Not Natural Quotes

This is fucking magic, she thought. This isn't some story out of one of Tommy's books. This isn't something you can experiment with in the bathroom. This is not natural, and whatever I am, it isn't natural. A vampire is magic, not science. ~ Christopher Moore

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. ~ Rumi

White free speech and white creative freedom have been founded on the constraint of others, and are not natural rights. ~ Zadie Smith

When circumstances demand that we do something that is not natural to our temperament or talents, we must sometimes intentionally choose by discipline what we inherently lack by nature. ~ Jamie Arpin-Ricci

Recently, I've begun to think of scoliosis as a metaphor for my life. I've struggled to please teachers, employers, parents, boyfriends, husbands, twisting myself into someone I can't be. I hurt when I do this, because it's not natural. And it never works. But when I stretch my Self, instead, the results are different. When I'm reaching for my personal goals - to be a good mother, wife, friend and writer - I feel my balance return. And the sense of relief, as I become more the woman I truly am, is simply grand. ~ Linda C. Wisniewski

Cities are natural, that's why they're everywhere. It's not like there's only one city, and everybody's like 'What the f**k is this?' No, cities are all over the place. They're natural. You know what's not natural? You, in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of the winter. ~ Joe Rogan

Every morning I rise when it is pitch black outside (and you know it's not natural to be up if the sun couldn't even be bothered to get up), ~ Cecelia Ahern

Sitting in an office for TOO long is not natural, perhaps, so that's why we should change it. I didn't say that out-and-out capitalism, which reduces humanity to dollar figures, is natural. ~ Yann Martel

'You like jealousy. You like knowing people want you.'
He wasn't talking about sex, and my heart slowed a little. 'Is it not natural to want to be liked?'
'That ain't what you want. It's like you got to have everybody's heart, and if they don't give it, you rip it out and watch it bleed.' ~ Sarah Monette

The future is taking shape now in our own beliefs and in the courage of our leaders. Ideas and leadership - not natural or social "forces" - are the prime movers in human affairs. ~ George Roche III

Celibacy is not natural to men or to women; all bodily needs require their legitimate satisfaction, and celibacy is a disregard of natural law. ~ Annie Besant

Wearing this kind of costume is not something I fantasize about. It's not natural, it's not comfortable. I don't see myself as this. But it gives you dramatic license to do almost anything when you're dressed as a bug. ~ Joan Severance

A teacher who can show good, or indeed astounding results while he is teaching, is still not on that account a good teacher, for it may be that, while his pupils are under his immediate influence, he raises them to a level which is not natural to them, without developing their own capacities for work at this level, so that they immediately decline again once the teacher leaves the schoolroom. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

In nature this animal would have nothing to do with you. "Natural horsemanship" is just words. It's not natural at all. There's an abundance of trust that must be developed for you. Imagine if humans were that pliable. ~ Buck Brannaman

It's not natural, Ava. For me not to touch you, it's not right. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

People who felt scared or desperate enough could do almost anything, even things that are extremely out of their character to do; things that are not natural to them. When it came to the human condition, it only took one small spark to light an inferno. ~ J.M. Northup

Being faithful and monogamous is not natural for human beings. It takes work. Deep down we all know that. We have all been tempted to stray at some point or another. Even when it was only a fleeting thought and we didn't act on it. Every time we acknowledge that someone of the opposite sex is "attractive" or "sexy" we are doing nothing other than pointing out that they would be a suitable mate. Not acting on that natural impulse to want to mate with a viable mating partner requires a conscious decision. It's a constant struggle between what your body wants, and what the civilized part of your brain says you should do, in order to avoid the negative consequences of cheating on your spouse and ruining your long-term relationship. That's why affairs, and extra-marital sex, are often referred to as "a moment of weakness. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

I am afraid of photographs. I am ashamed they will show
where I really come from. From particles of light, a slow
holding of breath as if I were filling with dirt & I am, because
where I come from is a place outside and it is not normal... ~ Lisa Marie Basile

Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom. ~ Nelson Mandela

The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle. ~ James Hutton

It's not 'natural' to speak well, eloquently, in an interesting, articulate way. People living in groups, families, communes say little - have few verbal means. Eloquence - thinking in words - is a byproduct of solitude, deracination, a heightened painful individuality. In groups, it's more natural to sing, to dance, to pray: given, rather than invented (individual) speech. ~ Susan Sontag

I shall set down in a few lines how uptight Maldoror was during his early years, when he lived happy. There: done. He later perceived he was born wicked: strange mischance! For a great many years he concealed his character as best he could; but in the end, because this effort was not natural to him, each day the blood would rush to his head until, unable any longer to bear such a life, he hurled himself resolutely into a career of evil … sweet atmosphere! Who could guess whenever he hugged a rosycheeked young child, that he was longing to hack off those cheeks with a razor and would have done so often had not the idea of Justice and her long cortège of punishments restrained him on every occasion. ~ Comte De Lautreamont

It's not natural to outlive your child. This has always been my greatest fear. ~ Debbie Reynolds

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn? ~ W.B.Yeats

When you practice Dynamic Meditation for the first time this will be difficult, because we have suppressed the body so much that a suppressed pattern of life has become natural to us. It is not natural! Look at a child: he plays with his body in quite a different way. If he is crying, he is crying intensely. The cry of a child is a beautiful thing to hear, but the cry of an adult is ugly. Even in anger a child is beautiful; he has a total intensity. But when an adult is angry he is ugly; he is not total. And any type of intensity is beautiful. ~ Rajneesh

What else are there but rituals
To cover up the emptiness
O Disbelief

Lord Nothingness
When my son's suffering ended
My own began

Why did the sun rise this morning
It's not natural
I don't want to see the light

It's not time to close the casket
Or say Kaddish for my son
I've already buried two fathers

With a mother to come
Isn't that enough Lord who wants us
To exalt and sanctify Him

I don't want to wear the mourner's ribbon
Or wake up crying every morning
For God knows how long

I don't want to tuck my son into the ground
As if we were putting him to bed
For the last time ~ Edward Hirsch

One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way. ~ Bruce Lee

They drove farther north like that. In perfect loving antagonism. It occurred to Ted that maybe Marty was like all the red and gold leaves he saw burning on the trees. In nature, it seems, things reached their most vibrant and beautiful right at the point of death, flaming out with all they had - why not natural man? His father was red, green, yellow, and gold, like a beautiful bird falling from the sky. Parodoxical undressing again. ~ David Duchovny

And I was ashamed of myself for feeling like I had to do that in order to look a certain way. I felt misshapen, just not natural anymore. And I think it was a big stimulator of my drug use. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

Because of jealousy you are in constant suffering; you become mean to others. And because of jealousy you start becoming phony, because you start pretending. You start pretending things that you don't have, you start pretending things which you CAN'T have, which are not natural to you. You become more and more artificial. Imitating others, competing with others, what else can you do? If somebody has something and you don't have it, and you don't have a natural possibility of having it, the only way is to have some cheap substitute for it. ~ Rajneesh

Belief is the natural state of things. It is the default option. We just believe. We believe all sorts of things. Belief is natural; disbelief, skepticism, science, is not natural. ~ Michael Shermer

Our bodies are always exposed to Satan. The maladies I suffer are not natural, but Devil's spells. ~ Martin Luther

Literary history and the present are dark with silences ... I have had special need to learn all I could of this over the years, myself so nearly remaining mute and having to let writing die over and over again in me. These are not natural silences
what Keats called agonie ennuyeuse (the tedious agony)
that necessary time for renewal, lying fallow, gestation, in the natural cycle of creation. The silences I speak of here are unnatural: the unnatural thwarting of what struggles to come into being, but cannot. ~ Tillie Olsen

We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. ~ Kate Elliott

For us who live in cities Nature is not natural. Nature is supernatural. Just as monks watched and strove to get a glimpse of heaven, so we watch and strive to get a glimpse of earth. It is as if men had cake and wine every day but were sometimes allowed common bread. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nature is not natural and that is natural enough. ~ Gertrude Stein

God wants us to pray that we might have the courage to live before him in ways that are not natural to us. ~ Jack Miller

When you're delivering information that you don't believe in or are lying about, you manifest the same behaviors as suspects in criminal or espionage cases who are lying to officers or agents." Wright's advice: believe in what you're saying (chapter 1). "If you don't believe what you're saying, your movements will be awkward and not natural. No amount of training - unless you're a trained espionage agent or psychopath - will allow you to break that incongruence between your words and actions. If you don't believe in the message, you cannot force your body to act as though you believe in the message. ~ Carmine Gallo

It's not natural for people in the opposition to leave. It's always a personal catastrophe. ~ Masha Gessen

This thing isn't "natural" to us, you know? Some of the worst excesses against men were never - in my opinion anyway - perpetrated against women in the time before the Cataclysm. Three or four thousand years ago, it was considered normal to cull nine in ten boy babies. Fuck, there are still places today where boy babies are routinely aborted, or have their dicks "curbed." This can't have happened to women in the time before the Cataclysm. We talked about evolutionary psychology before - it would have made no evolutionary sense for cultures to abort female babies on a large scale or to fuck about with their reproductive organs! So it's not "natural" to us to live like this. It can't be. I can't believe it is. We can choose differently. ~ Naomi Alderman

I had to think before I could answer. "I can stand in this wind, because I'm not trying to stand in it," I said. "The wind is just wind. You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air. There is no difference. Except the difference you make in your head."

He stared at me blankly. He hadn't understood.

"I'm just standing," I said. "You are all trying to compensate, to get your bodies lower because the height scares you. But the crouching and the sidestepping are not natural. You've made yourselves vulnerable. If you could just control your panic, this wind would be nothing."

"The way it is nothing to you," he said. ~ Tara Westover

When you act on an intuitive impulse, you are celebrating one of the thoroughly joyful aspects of life on this planet. That calm, guiding inner voice is a natural part of you and deserves to be honored. What is not natural is ignoring it. ~ Jodi Livon

Habit is a second nature thta destroys the first. But what is nature? Why is habit not natural? I am very much afraid that nature itself is only a first habit, just as habit is a second nature. ~ Blaise Pascal

You can't just say what's going to happen ahead of time. That's not how physical law works. That's narrative. And when reality is twisted to fit narrative, that's not natural. That's someone making stories happen. ~ Ryan North

There! Come down! What are you doing up there? Come down! We can't have the girl walking through the air. It's not natural!"

But Maia was going up and up. ~ P.L. Travers

I feel I have to work hard to nurture whatever talent I have as an actor. I feel like it's not natural to me. So I don't take it for granted ... What I think is my natural ability - which is writing - I think I totally take that for granted. ~ David Duchovny

For it is a mistake to think that talking to one's self is not natural. Powerful emotions often speak aloud ~ Victor Hugo

Corporations found out that without a healthy culture, people are not natural Marxists but natural couch potatoes. With no extended family, no effective church, and no healthy local community to support their lives, people don't form revolutionary cells: they buy a case of beer or renew their Xanax prescription and spend their non-working hours watching NFL games and the Lifetime network and various types of pornography. ~ Gene Callahan

Our entire system, in an economic sense, is based on restriction. Scarcity and inefficiency are the movers of money; the more there is of any resource the less you can charge for it. The more problems there are, the more opportunities there are to make money.

This reality is a social disease, for people can actually gain off the misery of others and the destruction of the environment. Efficiency, abundance and sustainability are enemies of our economic structure, for they are inverse to the mechanics required to perpetuate consumption.

This is profoundly critical to understand, for once you put this together you begin to see that the one billion people currently starving on this planet, the endless slums of the poor and all the horrors of a culture due to poverty and pravity are not natural phenomenon due to some natural human order or lack of earthly resources. They are products of the creation, perpetuation and preservation of artificial scarcity and inefficiency. ~ Peter Joseph

It is commonplace observation that women are forever trying to straighten their hair if it is curly and curl it if it is straight, bind their breasts if they are large and pad them if they are small, darken their hair if it is light and lighten it if it is dark. Not all these measures are dictated by the fantom of fashion. They all reflect dissatisfaction with the body as it is, and an insistent desire that it be otherwise, not natural but controlled, fabricated. Many of the devices adopted by women are not cosmetic or ornamental, but disguise of the actual, arising from fear and distaste. ~ Germaine Greer

Fear and doubt are not natural emotions. Fear and doubt are learned traits and behaviors. How did you learn them? ~ Troy Gathers

The ownership of land is not natural. The American savage, ranging through forests who game and timber are the common benefits of all his kind, fails to comprehend it. The nomad traversing the desert does not ask to whom belong the shifting sands that extend around him as far as the horizon. The Caledonian shepherd leads his flock to graze wherever a patch of nutritious greenness shows amidst the heather. All of these recognise authority. They are not anarchists. They have chieftains and overlords to whom they are as romantically devoted as any European subject might be to a monarch. Nor do they hold as the first Christians did, that all land should be held in common. Rather, they do not consider it as a thing that can be parceled out.

"We are not so innocent. When humanity first understood that a man's strength could create good to be marketed, that a woman's beauty was itself a commodity for trade, then slavery was born. So since Adam learnt to force the earth to feed him, fertile ground has become too profitable to be left in peace.

"This vital stuff that lives beneath our feet is a treasury of all times. The past: it is packed with metals and sparkling stones, riches made by the work of aeons. The future: it contains seeds and eggs: tight-packed promises which will unfurl into wonders more fantastical than ever jeweller dreamed of -- the scuttling centipede, the many-branched tree whose roots, fumbling down into darkness, are as large and cunningly ~ Lucy Hughes-Hallett

It's perversion. Don't you see what it is? It's not natural. To go to great expense for something you want, that's natural. To reach out to take it, that's human, that's natural. But to get your pleasure from not taking, from cheating yourself deliberately like my brother did today, from not getting, from not taking. Don't you see what a black thing that is for a man to do? How it is to hate yourself? ~ Abraham Polonsky

I believe that every artist, in one way or another, is a wounded person. It's not natural to make art. ~ Paul Auster

Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural - they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise - a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day. ~ Randy Alcorn

[L]asting love is something a person has to decide to experience. Lifelong monogamous devotion is just not natural - not for women even, and emphatically not for men. It requires what, for lack of a better term, we can call an act of will ... This isn't to say that a young man can't hope to be seized by love ... But whether the sheer fury of a man's feelings accurately gauges their likely endurance is another question. The ardor will surely fade, sooner or later, and the marriage will then live or die on respect, practical compatibility, simple affection, and (these days, especially) determination. With the help of these things, something worthy of the label 'love' can last until death. But it will be a different kind of love from the kind that began the marriage. Will it be a richer love, a deeper love, a more spiritual love? Opinions vary. But it's certainly a more impressive love. ~ Robert Wright

if its not natural it is a abomination as is all miracles come from nature and miracles are as real as all things are possible ~ Unknown

Every form of life is in its origin not natural, but divine and human; for it must spring from love, just as there can be no reason without spirit. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

[Socialists claim] that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism ... confounds Government and society. ~ Frederic Bastiat

You don't get better as you get older in your career. It's not natural to have your best years late in your career. So I'm trying to do whatever I can to keep my body feeling good for as long as I can. ~ David Ortiz

Any food product that feels compelled to tell you it's natural
in all likelihood is not. ~ Michael Pollan

War is not natural. We have to be trained for it, soldiers and citizens alike. ~ Ann Jones

It's not natural rattling around the house on my own all day when you're not here. It's no way to live. That's all I have to say. ~ Fredrik Backman

I think you can get away with so much more offensiveness when you're operating behind a stuffed teddy bear or a cartoon or something that's not real, because it's forgiven. It's like having a little kid in a movie curse - it's funny because it's not natural. ~ Mila Kunis

There is no such thing as a natural disaster. In earthquakes the architecture fails. If you're out in a grassy meadow, it doesn't matter how big the earthquake is: it might knock you down, but if nothing falls on top of you and nothing catches fire from broken gas mains or power lines, then you're probably okay. Architecture is the first casualty of earthquakes, and human beings under the architecture are the casualties of the architecture. Even with a wholly natural disaster, whatever that might be - a tsunami, maybe - who gets help, who has resources to rebuild, who is treated as a threat or a malingerer - those are not natural but social phenomena. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Throwing a ball is not natural, whether it's overhand or underhand. ~ Jennie Finch

I'm going to have to give him shit for all this,' Shane said, as he wandered around. 'He lives alone and makes his bed? Who does that?'
'People who like things neat?'
'Its not natural. ~ Rachel Caine

This was killing her. She had to break the silence. This was not natural. It was too awful. People were
meant to talk. ~ Julia Quinn

Critical thinking helps us to more clearly understand situations, patients, colleagues, and our agendas, negative emotions, attitudes, motivations, talents, and growing edges. This not only helps us to have a greater grasp of reality but also stops the drain of psychological energy that is necessary to be defensive or to protect our image. Because critical thinking is not natural, although we may think it is for us, it takes discipline, a willingness to face the unpleasant, and a stamina that allows one not to become unduly frustrated when we do not achieve results as quickly as we prefer with respect to our insights and growth. ~ Robert J. Wicks

It's natural to feel fear. All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not ... ~ Rick Riordan

Poverty is not natural; it is man-made ~ Nelson Mandela

Most enjoyable activities are not natural; they demand an effort that initially one is reluctant to make. But once the interaction starts to provide feedback to the person's skills, it usually begins to be intrinsically rewarding. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Afghans think the burqa is a permanent part of culture. But, if you bring it to Europe, how would people react? Afghanistan doesn't want to change its culture, but it can change, all the time. So why are Afghans giving so much value to it? The burqa is not natural. It's not human nature. ~ Malina Suliman

People use their leaders almost as an excuse. When they give in to the leader's commands they can always reserve the feeling that these commands are are alien to them, that they are the leader's responsibility, that the terrible acts they are committing are in his name and not theirs. This, then, is another thing that makes people feel so guiltless, as Canetti points out: they can imagine themselves as temporary victims of the leader. The more they give in to his spell, and the more terrible the crimes they commit, the more they can feel that the wrongs are not natural to them. It is all so neat, this usage of the leader; it reminds us of James Franzer's discovery that in the remote past tribes often used their kings as scapegoats who, when they no longer served the people's needs, were put to death. These are the many ways in which men can play the hero, all the while that they are avoiding responsibility for their own acts in a cowardly way. ~ Ernest Becker

Nothing leads to good that is not natural. ~ Friedrich Schiller

You can't go feeding your hate on the past, it's not natural. ~ Bryce Courtenay

If they told us, that in a pre-existent state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance. But if he only meant to say that the exercise of the faculties will produce this fondness, I deny it. It is not natural; but arises, like false ambition in men, from a love of power. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

Lay not the blame on me, O sailor, but on the winds. By nature I am as calm and safe as the land itself, but the winds fall upon me with their gusts and gales, and lash me into a fury that is not natural to me. ~ Aesop

It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they come from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them
with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them ... ~ Eudora Welty

The laws of Coexistence;-the adaptation of structure to function; and to a certain extent the elucidation of natural affinities may be legitimately founded upon the examination of fully developed species;-But to obtain an insight into the laws of development,-the signification or bedeutung, of the parts of an animal body demands a patient examination of the successive stages of their development, in every group of Animals. ~ Richard Owen

It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world. ~ Richard Steele

He is gifted with genius who knoweth much by natural inspiration. ~ Pindar

Pleasure, scarcely in one instance, is ever able to reach ecstasy and rapture; and in no one instance can it continue for any time at its highest pitch and altitude. The spirits evaporate, the nerves relax, the fabric is disordered, and the enjoyment quickly degenerates into fatigue and uneasiness. But pain often, good God, how often! rises to torture and agony; and the longer it continues, it becomes still more genuine agony and torture. Patience is exhausted, courage languishes, melancholy seizes us, and nothing terminates our misery but the removal of its cause, or another event, which is the sole cure of all evil, but which, from our natural folly, we regard with still greater horror and consternation. ~ David Hume

Planning is as natural to the process of success as its absence is to the process of failure. ~ Robin Sieger

We forget that, historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure, about community, about family and spirituality, about our relationship to the natural world, and about expressing our identity. As long as humans have been taking meals together, eating has been as much about culture as it has been about biology. ~ Michael Pollan

Fear is natural - panic isn't. ~ Scott Reitz

In the unspoilt state of innocent childhood, practically every human being has a natural and direct feeling for the existence of God Almighty. But as time passes, this faith may be deflected and people start believing in other powers - political, economic or social. ~ Nirmala Srivastava

Since pure awareness of nowness is real Enlightenment,
in openness and contentment I found the Truth in my heart.
By simply relaxing in this uncontrived, open, and natural state,
we obtain the quality of effortless freedom of whatever arises. ~ Jigdral Yeshe Dorje

I believe all life has value, from conception to natural death. And I believe the intentional taking of human life, except to save lives, should be a capital offense, as it is in most states in America today. ~ Tom Coburn

It seems to me that the greatest adventure is to find a home in the world, particularly in the natural world, to earn a sense of belonging deeply to a place and to feel the deep response well up within you and become a part of you. When it is done, it can't be lost; the knowledge is as acute and sure as falling in love. ~ Cynthia Huntington

He doesn't say anything for a while, just studies me in that intense way. His nostrils flare, and again it's like he's taking in my scent or something. He continues, "Somehow, I think I know you. From the first moment I saw you, I felt that I knew you."
The words run through me, reminding me of when he let me escape in the mountains. He's good. Protective. I have nothing to fear from him, but everything to fear from his family.
I scoot closer, the draw of him too great. My warming core, the vibrations inside my chest feel so natural, so effortless around him. I know I need to be careful, exercise restraint, but it feels so good.
The pulse at his neck skips against his flesh. "Jacinda."
My skin ripples at his hoarse whisper. I stare up at him, waiting. He slides sown to land solidly on my step. He brings his face close to mine, angles his head. His breath is hard. Fast. Fills the space, the inch separating us.
I touch his cheek, see my hand shake, and quickly pull it back. He grabs my wrist, places my palm back against his cheek, and closes his eyes like he's in agony. Or bliss. Or maybe both. Like he's never been touched before. My heart squeezes. Like I've never touched anyone before.
"Don't stay away from me anymore."
I stop myself, just barely, from telling him I won't. I can't promise that. Can't lie.
He opens his eyes. States starkly, bleakly. "I need you. ~ Sophie Jordan

You're basing your laws and your whole outlook on natural life on mythology. It won't work. That's why you have all these problems in the world. Name them: India, Pakistan, Ireland. Name them-all these problems. They're all religious problems. ~ Jack Kevorkian

The younger, certainly, had to the full that charm
of a constitutional freshness of aspect which may
defy for a long time extravagant or erring habits of
life; a physiognomy healthy-looking, cleanly, and
firm, which seemed unassociable with any form of
self-tormenting, and made one think of the nozzle of
some young hound or roe, such as human beings
invariably like to stroke - with all the goodliness, that
is, of the finer sort of animalism, though still wholly
animal. It was the charm of the blond head, the
unshrinking gaze, the warm tints: - neither more
nor less than one may see every English summer, in
youth, manly enough, and with the stuff in it which
makes brave soldiers, in spite of the natural kinship
it seems to have with playthings and gay flowers. ~ Walter Pater

The solution to a pile of mildewed stuff is to rewash it with your regular detergent as well as a cup or two of white vinegar. A note on amounts: for a regular washing, a half cup to a full cup of white vinegar is more than enough to help cut down on smells and serve as a natural fabric softener. But when you're dealing with overpowering smells like mildew, you'll need to up the ante, and being aware of those differences will help you to apply that understanding to various laundering situations you may find on your hands. Baking soda is another option, but I prefer vinegar because I think it works better, ~ Jolie Kerr

What doesn't kill you, make you stronger ... Thatswhy pain is the most natural steroide of all. ~ Arpon

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I never said I was an angel. Nor am I innocent or holy like the Virgin Mary. What I am is natural and serious and as sensitive as an open nerve on an ice cube. ~ Sister Souljah

It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By a universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. ~ Thomas Jefferson

If you take responsibility for anything in your life, know that you'll feel fear. That fear will manifest itself in many ways: fear of embarrassment, fear of failure, fear of hurt. Such fears are entirely natural and healthy, and you should recognize them as proof that you've chosen work worth doing. Every worthy challenge will inspire some fear. A ~ Eric Greitens

Every British Subject born on the continent of America, or in any other of the British dominions, is by the law of God and nature, by the common law, and by act of parliament, (exclusive of all charters from the crown) entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great- Britain. ~ James Otis