The Glass Child Quotes

I wanted to say all these things about how you just have to hold on to the things you love and let go of all the rest. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I said
"I love you so much it's killing me"
and you kept saying sorry
so I stopped explaining
for it never made sense to you
what always did to me
to let what you love
kill you
and never regret.
As Romeo is dying Juliet says
"I am willing to die to remain by your side"
and love was never a static place of rest
but the last second of euphoria
while throwing yourself out from a 20 store window
to be able to say
"I flew before I hit the ground",
and it was glorious.
Don't be sorry.
The fall was beautiful, dear.
The crash was beautiful. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

My mind is killing me
- The Glass Child, Stuck In My Mind ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I learn my world through writing. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Find what makes you happy and go for it with all your heart. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Dear me, one day I'll make you proud. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Go outside. Don't tell anyone and don't bring your phone. Start walking and keep walking until you no longer know the road like the palm of your hand, because we walk the same roads day in and day out, to the bus and back home and we cease to see. We walk in our sleep and teach our muscles to work without thinking and I dare you to walk where you have not yet walked and I dare you to notice. Don't try to get anything out of it, because you won't. Don't try to make use of it, because you can't. And that's the point. Just walk, see, sit down if you like. And be. Just be, whatever you are with whatever you have, and realise that that is enough to be happy.
There's a whole world out there, right outside your window. You'd be a fool to miss it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

This world can be quite wonderful once you let yourself be a part of it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

When the others were picked up and walked home by friends or fathers or best friend's sisters,
I was the kid in a grey hoodie, walking with the poets, the singers, the thinkers, and I was not alone. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Freedom can choke you if you don't know how to handle it. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I go to the ocean to say goodbye. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Spend more time doing things that make you forget about the time. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

If I stay close to the sea, I will go on well. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Are you in love? What makes your heart beat faster? What do you want people to think about when they hear your name. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

It's just as hard to go back to a place you once left, as it is to leave it again. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

But I believe that music can change a life, because it changed mine. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Being passionate about something is the most beautiful characteristic you can develop. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I've been trying to stay real
and true and proud of who I am,
all those ideals of how to look
I've been trying not to care.

But I'm still holding my breath,
I 'm still watching every step.
I'm still tip-toeing away,
when I'm getting to ashamed of myself.

I don't want to be your letdown,
I'm scared like hell I'm not enough.
I don't wanna be
your failure anymore.
- The Glass Child, Letdown ~ Charlotte Eriksson

My writing, it's my way of making sense of everything. My way to feel whole. May I never be complete and may I never feel content – please, let me always have the need, always have the urge to write. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I just wish you could see my demons for what they are, and lay here beside me on the floor. No words. Just your presence. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I am constantly torn between the will to be seen and still hidden so god damn well,
a contradiction I never figured out. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

So you will meet many 'someones' who will give a new definition to your name.
And you can not build walls, must not close the door and please don't hide,
because if you ask me about hurt
and love
I will say love. Love because the hurt will come and go no matter what, but only love makes it worth while. Only love can cure it.
Don't be scared. Go. Love. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I used to be fine in my loneliness
but something
or someone
snapped me out of it
and showed me company. What it's like to feel at home,
and so the going on by myself part wasn't as easy anymore.
Seasons happened and things got colder and harder and suddenly I found myself smoking circles in the air
by myself in the snow
and I was not okay. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Inspiration is everywhere. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

It could be yesterday
when I was less in love
I think
For I didn't see you in the mirror
behind me
while getting dressed.
The way your hands couldn't stay away
and our bodies always found their ways back to each other
as if they were meant to be together
Close.

But then it was today and I saw you
again
in the mirror
behind me while getting dressed

So I go to sleep tonight
alone
without actually falling asleep because I'm scared of the moment I will wake up
and realise it was just a dream
You're actually gone.

Now all I can do is get through to another tomorrow
hoping that I will be less in love
again
Like yesterday

But not today.
I was never really well with things at all. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I am a worried person with a stressed out soul, living a simple life with no capital. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

Human interaction. The most complicated form of happiness I will never figure out. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

I told him how we were washed out to sea and how it was like making furious love to a clash of orgiastic rhinos in a swimming pool filled with broken glass, and how you made a fire by staring balefully down into the reflective bottom of an aluminum can until your immense force of will was concentrated and magnified by the parabolic mirror into a white-hot spark of pure Turtle rage that could light anything on fire, even the hearts of unwary high schoolers. ~ Gabriel Tallent

I looked out the hall window across from me as I stood leaning against the wall, and saw the bars on the outside of the windows. The rain trickled down the reinforced misted milk-glass in a constant deluge of melancholy rivulets. It was getting cold - the shadows, the rising turbulent winds, the drifting red and orange leaves were returning once more. I tuned out the sounds of the doctors voices. Soon, I couldn't make out the words they were saying as definite signals meant to convey something. Their words became a dim humming, a song drifting along the periphery of my awareness. And it was then, I knew I would be able to leave. I would go back to my room and take out the violet silk dress, the monstrous talisman I had created, and I would look at it. I might give it away after all. I need to let her go for all the ghosts she carried within her every measured stitch. ~ ~Theresa Griffin Kennedy~

Miss Trent regarded her thoughtfully. "Well, it's an odd circumstance, but I've frequently observed that whenever you boast of your beauty you seem to lose some of it. I expect it must be the change in your expression."
Startled, Tiffany flew to gaze anxiously into the ornate looking-glass which hung above the fireplace. "Do I?" she asked naively. "Really do I, Ancilla?"
"Yes, decidedly," replied Miss Trent, perjuring her soul without the least hesitation. ~ Georgette Heyer

They've had several conversations since that day in Owings Mills when Bisciotti fired him. "He said at some point we will sit down and have a glass of wine in that new house of yours," Billick said. Billick had the perfect response. "It's the least I can do, because you're paying for it. ~ Gary Myers

Love is like a magnifying glass straight into the souls of those who own your
heart. ~ Mia Sheridan

My glass is always half full ... the only time it's half empty is when I'm travelling. ~ Michael J Racich

Malachi scowled. "I don't remember the Clave inviting you into the Glass City, Magnus Bane."
"They didn't," Magnus said. "Your wards are down."
"Really?" the Consul's voice dripped sarcasm. "I hadn't noticed."
Magnus looked concerned. "That's terrible. Someone should have told you." He glanced at Luke. "Tell him the wards are down. ~ Cassandra Clare

The acts of daily forbearance, the headache, or toothache, or heavy cold; the tiresome peculiarities of husband or wife, the broken glass ... all of these sufferings, small as they are, if accepted lovingly, are most pleasing to God's Goodness. ~ Francis De Sales

No." The word shattered Felsted's question like an ugly, stained-glass window. "I chose poison because you deserved it. Because I wanted to watch you wriggle while the fear turns your brain to paste. That fear of death that drove you to the Demons door? I wanted to watch it betray you and eat you from the inside you. This is what comes of people like you, Felsted. I will not abide the folly of your peers' betrayal. By every drop of blood on my hands, I swear that every single one of you who turned to the Dominion - for power, money, fear, I don't care - will wither, break, and die. Azrael is coming for you and your friends, Felsted. The angel of death is here. ~ S.G. Night

My wife has made up Ty's old bedroom for you," he told him in a low voice as Ty and Mara argued over the merits of the couch cushions versus the rocks out back.
"Oh Christ." Zane laughed, falling back in his chair. "He won't let me forget this. Losing his bed to me."
"Well," Earl said with a sigh, "it's either that or fight his mama over it." He sat and watched Ty and Mara for a moment, sipping at his coffee contentedly. "Ain't none of us ever won that fight," he told Zane flatly.
"Me and Zane'll just bunk together," Ty was arguing.
Mara laughed at him. "You two boys won't fit in a double bed any more than I'll still fit in my wedding dress," she scoffed.

[...]

"Good morning, Zane dear, how did you sleep?" Mara asked as she came up to him and pressed a glass of orange juice into his hands.
"Ah, okay," Zane hedged, taking the glass out of self-defense. "I don't do too well sleeping in strange places lately, but…."
"Well, Ty's bed is about as strange a place as you can get," Deuce offered under his breath. He followed it with a muffled grunt as Ty kicked him under the table. ~ Abigail Roux

It's funny, you learn a lot about people when you're on the road like that. Every morning, for example, Bill would have a cup of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a glass of milk, and a beer. Always in the same order. I asked him why he did it once.
'Well,' he said, 'the coffee's to wake me up, the orange juice is to give me some vitamins to stop me getting sick, the milk's to coat my stomach for the rest of the day, and the beer's to put me back to sleep again.' ~ Ozzy Osbourne

I watched the early morning light pass over and through the windows of colored glass, leaving streaks of red and green and yellow on the stone floor. When I was little, I used to try and capture the colored light. I thought I could hold it in my hand and carry it home. Now I know it is like happiness
it is there or it is not, you cannot hold it or keep it. ~ Karen Cushman

Let's go to town," Jo said. "Take me to eat dinner at the hotel."
I sucked in a breath and stared at her for a minute. Here she sat, her hair still wet although neatly braided, wearing an old Kiss sweatshirt, the one with the red mouth and tongue, red sweatpants, and ridiculous red pumps with black scuffs on the toes and heels.
And she wanted me to take her to the Hotel Wyoming, where the rich tourists hung out. I smiled. Because it was possibly the greatest thing I'd ever heard.
"Yeah, let's go to the hotel. Grab your purse and I'll find your coat. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

But the most sumptuous thing in the room at that moment was naturally the sumptuously laid table, though, of course, even that was comparatively speaking: the table-cloth was clean, the silver was brightly polished; three kinds of wonderfully baked bread, two bottles of wine, two bottles of excellent monastery mead, and a large glass jug of monastery kvas, famous throughout the neighbourhood. There was no vodka at all. Rakitin related afterwards that this time it was a five-course dinner: fish soup of sterlets served with fish patties; then boiled fish excellently prepared in a special way; then salmon cutlets, ice cream and stewed fruits and, finally, a fruit jelly. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

How is he so rich and hot and normal?"
I shake my head, "He's rich and hot, but he's not normal. I see a sickness in his eyes. They're broken like mine. Like a mirror with cracks in it but none of the glass has fallen out of the frame. ~ Tara Brown

With The Reader, I'd just be shattered at the end of every day really. I wouldn't really want to talk. We kept saying, because we were in Berlin: "If we get back at a decent hour, let's go and have a glass of wine." We'd always think it would be a great idea, but then get to the end of the day and then go [acts drowsy and blabs]. It was very difficult for everybody. ~ Kate Winslet

He held me as if my bones were made of glass, as if my skin would tear beneath his lips if he applied too much pressure. When his lips pressed against the pulse at the base of my throat, I wondered if he could feel the power in my pulse, the power he was solely responsible for. As if in answer, his hand moved from my neck to my chest, resting over the space that contained my heart. There was something beautiful and intentional about that gesture, like he was acknowledging the mortal part of me that reacted so restlessly to his touch. ~ Whitney Barbetti

Nothing can fill you up," she stated.
"Nope," he agreed again.
"You won't let it."
"Barrel's got a hole in the bottom, buddy, everything leaks out no matter how much you pour in."
She was silent a moment then she whispered, "Right."
She turned to the door and his hand gripped his bourbon so hard he had to focus everything on loosening his grip or the glass would shatter.
Before she opened it, she turned back. "You don't know, Cal, you have no idea.
You've shut yourself up for so long in this fucking house with your tragic memories, you have no idea what's about to walk out your door. Kate, Keira and me, we could have plugged that hole. We could have filled you so full, you'd be bursting. We would have loved that chance. We'd have given it everything we had, no matter the time that slid by, graduations, weddings, grandbabies, you'd have been a part of us and we'd have given everything we had to keep you
so full, you'd be bursting."
Cal didn't reply.
"Joe," she whispered, "you let me walk out this door, you'll lose your chance."
Cal didn't move.
Vi waited.
Cal stayed seated. ~ Kristen Ashley

And you have to remember that I came to America as an immigrant. You know, on a ship, through the Statue of Liberty. And I saw that skyline, not just as a representation of steel and concrete and glass, but as really the substance of the American Dream. ~ Daniel Libeskind

My main ambition as a gardener is to water my orange trees with gin, then all I have to do is squeeze the juice into a glass. ~ W.C. Fields

After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves
Budding - fruit ripening in stillness - Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves -
Sweet Sappho's cheek - a smiling infant's breath -
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs -
A woodland rivulet - a Poet's death. ~ John Keats

When you're more mature, you do start telling the truth, in odd situations. 'I'm sorry, I've broken a glass here. Is that expensive? I'll pay for it. I'm sorry.' And you do that so that people in the room might go, 'What a strong personality that person has. I like to have sex with people with strong personalities.' ~ Eddie Izzard

The cold from the glass seeps through my shirt, and I shiver. Uriah and Christina walk through the door to the dormitory, laughing about something. Uriah's clear eyes and steady footsteps fill me with a sense of relief, and my eyes well up with tears all of a sudden. He and Christina both look alarmed, and they lean against the windows on either side of me.
"You okay?" she says.
I nod and blink the tears away. "Where have you guys been today?"
"After the plane ride we went and watched the screens in the control room for a while," Uriah says. "It's really weird to see what they're up to now that we're gone. Just more of the same--Evelyn's a jerk, so are all her lackeys, and so on--but it was like getting a news report."
"I don't think I'd like to look at those," I say. "Too…creepy and invasive."
Uriah shrugs. "I don't know, if they want to watch me scratch my butt or eat dinner, I feel like that says more about them than about me."
I laugh. "How often are you scratching your butt, exactly?"
He jostles me with his elbow.
"Not to derail the conversation from butts, which we can all agree is incredibly important--" Christina smiles a little. "But I'm with you, Tris. Just watching those screens made me feel awful, like I was doing something sneaky. I think I'll be staying away from now on. ~ Veronica Roth

When the spirit of praise had been poured into a man he forgot what he was; he was like a cheap ugly glass made beautiful by the golden wine which filled it. Empty, he knew his ugliness. In prayer, for those as undisciplined and inexperienced as himself, there were times when one scarcely seemed the same person for five minutes together. He took grip on himself and knelt upright, clinging to his belief that one was not the same being; one was the self that one was now in all the disturbance and agitation of weakness, and the self that one would be when the compass needle had once and for all steadied to the north. His hands gripping the sides of the stall, he pronounced in words his belief that even for such as he, if he could endure to the end, eventual perfections was not only possible but certain through the grace of God, his conviction that despair was sin. The prayer of words was all he had now. The discipline of words must hold him up until the desert was crossed and the Seraph could sing again. ~ Elizabeth Goudge

I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great. ~ Julia Glass

maybe, I thought, we were all circus mice, running around with only the dimmest awareness that God and all His heavenly host were watching us in our Bakelite houses through our ivy-glass windows. ~ Stephen King

Lea
when a man climbs a glass mountain, it's not usually for the damn golden apple. It's for the person he gives the apple to. ~ Laura Florand

The war never leaves ~ Victoria Aveyard

are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there's a light from within. ~ Leisa Rayven

The silence, she thought, was remarkable: a perfect, shimmering thing, and fragile. Like glass, if it shattered, it would never come back together again. ~ Laini Taylor

Miss McClure ... " he had been talking while her mind drifted off.
She brought her gaze back to his face, trying to focus on the flinty stare and thin line of his lips. "Sorry, I was distracted. And can't you call me Bryn?"
"I'll try, but generally I prefer a more formal approach in business dealings. It keeps the relationship clear."
"Like, you in charge, the other person in submission?" The words popped out before she edited herself. Her eyes grew large as she watched his face go through a change of expression. A slight smile hovered at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, something like that. Might I get a refill?" He held up his empty glass. ~ Lizzie Ashworth

Winter sports aren't my thing. You can have your boards and blades and your glacier-gripping cleats: My feet prefer to negotiate the ground on a pair of dependable soles. ~ Julia Glass

I deliberately spilled the black ink of despair because my perfect soul was a stained glass illusion - can you understand that? ... ~ John Geddes

Nothing is real or a lie, it all depends on the color of the glass you're looking through. ~ Manny Trillo

Your brother is the most ridiculous, hardheaded, stupid man I know!"
Rose half expected Archer to chastise her. Instead, he took a second glass of champagne from the footman passing with the tray and offered it to her. "And you are surprised by this?"
"Astonishingly, yes." She took a long, unladylike swallow of the crisp, bubbly liquid.
"I'm astounded. Ah, here are two scoundrels you should know to avoid." His grin told her he considered them quite the opposite.
They were good-looking men, one tall and dark, the other almost as tall with brown hair and blue eyes and enough of the Kane countenance that she picked him for Grey's relation instantly. They met Archer enthusiastically, and then turned polite curiosity in her direction.
"Lady Rose Danvers," Archer said jovially. "May I present the Earl of Autley." The dark man bowed over her offered hand. "And my cousin, Mr. Aiden Kane?" The man who looked a bit like Grey smiled and took her hand next.
"It's lovely to meet you, Lady Rose," the earl said smoothly. "I hope you are enjoying your time in London?"
"Oh, yes," she replied. "Lord Archer has been a very entertaining companion."
"I don't doubt it," Aiden said with a grin as he clapped Archer on the shoulder. ~ Kathryn Smith

I withdrew back into the window frame. She took a hasty gulp from her glass and looked down at her lap. "I'm saying that this is what's it's like, when every man you kiss thinks he's unearthed you, and everyone has a role for you to play, the brave little refugee, the obedient daughter, the foreign girl with loose morals ... " Her hand made a quick mechanical gesture. "You do what you can with that. You can't stop life from happening, can you? You don't get to choose what parts you get. So you take your opportunities. You use the means available to you. Your life becomes something that takes you further and further away from yourself. It sounds cynical, I know. It is cynical. ~ Paul Murray

The older you get, I should think, the more you will come to understand that the universe is very much a looking glass, Miss Lancaster." "Meaning what, precisely?" "That it reflects a great deal more of yourself to your senses than you probably know. ~ Jim Butcher

Clean," Peter said.
"Can I get a water bottle or something to clean his hands?" I scanned the crowd. He drew my attention back to him with a pull of my hand.
"No," Peter said. "I'm ... clean."
I had missed who Peter was until that very moment ...
I broke. It wasn't a visible fracture. I didn't sob or explode into anguish. I didn't give in to my vomitus urge that came from the burst of self-loathing. But I shattered nonetheless.
"Well, you look filthy," I said, hitting redial on his phone and jamming it to my ear. ~ Dani Alexander

Love has a way of showing you to yourself, whether through satisfaction or humiliation. It hovers over you like a magnifying glass you cannot escape, intensifying the slightest feelings of either delight or shame. No other experience makes so obvious the realities of both heaven and hell. ~ Marianne Williamson

After that day when I saw the elephant, I let myself see more and believe more. It was a game I played with myself. When I told Alma the things I saw she would laugh and tell me she loved my imagination. For her I changed pebbles into diamonds, shoes into mirrors, I changed glass into water, I gave her wings and pulled birds from her ears and in her pockets she found the feathers, I asked a pear to become a pineapple, a pineapple to become a lightbulb, a lightbulb to become the moon, and the moon to become a coin I flipped for her love, both sides were heads: I knew I couldn't lose. ~ Nicole Krauss

Love Letter"

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no-
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter-
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Sylvia Plath

He left the drapes open, watched the lights of the cars and of the fast food joints through the window glass, comforted to know there was another world out there, one he could walk to anytime he wanted. ~ Neil Gaiman