The Long Way Home Quotes

Sometimes it feels good to take the long way home. ~ Carol Rifka Brunt

She took the long way home," said Ruth. "Some do, you know. They seem lost. Sometimes they might even head off in the wrong direction. Lots of people give up, say they're gone forever, but I don't believe that. Some make it home, eventually. ~ Louise Penny

The Long Way Home
Why is it when people feel they are losing each other they always leave each other?
Why do people walk away from their house when all they have to do to get home is turn around? ~ Merrit Malloy

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain. ~ Tom Waits

Burnett hadn't gotten secure on his feet when Della said, "Don't start giving me crap. All I did was take the long way home. And if I hadn't, some poor girl would - "
"I'm not giving you crap," Burnett said.
Is that because he's saving it all to give to me? Chase stood quiet, dreading what might be forthcoming. ~ C.C. Hunter

Ah, there should be a young man, ein schone Junge carrying Blumen, a bouquet of roses. There should be cold Rhine wine and Strausswaltzes, and on the long way home kisses in the shadow of an archway, like a Cinderella. ~ Laurence Stallings

Every journey taken always includes the path not taken, the detour through hell, the crossroads of indecision and the long way home. ~ Shannon L. Alder

At the beach, fifty years later, the old man understands finally that much of what he disavowed in himself before recognizing its irretrievable value, most of the heartache he caused himself and those who chose to love him, came out of that repudiation of his true self.

Such is the power of denial, the old man now realizes: a comforting ally in our struggles for survival, a fierce foe in our quest for ourselves. Denial finds us when we feel most alone, and only alone can we banish this demon that bars the long way home. ~ Lionel Fisher

Better a thousand times even a swiftly fading, ephemeral moment of life than the epoch-long unconsciousness of the stone. ~ Edwin Way Teale

Ain is a marvelous purifier ... It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely. ~ James Dobson

And then I remembered something. Holy crap, I'd obviously been without magic for way too long to have forgotten one of the coolest spells I could do.
"Stop!" I yelled.. Archer, Cal, and Jenna all skidded to a halt on the sand. I waved my hands at them to come closer. "Okay, everybody hold hands," I said.
Archer stared at me, one hand pressed to his bleeding chest. "Sophie, this really isn't the time for a friendship circle."
"It's not that," I said. "It's this."
I closed my eyes and channeled all my magic into a transportation spell. There was a rush of icy air, and then we were standing in the grove of trees that housed Hex Hall's very own Itineris.
"Wow," Jenna breathed. "It is awesome to have you back."
Magic and satisfaction rushed through me. "You said it," I agreed. "Now come on."
And with that, the four of us dove into the Itineris. ~ Rachel Hawkins

Levin had often noticed in arguments between even the most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, an enormous number of logical subtleties and words, the arguers would finally come to the awareness that what they had spent so long struggling to prove to each other had been known to them long, long before, from the beginning of the argument, but that they loved different things and therefore did not want to name what they loved, so as not to be challenged. He had often felt that sometimes during an argument you would understand what your opponent loves, and suddenly come to love the same thing yourself, and agree all at once, and then all reasonings would fall away as superfluous; and sometimes it was the other way round: you would finally say what you yourself love, for the sake of which you are inventing your reasonings, and if you happened to say it well and sincerely, the opponent would suddenly agree and stop arguing. That was the very thing he wanted to say. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Here's another example that some overworked mothers might find inspiring. We saw in Chapter 2 that being the one who produces
the sperm doesn't dictate, by universal principle, that parenting is out of the portfolio. However, in the case of the rat (as with most
mammals), the balance of trade-offs make it more adaptive for males to leave parenting to the mothers. This might tempt us to take it for
granted that males, by virtue of their sex, therefore lack the capacity to care for pups. We might well assume that, through sexual selection, they lost or never acquired the biological capacity to parent: that it isn't "in" their genes, hormones, or neural circuits. That it isn't in their male nature. But bear in mind that one reliable feature of a male rat's developmental system is a female rat that does the child care. So what happens when a scientist, under controlled laboratory conditions, simulates a first-wave feminist rodent movement by placing males in cages with pups but no females? Before too long you will see the male "mothering" the infant, in much the same way that females do. Feminism: 1. Sexual selection: nil. ~ Cordelia Fine

Cheat propped his elbows on his knees and gazed up at Kestrel. He scrutinized her: the long, loosely clasped hands, the folds of her dress. Kestrel's clothes had mysteriously appeared in the suite's wardrobe, probably while she had slept, and she was glad. The dueling ensemble had served well enough, but wearing a dress fit for society made Kestrel feel ready for different kinds of battle.
"Where is Arin?" Cheat said.
"In the mountains."
"Doing what?"
"I don't know. I imagine that, since the Valorian reinforcements will come through the mountain pass, he is analyzing its values and drawbacks as a battleground."
Cheat gave her a gleeful smirk. "Does it bother you, being a traitor?"
"I don't see how I am."
"You just confirmed that the reinforcements will come through the pass. Thank you."
"It's hardly worth thanking me," she said. "Almost every useful ship in the empire has been sent east, which means there is no other way into the city. Anyone with brains could figure that out, which is why Arin is in the mountains, and you are here."
A flush began to build under Cheat's skin. He said, "My feet are dusty."
Kestrel had no idea how to respond to that.
"Wash them," he said.
"What?"
He took off his boots, stretched out his legs, and leaned back against the bench.
Kestrel, who had been quite still, became stone.
"It's Herrani custom for the lady of the house to wash the feet of special guests," said Cheat.< ~ Marie Rutkoski

Fear of Dating

Dating is a big part of the teenage years. Dances, parties, and other social events can make you long for a significant other. However, if you have social anxiety, you may be terrified of getting close to someone of the opposite sex. You may be afraid of saying something silly or acting inappropriately. Flirting, a playful way of getting noticed and letting someone know you like him or her, may seem impossible when you feel awkward and insecure. ~ Heather Moehn

Nell was like a witch. Her long silvery hair rolled into a bun on the back of her head, the narrow wooden house on the hillside in Paddington, with its peeling lemon-yellow paint and overgrown garden, the neighborhood cats that followed her everywhere. The way she had of fixing her eyes so straight on you, as if she might be about to cast a spell. ~ Kate Morton

Giuseppe would miss them as well, but in a different way than he would miss the city. A city would stay the same. The same buildings. The same streets. Not forever, but for a great long while. But Frederick and Hannah would never again be the people they were right now, standing on the dock, wishing him farewell. Tomorrow they would wake up and be a little bit different and a little bit different the day after that, and in no time they might become people he did not recognize. Giuseppe knew it because they were already different from when he had first met them. He knew it because he was different from when they had first met him. ~ Matthew J. Kirby

But even in Gavle I went on digging into the case."

"I don't suppose that Henrik would ever let up."

"That's true, but that's not the reason. The puzzle about Harriet still fascinates me to this day. I mean... it's like this: every police officer has his own unsolved mystery. I remember from my days in Hedestad how older colleagues would talk in the canteen about the case of Rebecka. There was one officer in particular, a man named Torstensson - he's been dead for years - who year after year kept returning to that case. In his free time and when he was on holiday. Whenever there was a period of calm among the local hooligans he would take out those folders and study them."

"Was that also a case about a missing girl?"

Morell looked surprised. Then he smiled when he realised that Blomkvist was looking for some sort of connection.

"No, that's not why I mentioned it. I'm talking about the soul of a policeman. The Rebecka case was something that happened before Harriet Vanger was even born, and the statute of limitations has long since run out. Sometime in the forties a woman was assaulted in Hedestad, raped, and murdered. That's not altogether uncommon. Every officer, at some point in his career, has to investigate that kind of crime, but what I'm talking about are those cases that stay with you and get under your skin during the investigation. This girl was killed in the most brutal way. The killer tied her up and stuck ~ Stieg Larsson

Above, the heavens glow, the sky pale with starlight. Some long-buried part of me understands that this is beauty, but I am unable to wonder at it, the way I did when I was a boy. Back then, I clambered up spiky Jack trees to get closer to the stars, sure that a few feet of height would help me see them better. Back then, my world had been sand and sky and the love of Tribe Saif, who saved me from exposure. Back then, everything was different. ~ Sabaa Tahir

If we are lucky, we get to live very long and healthy lives. If we are even luckier, we will be astonished by the sight of blue jays all the way through. ~ Sue Halpern

I've never been so tied to a place, to a person. Until you. But," she said when his eyes began to shutter, "it's the way I want it. I want to be tied to you."
He studied her for a long moment and then his lips curved.
"You're picturing it, aren't you," she said drily. "Me tied."
"To my bed," he said on a low laugh. "Yeah, a little bit. But mostly I'm liking knowing that you're tied to my heart. ~ Jill Shalvis

As long as we work within the budget and are responsible, which by the way it's amazing how many people aren't but we are. We've worked within the budget. We've worked within the time and we're making the movie that we want. That's the reward and I couldn't be happier. ~ Todd Farmer

I AM YOUR STRENGTH AND SHIELD. I plan out each day and have it ready for you, long before you arise from bed. I also provide the strength you need each step of the way. Instead of assessing your energy level and wondering about what's on the road ahead, concentrate on staying in touch with Me. My Power flows freely into you through our open communication. Refuse to waste energy worrying, and you will have strength to spare. ~ Sarah Young

To me, the real challenge is the human mind, which is driving our actions: our beliefs and values shape the way we see the world, which in turn determines how we will treat it. So long as we assume that we are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around us, we will not be able to see the dangers we create. To see those, we have to recognize that our very lives and our well-being depend on the richness of nature. ~ David Suzuki

Flash is one of those very useful, very closed, very proprietary non-weblike things that has great tools and serves a need very well. But in the long run, we see video as part of the web, and it should be handled just the way other html elements are. ~ Mitchell Baker

What a scathing exposure! It was as if Jesus said, Listen, you say you want God, but your actions and words expose that you don't. You talk about God's judgment, but you did not willingly accept one who proclaimed it and called all of you to repentance. You say you long for the Messiah to come, but when He is here you search for reasons to reject Him. You are childish! If you had the wisdom of God, you would recognize His truth in the messenger sent to prepare the way for the Messiah and in the Messiah Himself. You have developed the miserable sickness of religious pretense and no longer desire what you prattle about aimlessly in what you pretend is prayer! ~ Lloyd John Ogilvie

Every team begins the year with the goal of going to the NCAA tournament. Until somebody takes that dream away, you pursue it. The reality is, we're a long way off from being in the NCAA tournament. For us to do that is a pipe dream. But if we were to win our last four, we're 8-8 in the best conference in the country. We'd have an opportunity. ~ Dan Monson

The worse thing a Dom could ever become is predictable. The occasional harsh session would go a long way to keeping our power exchange on edge. A true submissive craves a man with edge. ~ Al Daltrey

In that moment, the moon and the sun shared the sky. For all of eternity, the moon and sun have chased each other around the world. Long into the future, they will continue this chase, merging the days into months into years into centuries, until the day the sun cannot take the separation any longer and she shatters, engulfing the moon and everything else in a burst of light. Most will call it the day of final judgment. The end. To the sun and the moon, it will only be the beginning.
For the smallest of instants each day, they pause in this chase. They pause and look back at one another, smiling as if sharing a secret. Two lovers that can never exist as one, except in that single, brief instant. Lying there, Persephone smiled too. And as quickly as a smile parts two lips, the two sky wanderers parted ways. The chase was on again. Night gave way to day.
That is true love, she had always thought. No force but love can impel one to step willingly into the shadows so that the other may shine. ~ Kelseyleigh Reber

Listen, Google,' I will say, 'both John and Paul are courting me. I like both of them, but in a different way, and it's so hard to make up my mind. Given everything you know, what do you advise me to do?'
And Google will answer: 'Well, I know you from the day you were born. I have read all your emails, recorded all your phone calls, and know your favourite films, your DNA and the entire history of your heart. I have exact data about each date you went on, and if you want, I can show you second-by-second graphs of your heart rate, blood pressure and sugar levels whenever you went on a date with John or Paul. If necessary, I can even provide you with accurate mathematical ranking of every sexual encounter you had with either of them. And naturally enough, I know them as well as I know you. Based on all this information, on my superb algorithms, and on decades' worth of statistics about millions of relationships – I advise you to go with John, with an 87 per cent probability of being more satisfied with him in the long run.
Indeed, I know you so well that I also know you don't like this answer. Paul is much more handsome than John, and because you give external appearances too much weight, you secretly wanted me to say "Paul". Looks matter, of course; but not as much as you think. Your biochemical algorithms – which evolved tens of thousands of years ago in the African savannah – give looks a weight of 35 per cent in their overall rating of potential mates. My algorith ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Why are we bringing him along, again?" Will inquired, of the world in general as well as his sister.
Cecily put her hands on her hips. "Why are you bringing Tessa?"
"Because Tessa and I are going to be married," Will said, and Tessa smiled; the way that Will's little sister could ruffle his feathers like no one else was still amusing to her.
"Well, Gabriel and I might well be married," Cecily said. "Someday."
Gabriel made a choking noise, and turned an alarming shade of purple.
Will threw up his hands. "You can't be married Cecily! You're only fifteen! When I get married, I'll be eighteen! An adult!"
Cecily did not look impressed. "We may have a long engagement," she said. "But I cannot see why you are counseling me to marry a man my parents have never met."
Will sputtered. "I am not counseling you to marry a man your parents have never met!"
"Then we are in agreement. Gabriel must meet Mam and Dad. ~ Cassandra Clare

Everyone freaks out. Sometimes the best we can do with fear is befriend it. Expect it and understand that fear will always reappear. Eventually it subsides. It will return. The real culprits are our knee jerk responses to fear and the way we try to avoid feeling fear, anxiety and shame. Don't get me wrong, wanting to feel better fast is a perfectly natural human impulse. It is healthy to seek relief when you feel hopelessly mired in the emotional soup. Calming down is an essential first step to accurately perceiving a problem and deciding what to do about it but the last thing you need to do is shut yourself off from fear and pain - either your own or the worlds. If there is one over riding reason why our world and relationships are in such a mess, is that we try to get rid of our anxiety, fear and shame as fast as possible, regardless of the long term consequences. In doing so, we blame and shame others and in countless ways, we unwittingly act against ourselves. We confuse our fear driven thoughts with what is right, best, necessary or true. ~ Harriet Lerner

She paid rapt attention to the carpet design
He did the same to his pint of beer.
She wished she were ten thousand miles away
He just wished she were here.

He smoked a rolled-up cigarette
She smoked a brand that was strong,
As she dreamily savoured her newly-won life,
While he wondered how things had gotten so wrong.

She whispered the words of an old favourite song
He joined – mistaking her meaning.
She shed a few reminiscent tears
He carried on – wildly dreaming.

He reached for her hand.
She snatched it away,
Brushing invisible specks from her lap
Then she endeavoured to say…

"I don't understand why you keep up this farce
Why can't you see there's no way?
I cannot revive what has long since died
There's nothing more I can say."

He cried like a baby;
He pleaded and begged her to stay.
She hated herself like a louse
But still she got up – and walked away. ~ Bernie Morris

Denying the poor access to knowledge goes back a long way. The ancient Smriti political and legal system drew up vicious punishments for sudras seeking learning. (In those days, that meant learning the Vedas.) If a sudra listens to the Vedas, said one of these laws, 'his ears are to be filled with molten tin or lac. If he dares to recite the Vedic texts, his body is to be split'. That was the fate of the 'base-born'. The ancients restricted learning on the basis of birth. In a modern polity, where the base-born have votes, the elite act differently. Say all the right things. But deny access. Sometimes, mass pressures force concessions. Bend a little. After a while, it's back to business as usual. As one writer has put it: When the poor get literate and educated, the rich lose their palanquin bearers. ~ P.Sainath

The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion - but most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led. ~ Alex Haley

I had joked about my bones being found by the roadside. Notify the four winds. Up here i might never be found. Keen-eyed vultures would pick the bones clean. Wind and rain would bleach them and in time they'd dissolve into the earth.
I looked up, and a gust of wind swirled the mist, and i saw that glint of gold, so close now, just up ahead. one last effort, to haul and drag myself up over ragged rocks, and at last I stood, breath rasping, limbs shaking, my body one long ache, covered in grime and thick greasy sweat, in front of Hakuyu's cave. The patch of colour I'd seen was a simple bamboo blind, yellowed with age, and painted on it was the outline of a dragon, and the dragon's eye was a dot of gold. That was what had led me all this way. ~ Alan Spence

I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."
"It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.
"That doesn't make any sense, you see - " he started to explain.
"Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend," the bird replied haughtily.
"But I didn't mean - " insisted Milo.
"Of course you're mean," interrupted the bird, closing the eye that had been open and opening the one that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."
"Well, I thought that by - " he tried again desperately.
"That's a different story," interjected the bird a bit more amiably. "If you want to buy, I'm sure I can arrange to sell, but with what you're doing you'll probably end up in a cell anyway."
"That doesn't seem right," said Milo helplessly, for, with the bird taking everything the wrong way, he hardly knew what he was saying.
"Agreed," said the bird, with a sharp click of his beak, "but neither is it left, although if I were you I would have left a long time ago. ~ Norton Juster

Neil stared back at him, suddenly lost. He was fluent in two languages, nearly there in a third, and could string together some useful survival phrases in a half-dozen more. But with the whole truth bared between them Neil didn't have the right words to say. "You should have thrown my file away," Neil said at last. "You should have walked away when I threw your contract back in your face. But you took a chance on me and you brought me here. You saved my life. Three times," Neil said, "you've saved my life. I can't just say 'thank you' for that."
"You don't have to," Wymack said. "I brought you here, but you saved yourself. You're the one who decided to stay. You're the one who stopped being afraid long enough to realize you could get a grip here and a foothold there. You found your own way."
"If anything," Wymack continued when Neil tried to protest, "I should be thanking you. You told us last night you intended to end the year dead or in federal custody. You could have shut everyone and everything out and worried about yourself this year. Instead you agreed to help Dan fix this team. You're saving the two I thought we couldn't reach, and you're a living example for Kevin to follow. He never used to watch you," Wymack said, "but he's had eyes on you since December trying to figure out how you stand your ground. ~ Nora Sakavic

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'

The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am! ~ Rabindranath Tagore

Dostoyevsky's indignation at Afanasy Fet's innocent lyrics, "Whispers, timid breath, the nightingales trilled," is well known. This is simply disgraceful, wrote Dostoyevsky indignantly, and he speculated what an insulting impression such empty verses would have made if they'd been given to someone to read during the Lisbon earthquake! Some people protested: Yes, of course, Dostoyevsky is right, but we aren't having an earthquake, and we aren't in Lisbon, and after all, are we not allowed to love, to listen to nightingales, to admire the beauty of a beloved woman? But Dostoyevsky's argument held sway for a long time. It did so because of the way Russians perceive Russian life: as a constant, unending Lisbon earthquake. ~ Tatyana Tolstaya

If they took the idea that they could escape poverty through education, I think it would make a more basic and long-lasting change in the way things happen. What we need are positive, realistic goals and the willingness to work. Hard work and practical goals. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I stroked his long, appreciative back, all the way to the tip of his striped tail, and thought how frustrating it was that we can take such liberties with animals, but not with people. I wanted to stroke her head -this girl I secretly knew was called Flynn. ~ Joanne Horniman

He was numb: heart-numb, mind-numb, soul-numb. And the numbness, he realized, went a long way down, and a long way back. ~ Neil Gaiman

Cause my heart said a long time ago,
Buddy tuck your tail and run.
Cause it ain't love,
When you're stuck on the wrong end of the gun
Well, you put your finger on that trigger
And you shot me where I stood.
I found out the hard way.
I loved you more than I should. ~ Hunter Hayes

It's important to keep up appearances with books," I explained. "Image goes a long way in this business."

He dared a look over at me, still nervous but steadily recovering his composure. "I go more for content."

"Really?" I repositioned slightly so that we were touching again, the soft flannel of his shirt brushing my bare skin. "Because I could have sworn a moment ago you were pretty caught up in outside appearance."

His eyes shifted down again, but I could see a smile curving his lips. "Well. Some things are so striking, they can't help but draw attention to themselves."

"And doesn't that make you curious about what's inside?"

"Mostly it makes me want to get you some advanced copies."

Advanced copies? What did he - ?

"Seth? Seth, where - ah, there you are." Paige turned down our aisle, Doug following behind. She brightened when she saw me, and I felt my stomach sink out of me and hit the floor with a thud as I put two and two together. No. No. It couldn't be -

"Ah, Georgina. I see you've already met Seth Mortensen. ~ Richelle Mead

Being in love has a shorter guarantee than a kettle, and in the long run it can be a lot less use in a marriage. Better to be armed with a dose of blind faith, so that when the love runs out you can believe it will be back again. Because it will. What I have learned…is that married love is never complete or finite. It has to be elastic, adjustable. If you become too attached to a way of loving, the beautiful buzz, the thrill, you'll have no way of replacing it when it's gone. Marriages are custom made; you just jiggle them around until you find a way to make them fit. ~ Morag Prunty

Sometimes it only takes three words, so long as they're the right words, to direct an actor in the right way. ~ Patrice Leconte

Seeing her look at me this way causes my soul to leap from its rest and give of what I too have been feeling. Her eyes compare to that still river raising light from the moon that passes through the sky. I am now as indestructible and as fragile as I've ever been as she reaches out for me to grab her and hold her tightly. The burning inside of me initiates a pure joy and peace that I haven't felt in so long. To love and be loved has become the most incredible experience ever granted unto me. She is now my every breath and the very beating of my heart. I hold her close as the tense weave of my muscles break free and give warmth to every part of her. ~ Luccini Shurod