Mend Quotes

You're the bravest person I've ever met. Stay here. Let yourself mend. ~ Veronica Roth

When I was in the Navy, everyone fell under the purview of "navy gray". It is the military's way of reminding its enlisted personnel that they are all equal. Man or woman, black or white, young or old, everyone was navy gray. With God's grace I can proudly say a better understanding of this concept has helped me ameliorate disputes, mend fences that appeared hopeless and find light in the midst of darkness. ~ Carlos Wallace

Have you any old grudges you would like to pay,
Any wrongs laid up from a bygone day?
-Gather them now and lay them away
When Christmas comes.
Hard thoughts are heavy to carry, my friend,
And life is short from beginning to end;
Be kind to yourself, leave nothing to mend
When Christmas comes. ~ William Haines Lytle

Reading for me, was like breathing. It was probably akin to masturbation for my brain. Getting off on the fantasy within the pages of a good novel felt necessary to my survival. If I wasn't asleep, knitting, or working, I was reading. This was for several reasons, all of them focused around the infititely superior and enviable lives of fictional heroines to real-life people.
Take romans for instance. Fictional women in romance novels never get their period. They never have morning breath. They orgasm seventeen times a day. And they never seem to have jobs with bosses.
These clean, well-satisfied, perm-minty-breathed women have fulfilling careers as florists, bakery owners, hair stylists or some other kind of adorable small business where they decorate all day. If they do have a boss, he's a cool guy (or gal) who's invested in the woman's love life. Or, he's a super hot billionaire trying to get in her pants.
My boss cares about two things: Am I on time ? Are all my patients alive and well at the end of my shift?
And the mend in the romance novels are too good to be true; but I love it, and I love them. Enter stage right the independently wealthy venture capitalist suffering from the ennui of perfection until a plucky interior decorator enters stage left and shakes up his life and his heart with perky catch phrases and a cute nose that wrinkles when she sneezes.
I suck at decorating. The walls of my apartment are bare. I am allergic to most sto ~ Penny Reid

Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
What is amiss plague and infection mend!
Graves only be men's works and death their gain!
Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign. ~ William Shakespeare

It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship. ~ Mark Cuban

There are some things you can do forever. Given a deep enough shaft, you can fall forever. You can forget forever, and disintegrate forever, and you can laugh for a very long time. But you cannot bleed for long - not you, not citruses, not twites or treepies, not orangequits or plushcaps or jewel-babblers, nor any creature whose vessels flutter with warm, swirling, cell-bearing plasma. Either your leak will mend or you will become void.
Only love can bleed forever; only love has endless blood. Only love's slender drooping tassels can bleed yet grow stronger, bleed yet grow brighter; redder, redder, never spent, never phantasmal-gray. Maybe, if it only gets kicked, then love is love-lies-dented, and in a few days it replumps. But when it suffers a terrible wound, love seems able neither to heal - to grow substitute tissue over its damage - nor to run dry. ~ Amy Leach

Though violent action is sometimes associated with nihilism, what makes such activity nihilistic, it seems, is the belief that ultimately nothing will come out of it. When nihlists throw themselves into activity it is with the understanding that its only goal is the expression and dissipation of their life's energy. Any creative product will eventually be consumed by decay. Since there is nothing that humans can do to mend the separation between themselves and reality, they can never actualize their supreme standards of worth and value. This world must remain substandard no matter what we do to try and change the situation. ~ John Marmysz

Government can supply bread, but it can't mend a broken spirit. ~ Rand Paul

Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. Anything. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity, can cause to be set in motion ... Mend the part of the world that is within your reach. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

When the Japanese mend broken objects, they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold. They believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful. ~ Barbara Bloom

If dislocation is a permanent state, I want to try and explore the possibility of temporary impermanence. If dislocation is a tatty dress from the thrift store, perhaps the solution is not to cast it aside. If dislocation is a tatty dress, perhaps the only solution is to mend it, scent it, and wear it until everything about it signifies newness, something close to the perpetual promise of a fresh start. ~ Diriye Osman

I guess some things are just meant to be broken. ~ Kara Isaac

Truly as the sun can rot or mend, love can make one bestial or make a beast a man. ~ Marianne Moore

...the danger of developing a policy of rush, of being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to do next. In this way one may come to exist as in a prison, and one's life may cease to be one's own. One may take the dog out for a walk at eight o'clock, and meditate the whole time on the fact that one must begin to read at a quarter to nine, and that one must not be late.
And the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not help to mend matters. The evil springs not from persisting without elasticity in what one has attempted, but from originally attempting too much, from filling one's programme till it runs over. The only cure is to reconstitute the programme, and to attempt less. ~ Arnold Bennett

There are boys here who have to mend their shoes whatever way they can. There are boys in this class with no shoes at all. It's not their fault and it's no shame. Our Lord had no shoes. He died shoeless. Do you see Him hanging on the cross sporting shoes? Do you, boys? ~ Frank McCourt

Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake ... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled ... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I? ~ Tim Finn

All humans are the same. It's pathetic when some denounce others for something the first also do. So mend your own business and stop intervening on others' business. ~ Maria Karvouni

The Death of Allegory

I am wondering what became of all those tall abstractions
that used to pose, robed and statuesque, in paintings
and parade about on the pages of the Renaissance
displaying their capital letters like license plates.


Truth cantering on a powerful horse,
Chastity, eyes downcast, fluttering with veils.
Each one was marble come to life, a thought in a coat,
Courtesy bowing with one hand always extended,


Villainy sharpening an instrument behind a wall,
Reason with her crown and Constancy alert behind a helm.
They are all retired now, consigned to a Florida for tropes.
Justice is there standing by an open refrigerator.


Valor lies in bed listening to the rain.
Even Death has nothing to do but mend his cloak and hood,
and all their props are locked away in a warehouse,
hourglasses, globes, blindfolds and shackles.


Even if you called them back, there are no places left
for them to go, no Garden of Mirth or Bower of Bliss.
The Valley of Forgiveness is lined with condominiums
and chain saws are howling in the Forest of Despair.


Here on the table near the window is a vase of peonies
and next to it black binoculars and a money clip,
exactly the kind of thing we now prefer,
objects that sit quietly on a line in lower case,


themselves and nothing ~ Billy Collins

They do not pretend to deserve me; better yet, they do not even pretend that they can save me. They do not view me as a broken, feathered thing they can mend up if they scoop me into their hands and show me enough attention. In time, they know that I will stretch across the skies again, but not before I'm ready.
- not before I mend my own wing. ~ Amanda Lovelace

Serve God, love me, and mend.: ~ William Shakespeare

Revenge would have shattered us both. But you've given us the opportunity to be strong. To mend our hearts instead of break them further. ~ Nadine Brandes

Once a heart breaks ... it doesn't just grow back. It's not a lizard's tail. It's more like a huge stained glass that shattered into a million pieces, and it's not going back together. Least not the way it was. You can mush it all into one piece, but that doesn't make it a window. That makes it a pile of broken colored glass. Shattered hearts don't mend and they don't heal. They just don't work that way. ~ Charles Martin

What you keep by you, you may change and mend but words, once spoken, can never be recalled. ~ Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl Of Roscommon

He that resolves to mend hereafter, resolves not to mend now. ~ Benjamin Franklin

But, alas, he never really belonged in either place, the sad fate, I am afraid, of those whose hearts break and then mend in crooked ways. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Any display of interest, I can assure you, Nicholas, has been manufactured by dear, sweet, acquisitive Mrs. Pomphrey-Hughes and no other. I'm sure she's a great reader of the classics and well aware of that 'truth universally acknowledged.' And knowing me to be single and in possession of a good fortune, who better to mend my most piteous want of a wife than her own daughter, Daphne? ~ Julianna Deering

Let us then try what love can do to mend a broken world. ~ William Penn

If you share in a heart-felt sorrow, you can lighten the load of a friend. Sometimes facing the burden together can mend two broken hearts in the end. ~ Wes Fesler

You don't write because someone sets assignments! You write because you need to write, or because you hope someone will listen or because writing will mend something broken inside you or bring something back to life. ~ Joanne Harris

True Godliness doesn't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it ... We have nothing that we can call our own; no, not our selves: for we are all but Tenants, and at Will, too, of the great Lord of our selves, and the rest of this great farm, the World that we live upon. ~ William Penn

I sensed he may have occasionally strayed in some of his past relationships. It was something I felt but ignored, a rent in the fabric of an otherwise splendid garment I thought I could mend. I thought I could live with it - I thought, yes and I admit it, that I would be different. That at the very least, middle age and children would slow him down; however, they seemed to accelerate his pace. ~ Suzanne Finnamore

And although one broken heart doesn't make me an expert in the subject, I believe you need both things - time and an emotional replacement - to fully mend one. ~ Emily Giffin

I believe that all great art holds the power to dissolve things: time, distance, difference, injustice, alienation, despair. I believe that all great art holds the power to mend things: join, comfort, inspire hope in fellowship, reconcile us to our selves. Art is good for my soul precisely because it reminds me that we have souls in the first place. ~ Tilda Swinton

When I walk through a forest I feel tremendous: tree-mend-us! ~ S.J. Cameron

Freud, one of the grand masters of narrative, knew that the past is not fixed in the way that linear time suggests. We can return. We can pick up what we dropped. We can mend what others broke. We can talk with the dead. ~ Jeanette Winterson

She softly presses her lips against mine and moves them gently to encourage my participation, which I happily oblige. She lightly traces her tongue along the seam of my lips, eliciting a rumbling moan from my throat and encouraging gooseflesh to spread across my torso and down my body.
She's mine…
She's all I ever wanted, and now she's mine. I open my mouth to her and allow her access so we can begin to mend and heal.
A whimper escapes her throat and crashes through my constraints, encouraging me to escalate the kiss by moving in to consume her and demand even more from her.
~Silas, Resilient~ ~ Criss Copp

Now is not the time for a fanciful dip into our shadow because it is sexy or fashionable. It is essential, now more than ever, to bravely gaze into the darkest chambers of our hearts. It is only with an honest appraisal of the seat of our souls that we can mend ourselves individually and collectively. ~ Sasha Graham

Sleep!
May be you will wake up tomorrow and find that things never changed, the apocalypse never happened, and everything's fine, normal, at home.
Or may be you will wake up tomorrow and find that things have changed, for the better, the apocalypse is over and there's light, hope and a new home.
Sleep, you crazy soul, just sleep. ~ Sanhita Baruah

It is easier to mend neglect than to quicken love. ~ St. Jerome

All I know is that you are the only person that has ever made me feel this way. Break my heart and mend it at the same time, make my breathing feel inadequate. You, Clara, make me want more. ~ Len Webster

But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody. There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them. ~ George Orwell

A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

We could not become like God, so God became like us. God showed us how to heal instead of kill, how to mend instead of destroy, how to love instead of hate, how to live instead of long for more. When we nailed God to a tree, God forgave. And when we buried God in the ground, Got got up. ~ Rachel Held Evans

Maybe broken hearts can mend more easily than broken hands and eyes ~ Lisa McMann

Trust you? Rue
trust you? You counterfeited your own death rather than wed me. You told me you'd rather die than stay in Darkfrith. I can't
I don't know how to fix that. I don't know how to mend it. Tell me." He took a step toward her. "Tell me, and I'll do it. ~ Shana Abe

Bagpipe Music'

It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crêpe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with heads of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumb-bells to use when he was fifty.

It's no go the Yogi-Man, it's no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture.

The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife 'Take it away; I'm through with overproduction'.

It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby.

Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caugh ~ Louis MacNeice

Mullahs from the TNSM preached that the earthquake was a warning from God. They said it was caused by women's freedom and obscenity. If we did not mend our ways and introduce sharia or Islamic law, they shouted in their thundering voices, more severe punishment would come. ~ Malala Yousafzai

Let me tell you, sir, that if you wish to be accepted into Bath society you will do well to mend your manners!' retorted Abby.
'I've none to mend, and not the smallest wish to be accepted into Bath, or any other, society. ~ Georgette Heyer

When men are brought face to face with their opponents, forced to listen and learn and mend their ideas, they cease to be children and savages and begin to live like civilized men. Then only is freedom a reality, when men may voice their opinions because they must examine their opinions. ~ Walter Lippmann

I enjoy mediation. I think the artist's position is often to mend the things we feel are broken. Whether that's between two cultures or two thoughts. We're always trying to reach, trying to expand something. ~ K'naan

We hold within ourselves the medicinal materials to mend self-inflicted injuries sustained while traversing the thorny obstacle course of life. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

People said love was the antidote to hate, that it could mend what was most broken, and give hope in the most hopeless of times. ~ Alice Hoffman

These ordained atheists cultivate their egoism, the source of every atheist's activity, but they defile it and it becomes repulsive whereas the egoism of good atheists is a beautiful principle. They preach raging sermons not because they fear for the eternal damnation of their fold, but because they fear for the eternal damnation of their gold; before every sermon they feel their pockets to see if there's a hole, and if there is, they mend it with a sermon instead of a patch. ~ N.G. Pomyalovsky

And they say, if ever a traveler plucks the wild parsley, and takes the bark of the hazel tree, and the secret toadstools, and mixes them with crocus from the patch of forest where the hero's last bones lie, a powerful spell will come to life. The hero will be reborn, not as he was before his destruction, but many times stronger in body and spirit; for he will be filled with the strength of earth, sea, and air. I think of the seven of us as the parts of one body. We may be torn asunder, and it may seem as if there is no tomorrow for us. We may each travel our own path, and we may fall and be broken and mend again. But in the end, as surely as the sun and moon make their way across the arch of the heavens, the strength of one is the strength of seven. ~ Juliet Marillier

When a heart breaks a substance spills out like cement and pours through the bloodstream, hardening everything. In time, I know my heart will mend and the rock inside will crack and crumble away. But for now I'm as solid as a column. And alone I stand. ~ Sarah Noffke

If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next. ~ Jane Austen

Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
What is there to be or do?
What's become of me or you?
Are we kind or are we true?
Sitting two and two, boys, waiting for the end.

Shall I build a tower, boys, knowing it will rend
Crack upon the hour, boys, waiting for the end?
Shall I pluck a flower, boys, shall I save or spend?
All turns sour, boys, waiting for the end.

Shall I send a wire, boys? Where is there to send?
All are under fire, boys, waiting for the end.
Shall I turn a sire, boys? Shall I choose a friend?
The fat is in the pyre, boys, waiting for the end.

Shall I make it clear, boys, for all to apprehend,
Those that will not hear, boys, waiting for the end,
Knowing it is near, boys, trying to pretend,
Sitting in cold fear, boys, waiting for the end?

Shall we send a cable, boys, accurately penned,
Knowing we are able, boys, waiting for the end,
Via the Tower of Babel, boys? Christ will not ascend.
He's hiding in his stable, boys, waiting for the end.

Shall we blow a bubble, boys, glittering to distend,
Hiding from our trouble, boys, waiting for the end?
When you build on rubble, boys, Nature will append
Double and re-double, boys, waiting for the end.

Shall we make a tale, boys, that things are sure to mend,
Playing bluff and hale, boys, waiting for the end?
It will be b ~ William Empson

1) Leopardskin is always a neutral.
2) You can get away with nearly anything if you wear the thing with black opaque tights and boots.
3) Contrary to popular opinion, a belt is often not a good friend to a lady. Indeed, in many circumstances, it acts merely as a visual aid to help the onlooker settle the question: "Which half is fatter - the bottom or the top?"
4) Bright red is a neutral.
5) Sellotape is NOT strong enough to mend a hole in the crotch of a pair of tights.
6) You should NOT buy an outfit if you have to strike a sexy pose in the changing-room mirror to make it look good. On the other hand, if you immediately start dancing the minute you put it on, buy it, however much it costs: unless it's lots, in which case, you can't, so don't. Fashion magazines will NEVER say, "Actually, don't buy it if you can't afford it." Neither will your friends. I am probably the only person who will EVER say it to you. You're welcome. ~ Caitlin Moran

Mend your clothes and you may hold out this year. ~ George Herbert

What happens when two broken hearts meet? Then the road gets very bumpy, but sooner or later if the pieces fit then the broken pieces from each heart will mend the other one. ~ Faye Hall

You have a mouth made for kissing," he murmured, angling her to face him. "Did you know that?"
She shook her head.
"So soft and generous." Leaning in, he tipped her chin with the heel of his hand. "Sweet."
"No man's ever called me sweet."
"Has any other man kissed you?"
Again, she gave a little shake of the head.
"Well, then. That's why." He brushed his lips over hers, just lightly, sending pure sensation frizzing through her veins. He hummed with satisfaction. "You taste of ripe plums."
She couldn't help it. She laughed. "Now that's just absurd."
"Why?"
"Because it's too early in the year for ripe plums."
His husky chuckle shook them both. "You're entirely too logical for your own good. A thorough kissing can mend that."
"I don't want mending."
"Perhaps not. But I think you do want kissing." He nuzzled the curve of her cheek, and his voice dropped to a sensual whisper. "Don't you?"
She did. Oh, she did. ~ Tessa Dare

What's amiss I'll strive to mend,And endure what can't be mended. ~ Isaac Watts

The tree is burning on the autumn noon
That builds each year the leaf and bark again.
Though frost will strip it raw and barren soon,
The rounding season will restore and mend.

Yet people are not mended, but go on,
Accumulating memory and love.
And so the wood we used to know is gone,
Because the years have taught us that we move.

We have moved on, the Tamburlaines of then,
To different Asias of our plundering.
And though we sorrow not to know again
A land or face we loved, yet we are king.

The young are never robbed of innocence
But given gold of love and memory.
We live in wealth whose bounds exceed our sense,
And when we die are full of memory.

-from "September Ode ~ Donald Hall

The war had taught us so many things: how to spin wool and weave cloth; how to fashion our own shoes from old saddle leather and sturdy canvas; how to plow fields and mend fences. Now it had taught us to kill, and how to protect ourselves from the consequences of those killings with a grim purposefulness that would have been unimaginable even a year before. ~ C.S. Harris

It's good that people get to be human. They get to fuck up and hurt each other. And have broken hearts and then seek to find ways to mend things. People get to evolve. They get to figure out how to change so they don't lose people in their life. Who are we when we aren't allowed to screw up? We are fucking lemurs who live no real lives. ~ Sarah Noffke

Iannis: [writing to Corelli] Antonio, I do not know if this letter will reach you, or even if you are alive. Perhaps someone else sent your record, and that is why we found no note. I would like to say that Pelagia is happy, but she is full of tears she will not let fall, and of a grief no doctor can mend. She blames herself for the pain we have suffered, and perhaps the same is true for you. You know I am not a religious man, but I believe this: if there is a wound, we must try to heal it. If there is someone whose pain we can cure, we must search till we find them. If the gods have chosen that we should survive, it will be for a reason. ~ Louis De Bernieres

Fourth, a telegram from brother Mycroft: 'Will visit at earliest possible convenience - great uproar in Whitehall. Mend quickly; your death would be most inconvenient at this time. ~ Lyndsay Faye

Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend. ~ Jewel

Once there lived a man who had a valley-full of needles. And one day the mother of Jesus came to him and said: "Friend, my son's garment is torn and I must needs mend it before he goeth to the temple. Wouldst thou not give me a needle?" And he gave her not a needle, but he gave her a learned discourse on Giving and Taking to carry to her son before he should go to the temple. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Go, little book, to our unfathomed friend, Above his silvered head to build a shrine, Retreat of Wisdom, Ignorance to mend. Full oft there shall you comfort and entwine His long limbs in bookish fetters benign. Thou shalt preserve those aquamarine gems, Or Gower's friend shall cast you in the Thames. ~ Bruce Holsinger

A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he candivide. ~ Franz Grillparzer

ODE TO A HAGGIS

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o' the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
You pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o'need
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking, rich!

Then, horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive
Bethankit hums

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms an' heads will sned,Robert Burns