or happily married men.

No, pinball leads nowhere. The only result is a glowing replay light. Replay, replay, replay - it makes you think the whole aim of the game is to achieve a form of eternity.

We know very little of eternity, although we can infer its existence.

The goal of pinball is self-transformation, not self-expression. It involves not the expansion of the ego but its diminution. Not analysis but all-embracing acceptance.

If it's self-expression, ego expansion or analysis you're after, the tilt light will exact its unsparing revenge.

Have a nice game! ~ Haruki Murakami

D'you mind if we get going?' said Strike, checking his watch. 'I told Elin I'll be over tonight.'

'No problem,' said Robin.

Yet for some reason - perhaps due to her headache, perhaps because of the lonely woman sitting in Summerfield among the memories of loved ones who had left her - Robin could easily have wept all over again. ~ Robert Galbraith

My mother wasn't a psychotic criminal. (Kiara)
No. I'm sure she was a wonderful lady who loved you dearly. That she held you when you cried, probably even baked you cookies and gave you hugs and kisses before she sent you off to bed at night, and it's a damn shame a decent woman like her died so tragically. My mother, whore that she was, abandoned me and my sister to our father so that she could return to her cushy life and pretend we didn't exist while she left us in that house with a man whose name, even though he'd been dead for decades, can still make an assassin wet his pants. And if you think his cruelty was reserved for strangers, think again. My sister and I were target practice for him. So don't you dare talk to me about pain. My father wrote the book on it and he rammed it down my throat every day of my childhood until they killed him. And the real kicker is, my life under his demented fist was a lot better than Nykyrian's. At least I was able to hide sometimes from the ones trying to kill me. You want me to call your daddy, baby? Go right ahead. I'll be more than happy to take you to him. But know that Aksel will have his hands on you in a matter of hours. Then you'll be able to talk to me about pain and you'll finally have an idea of what we've endured. You won't live long enough to apologize, but true clarity will be yours before you die. (Syn) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon