The Stranger You Seek Quotes

You learn to forgive (the South) for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because the spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once. ~ Amanda Kyle Williams

simply such
a day like the others, it isn't
on a day like this
the gypsy women are looking at you
and are knowing - if they call you
you will stop
to hear your misfortune
spoken by a stranger
they have a degree
in street's psychology
for them you are transparent
even if you don't have a light for their cigarette
she knows
you aren't lucky in love
buy me a coffee
and I'll tell you more

still more than this what then ~ Galina Nikolowa

It's the worst feeling when you come home alone late at night and think the stranger sitting on your couch is a pile of clothes. ~ Dane Cook

If I'm a bad person, you don't like me
Well I guess I'll make my own way
It's a circle
A mean cycle
I can't excite you anymore
Where's your gavel? Your jury?
What's my offense this time?
You're not a judge but if you're gonna judge me
Well sentence me to another life

Don't wanna hear your sad songs
I don't wanna feel your pain
When you swear it's all my fault
Cause you know we're not the same (no)
We're not the same (no)
Oh we're not the same
Yeah the friends who stuck together
We wrote our names in blood
But I guess you can't accept that the change is good (hey)
It's good (hey)
It's good

Well you treat me just like another stranger
Well it's nice to meet you sir
I guess I'll go
I best be on my way out
You treat me just like another stranger
Well it's nice to meet you sir
I guess I'll go
I best be on my way out

Ignorance is your new best friend
Ignorance is your new best friend

This is the best thing that could've happened
Any longer and I wouldn't have made it
It's not a war no, it's not a rapture
I'm just a person but you can't take it
The same tricks that, that once fooled me
They won't get you anywhere
I'm not the same kid from your memory
Well now I can fend for myself

Don't wanna hear your sad songs
I don't wanna feel your pain
When you swear i ~ Hayley Williams

You only do what is in accordance with your self-image. If you consider yourself shy, you won't be able to start a conversation with a stranger. If you consider yourself a slow learner, you won't think of applying to the top college. ~ Michal Stawicki

He greeted me in his usual attire - pajama pants. "Hey stranger!" he said, hugging me for a few long seconds. "I've already set up the board. Can I get you some rose"
I nodded, overwhelmingly relieved to be with another human being - even if he was really a wolf in grandma's clothing. Or was he just a wolf in wolf's clothing? After all, he wore pajamas ... Hmmm. I contemplated all this as he poured me a glass of wine.
"Mind if I smoke?" he asked as he lit up a joint and motioned me over to the sleek brown couch. Italian, of course.
Through the three windows that faced south, north, and west, I saw the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, where I had paid to have my parents' names inscribed in the immigrant wall of honor. Some American Dream this was! ~ Inna Swinton

Onto a Vast Plain"

You are not surprised at the force of the storm -
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window.

The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit:
now it becomes a riddle again
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you know
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing
ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

One sincere truth from a stranger is more likely to move your life forward...than anything your friends and family may tell you to spare your feelings. ~ Anthon St. Maarten

Once [the Senator's] brain has come into play with the mysterious stranger, that stranger exists, really does exist: he will not disappear from the Petersburg prospects while a senator with such thoughts exists, because thought, too, exists.

And so let our stranger be a real live stranger! And let my stranger's two shadows be real live shadows!

Those dark shadows will follow, they will follow on the stranger's heels, in the same way as the stranger himself will directly follow the senator; the aged senator will pursue you, he will pursue you, too, reader, in his black carriage: and from this day forth you will never forget him! ~ Andrei Bely

Our legacy is really the lives we touch, the inspiration we give, altering someone's plan - if even for a moment - and getting them to think, cry, laugh, argue. More than anything, we are remembered for our smiles; the ones we share with our closest and dearest, and the ones we bestow on a total stranger, who needed it RIGHT THEN, and God put you there to deliver. ~ Carrie Hamilton

The ideas of justice of Europe and Africa are not the same and those of the one world are unbearable to the other. To the African there is but one way of counter-balancing the catastrophes of existence, it shall be done by replacement; he does not look for the motive of an action. Whether you lie in wait for your enemy and cut his throat in the dark; or you fell a tree, and a thoughtless stranger passes by and is killed; so far as punishment goes, to the Native mind, it is the same thing. A loss has been brought upon the community and must be made up for, somewhere, by somebody. The Native will not give time or thought to the weighing of guilt or desert; either he fears that this may lead him too far, or he reasons that such things are no concerns of his. But he will devote himself, in endless speculations, to the method by which crime or disaster shall be weighed up in sheep and goats - time does not count to him; he leads you solemnly into a sacred maze of sophistry. ~ Karen Blixen

I find it strange how some men simply give up their soul to a woman, and act in obedience to their will. I find it stranger that those same women, are ignorant to the belief that this isn't his real face. Most women don't know what their man looks like when he's not in-love with them. But when that mystical spell is broken, it's like a person seeing the true face of God; only realizing that you simply never understood ... their real self. ~ Lionel Suggs

It's Will Ferrell, he does Will Ferrell movies. But if you really look at it, he tries to do something different with each one, whether it's an action cop movie like 'The Other Guys' or doing 'Talladega Nights' going into red state America or 'Casa de Mi Padre' or 'Stranger Than Fiction,' which is more of a drama. ~ Adam McKay

If you are under the dominion of sin, you are yet an utter stranger to the salvation of God. ~ Catherine Booth

But I was awake, sitting by the window looking down at the trailer and Mr. Zoltan's truck. I could not sleep. That is how it is with folks my age. We take naps during the day, and then we cannot sleep at night. I think that it is because God is getting us ready for the grave. Is that right? Did He ever tell you? ("The Little Stranger") ~ Gene Wolfe

Seems like an odd thing to toast to when you just agreed to go off with a complete
stranger and play hide the sausage. ~ Harper Sloan

Now that I'm 60, every morning I look in the mirror and say, "I don't know who you are, stranger, but I'm gonna shave you anyway". ~ Milton Friedman

He enjoyed dancing with a fair stranger, enjoyed the vacuous, chaste talk, through which you listen closely to that bewitching, vague something going on inside you and inside her, which will last a couple of bars more and then, finding no resolution, will vanish forever and be utterly forgotten. But while the bond of bodies is still unbroken, the outlines of a potential love affair begin to form, and the rough draft already comprises everything: the sudden silence between two people in some dimly lit room; the man carefully placing with trembling fingers on the edge of an ashtray the just-lit bit impedient cigarette; the woman's eyes slowly closing in as in a film scene.. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

He made a small movement of his head. "Do you love Pennhyll as well as you do the mountain upon which it sits?"
"I find it much like you."
His mouth quirked, and then, curved in another smile. She stared, transfixed by the sight. "Unpleasant and forlorn?"
She tipped her head to one side, considering him. She felt an odd sensation of understanding this harsh man who was, in fact, a stranger to her. "Not entirely unpleasant, that I will admit. Nor forlorn, either."
"Do not tell me you find me amiable."
"Certainly not. Like Pennhyll, you are strong and fierce." She felt, ridiculous as it was, that she knew him better than she knew herself. "To make a life here is to have courage and heart, and those you surely have. ~ Carolyn Jewel

When the first time I saw you, when you have been totally stranger, suddenly, somehow everything completely disappeared and I realized that I found it... true love... From that moment nothing else matters... ~ Rati Tsiteladze

The challenge for me as an actor is if you become a celebrity, you don't meet strangers anymore. And strangers are where we have our anonymity. And I believe it's essential for the soul to be anonymous, especially if you're going to be an actor. ~ Matthew McConaughey

It is absurd and anti-life to be a part of a system that compels you to listen to a stranger reading poetry when you want to learn to construct buildings, or to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when you want to read poetry. ~ John Taylor Gatto

It gave her a sudden sense that it was now her turn to grow old, to find the world changing, sliding away from the old ways of being and behaving, so that you were gradually a stranger to the place you lived in. The woman priest with jogging clothes and a BlackBerry gave Mary a glimpse of what life must have been like for her mother as she grew older. ~ John Lanchester

Now lend me your ears. Here is Creative Writing 101:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things - reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Not until you become a stranger to yourself will you be able to make acquaintance with the Friend. ~ Mark Twain

By the choices we make, by the attitudes we exhibit, we are influencing lives every day in positive or negative ways ... our family, our peers, our friends, and even strangers we've never met before and will never meet again. So when you brush your teeth every morning, look in the mirror and ask yourself ... 'Are there things I'd like to change?' ~ Mac Anderson

Look in the mirror. Half close your eyes. Pretend you are an old lady and ask yourself if you had the chance again to have sex with a stranger would you take it? ~ Chloe Thurlow

There is somewhat of a divide between the Cubans who left and the Cubans who stayed. There is affection and worry for family members and friends who remained behind, the intrinsic need to help anyone leave Cuba, but there is also a schism, Some believe those who stayed contributed to Cuba becoming what it is now, and in doing so, bolstered Fidel's power and legitimized it. People like my grandmother saw that as another betrayal-One that hurt especially because it came from her fellow Cubans. It is much easier to forgive a stranger than it is one you love. ~ Chanel Cleeton

I really love to be with people. It's nice, that. To have achieved sudden intimacy with strangers is perhaps the most human thing you can do. We all love our friends and families, as much as we hate them. When you can achieve intimacy with strangers, it's very exciting and heartening. ~ Russell Brand

Avoid banquets which are given by strangers an ignorant persons. But if there is ever occasion to join them, let your attention be carefully fixed, that you slip not into the manner of the vulgar (the uninstructed). ~ Epictetus

Don't do it. Don't go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it's in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you've never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose - allow smells
to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven't seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don't go back to that miserable place you go every day. Show me it's possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don't have to keep doing this if you don't want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. ~ Matthew Quick

If I Were Another


If I were another on the road, I would not have looked

back, I would have said what one traveler said

to another: Stranger! awaken

the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road

may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued

from our story together: you are so much yourself ... and I am

so much other than myself right here before you!


If I were another I would have belonged to the road,

neither you nor I would return. Awaken the guitar

and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts

the traveler to test gravity. I am only

my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.

If I were another on the road, I would have

hidden my emotions in the suitcase, so my poem

would be of water, diaphanous, white,

abstract, and lightweight ... stronger than memory,

and weaker than dewdrops, and I would have said:

My identity is this expanse!


If I were another on the road, I would have said

to the guitar: Teach me an extra string!

Because the house is farther, and the road to it prettier -

that's what my new song would say. Whenever

the road lengthens the meaning renews, and I become two

on this road: I ... and another! ~ Mahmoud Darwish

You know, the condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, then you throw it away. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up
lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone. The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well. ~ Maya Angelou

Dr. Jules Hilbert: Hell Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.
Harold Crick: What is wrong with you? Hey, I don't want to eat nothing but pancakes, I want to live! I mean, who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Harold, if you pause to think, you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led ... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes. ~ Zach Helm