Running Away Poems Quotes

Oh! mothers aren't fair - I mean it's not fair of nature to weigh us down with them and yet expect us to be our own true selves. The handicap's too great. All those months, when the same blood's running through two sets of veins - there's no getting away from that, ever after. Take yours. As I say, does she need to open her mouth? Not she! She's only got to let it hang at the corners, and you reek, you drip with guilt. ~ Henry Handel Richardson

Adventure must start with running away from home. ~ William Bolitho

Trying to run away is never the answer to being a fully human. Running away from the immediacy of our experience is like preferring death to life. ~ Pema Chodron

Human beings, when they encounter that which can't be understood, either run away from it, run towards it blindly, or just rationalize it out of existence. ~ Frederick Lenz

Heart; I named my lass sweetly;
She danced to the mundane tunes of daftness;
By nature she was midsummer madness;
Or rather a reckless, careless, devil-may-care colleen.

I pampered all her hefty desires;
Brain; my friend said treat her with caution;
For she is a child; doesn't ruminate her action;
You are mother, with deep devotion.

And one fine day came the tempest darling;
She named him love, besotted and infatuated;
Enchanted by his charms, smelled the roses;
Failed to see the thorns that pricked.

And drip-drip-drip, the blood it dripped;
When her beloved tossed and crushed her core;
She knew not how to stand up straight;
I opened my eyes and the driblets fell.

Don't nurse her; said my friend; my brain;
For she is a demented lass not worth the pain;
She will go away when her wounds are dried;
To her unmoved brutal hero, Love.

A mother cannot be unmoved, I cried;
For all this time, I held her high;
I knocked at your door, you flinty villain;
Not to hear, all that you said.

Call me a demon or a dragon;
For all I will say is don't nurse the brat;
Let her bleed and cry for some more time;
She will get up; for she is your child.

All he said was unerred truth;
She bled and nursed her own wounds;
She drove me to her hero's place; And said,

"This is where my poem stays. ~ Ranjani Ramachandran

Some people call reading an escape, but it's not - it's embracing the true reality of the best parts of who we are. It's not running away; it's running toward the thing we wish we could be, the thing we strive to be, the thing we never can be, but the thing which we always must try to become if we want to be something more than we are. ~ Sean Gibson

I read as if time were running out, because technically it is. As I grow older I find I'm increasingly impatient with mediocre entertainments; I want books that will take my breath away and realign my vision - Barbara Kingsolver ~ Pat Williams

Now to escape involves not just running away, but arriving somewhere. ~ Bernhard Schlink

I don't feel any shame I won't apologize if there ain't nowhere you can go running away from pain when you've been victimized tales from another broken home. ~ Green Day

In an instant, our mind can carry us far away into memories of the past or fantasies about the future. Or we may get caught up in a race against the clock, feeling like there's never enough time. We say things like "Time is flying," "Time is running out," or "There are never enough hours in the day." ~ Deepak Chopra

I've laid down in dried up streambeds, leaving a shadow. And then, five minutes later, it's flash flooded, and where I once laid is now running water, which would've washed me away, you know? There's that power and danger often in places that look so calm and pastoral to begin with. ~ Andy Goldsworthy

People think by running away from a negative situation, they will be rid of it, but the same situation confronts them wherever they go. They will meet the same experiences until they have learned their lessons. ~ Florence Scovel Shinn

I was neglected by my family because I had disappointed them - I'd run away from being forced into an arranged marriage, which was a big blow to them. ~ Nelson Mandela

Oh,' she said, too bone-weary to pretend: 'I would far rather that I love you as I saw yesterday I do than that I had gone on worshiping you as I did not long since.' And she turned away hastily, and did not see that Little John would reach out to her; and half-running, went to Tuck's cottage, where she could pull on her half-dry clothes, and become a proper outlaw again. At least, she thought, fighting back tears, like this I am Cecil, with a place among friends, and a task to do. I am someone. I wonder if perhaps if I am no longer Cecil, I am no one at all. ~ Robin McKinley

Got any good ideas, soldier?" "Lots of them. Somebody gunned Geiger. Somebody got gunned by Geiger, who ran away. Or it was two other fellows. Or Geiger was running a cult and made blood sacrifices in front of that totem pole. Or he had chicken for dinner and liked to kill his chickens in the front parlor. ~ Raymond Chandler

No, we don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run, fast as we can, and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow. ~ Neil Cross

Employment in the Small Bookstore"
Twelve Poems, 1975

The dust is almost motionless
in this narrowness, this stillness,
yet how unlike a coffin
it is, sometimes letting a live one in,
sometimes out
and the air,
though paused, impends not a thing,
the silence isn't sinister,
and in fact not much goes on
at the Ariel Book Shop today,
no one weeps in the back
room full of books, old books, no one
is tearing the books to shreds, in fact
I am merely sitting here
talking to no one, no one being here,
and I am blameless,
More,
I am grateful for the job,
I am fond of the books and touch them,
I am grateful that King St. goes down
to the river, and that the rain
is lovely, the afternoon green.
If the soft falling away of the afternoon
is all there is, it is nearly
enough, just
let me hear the beautiful clear voice
of a woman in song passing
toward silence, and then
that will be all for me
at five o'clock
I will walk
down to see the untended
sailing yachts of the Potomac
bobbing hopelessly in another silence,
the small silence that gets to be a long
one when the past stops talking
to you because it is dead,
and still you listen,
hearing just the tiny
agonies of old boats
on a cloudy day, in cloudy water.
Talk to it. Men are talking to it
by Cape Charles, for th ~ Denis Johnson

Do you love me?' I asked her. She smiled. 'Yes.' 'Do you want me to be happy?' as I asked her this I felt my heart beginning to race. 'Of course I do.' 'Will you do something for me then?' She looked away, sadness crossing her features. 'I don't know if I can anymore.' she said. 'but if you could, would you?' I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I'd never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment. As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me. 'yes' she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. 'I would.' Finally getting control of myself I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do. Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she'd wanted. It was what my heart had been telling me to do all al ~ Nicholas Sparks

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. ~ Joanna Lumley

Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning how not to run away. ~ Pema Chodron

If people are going to run you over for no reason and think they're going to get away with it, you just go out there and ruin their day, too. That's they way I feel. ~ Kasey Kahne

Were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the ~ Lewis Carroll

Why don't you join us? You can be Chief in Charge of Running Away Scared and Naming Things. -Allie ~ Rebecca Espinoza

Solitude is not a way of running away from life ... from our feelings. On the contrary. This is the time we sort them out, air them, get over them, and go on without the burden of yesterday. ~ Joan D. Chittister

His soda poured out all over his lap. My eyes went as wide as quarters. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, Mason."
Running on pure embarrassment, I grabbed a stack of napkins and began to clean it up. Once the table was safe, I started soaking up the liquid from his lap. It wasn't until I felt his pants tighten that I realized my second mistake.
I pulled away and blushed. Placing my hands in his crotch was probably not the best move. I was so embarrassed. Mason just laughed. "It's no big deal, Lexi, really. ~ Andrea Heltsley

She wished he weren't so damned fit. Running away was a lot harder when the guy you were fleeing kept in such an excellent shape. -Cath Talarico ~ Ruthie Knox

I watch these kids.
They don't seem entirely unhappy. A few times I've even circled the Free Clinic on foot, trying to catch a closer glimpse of these kids and their lives as they pop in and out of the clinic's Sputnik-era, gone-to-seed building--Lancaster's future trolls and Popeyes loitering out back having hushed paranoid conversations. And once I even went to have a look where they hang out in a big way, out in the delivery bay behind the now-closed Donut Hut, the delivery bay grotto out back with a floor spongy with pigeon shit, chewing gum, cigarette ashes, and throat oysters--dank and sunless. I went to visit this place once when all the druggies were away, having their druggy lives downtown doing their druggy things: yelling at parked cars and having conversations with amber lights. I visited this place and I was confused: confused and attracted. Who do these people think they are? How can they not care about the future or hot running water or clean sheets or cable TV? These people. And on the walls down at the delivery bay, do you know what they had written? Written in letters several hands high, letters built of IV needles attached to the cement with soiled bandages and wads of chewing gum? They had written the words WE LIKE IT. ~ Douglas Coupland

When I come home, my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug, and everything that's happened that day just melts away. ~ Hugh Jackman

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you. ~ Maya Angelou

Elsewhere there are no mobile phones. Elsewhere sleep is deep and the mornings are wonderful. Elsewhere art is endless, exhibitions are free and galleries are open twenty-four hours a day. Elsewhere alcohol is a joke that everybody finds funny. Elsewhere everybody is as welcoming as they'd be if you'd come home after a very long time away and they'd really missed you. Elsewhere nobody stops you in the street and says, are you a Catholic or a Protestant, and when you say neither, I'm a Muslim, then says yeah but are you a Catholic Muslim or a Protestant Muslim? Elsewhere there are no religions. Elsewhere there are no borders. Elsewhere nobody is a refugee or an asylum seeker whose worth can be decided about by a government. Elsewhere nobody is something to be decided about by anybody. Elsewhere there are no preconceptions. Elsewhere all wrongs are righted. Elsewhere the supermarkets don't own us. Elsewhere we use our hands for cups and the rivers are clean and drinkable. Elsewhere the words of the politicians are nourishing to the heart. Elsewhere charlatans are known for their wisdom. Elsewhere history has been kind. Elsewhere nobody would ever say the words bring back the death penalty. Elsewhere the graves of the dead are empty and their spirits fly above the cities in instinctual, shapeshifting formations that astound the eye. Elsewhere poems cancel imprisonment. Elsewhere we do time differently.
Every time I travel, I head for it. Every time I come home, I look for ~ Ali Smith

But that was all bravado. Already - how had it come about so quickly - desire had begotten need. A few whispered words (perhaps he didn't mean them) and I was ready to follow. It was worse to think of staying behind, to grind one day upon another. Nothing to hold me here. None to regret my leaving, save Az. ~ Sarah Micklem

If you keep running away from yourself then be warned that love, joy, peace and fulfillment will keep running away from you! ~ Maddy Malhotra

I'm living under water. Everything seems slow and far away. I know there's a world up there, a sunlit quick world where time runs like dry sand through an hourglass, but down here, where I am, air and sound and time and feeling are thick and dense. ~ Audrey Niffenegger

Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy. ~ Henri Nouwen

Good morning," he said.
A slow, bright smile curved her lips. "It's hardly morning. It's still dark out."
It was bright enough for him to see her face, and that was all he needed. "Close enough."
She rolled away from him and threw back the covers. Naked, she strode across the room.
"Where are you going?" he demanded, bolting upright. Was that fear causing his heart to race like that?
Rose shot him a sheepish glance over her bare shoulder. "Morning constitution," she replied and slipped into the adjoining bath. The door clicked shut behind her.
Grey fell back against the pillows, cursing himself for being such an idiot. Had it been so long that he'd forgotten what it was like to wake up with a woman? And what the hell had he thought she was doing? Running away from him without a stitch of clothing?
He rubbed both hands over his face. He was an idiot. She'd made him an idiot. ~ Kathryn Smith

The mind of one who practises doesn't run away anywhere, it stays right there. Good, evil, happiness and unhappiness, right and wrong arise, and he knows them all. The meditator simply knows them, they don't enter his mind. That is, he has no clinging. He is simply the experiencer. ~ Ajahn Chah

When Your Life Looks Back,

When your life looks back--
As it will, at itself, at you--what will it say?

Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.

Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could do?

Immersed in air or in water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.

"What will happen next?"--
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.

This, your life had said, its only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, its only house.
Let, your life had said, its only order.

And did you have a choice in this? You did--

Sleeping and waking,
the horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you--

A few times, you stood on your head.
A few t ~ Jane Hirshfield

Josh Billings said, It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too. Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems. ~ John W. Gardner

I think that as people and as humans, our social pattern is to always run away from problems ... as humans in general. ~ Cristian Machado

I realized I would be forced to run away from home if someone tried to arrange a marriage for me. I didn't want to think about it. ~ Elizabeth Wein

The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. ~ Terry Pratchett

I guess that isn't the right word, she said. She was used to apologizing for her use of language. She had been encouraged to do a lot of that in school. Most white people in Midland City were insecure when they spoke, so they kept their sentences short and their words simple, in order to keep embarrassing mistakes to a minimum. Dwayne certainly did that. Patty certainly did that.
This was because their English teachers would wince and cover their ears and give them flunking grades and so on whenever they failed to speak like English aristocrats before the First World War. Also: they were told that they were unworthy to speak or write their language if they couldn't love or understand incomprehensible novels and poems and plays about people long ago and far away, such as Ivanhoe. ~ Kurt Vonnegut