Waking Up Quotes

An Attempt at Jealousy"

How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without the god inside her?
The queen supplanted -

How do you breathe now?
Flinch, waking up?
What do you do, poor man?

How's your life with a tourist
on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)
is it to your liking?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?
How's kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?
How's it going, with an earthly woman,
with no sixth sense?

Are you happy?
No? In a shallow pit - how is your life,
my beloved? Hard as mine
with another man? ~ Marina Tsvetaeva

Being a human means waking up in this world, where we all have to work and slog to put food on the table. ~ Jason Mraz

I remember having my tonsils out when I was fifteen and waking up crying historically but not being able to stop. That was quite strange. ~ Rae Morris

A lot of people are waking up to human history, but so many people have been conditioned by the government controlled media to think that it's cool not to care. ~ Alex Jones

When you act in a film, you're inevitably surrounded by people you didn't choose, right down to the set painter. I like being able to pick the family I'm waking up to in the morning that's going to make this group effort to tell a story that applies to what's interesting to me at that stage in my life. ~ Sean Penn

Love can be so hauntingly beautiful, waking up past selves that have been wandering aimlessly through the corridors of our soul, for far too long. When someone else can take us from the ghost-town of our inner-selves, to exciting new landscapes, it's worth the risk, just to feel reborn. ~ Jaeda DeWalt

Why does everything come downn to sex with you?"
"It's not just about the sex, Missy. Although, that part is a lot of fun. It's the other stuff. Waking up naked next to someone and knowing you've shared something. That you were connected, if only for a few minutes,"
"Is that what it's like for you?"
"It would be with you. ~ Chelsea M. Cameron

The best thing about waking up early is seeing the sun rise. ~ Bridgit Mendler

The hemulen woke up slowly and recognised himself and wished he had been someone he didn't know. ~ Tove Jansson

You don't need expensive classes and all kinds of weird equipment if you really want to be in shape. There are great ways to do it that are very economical, it just takes a time commitment, even if it means waking up a half hour a day before the rest of the household gets up because that's the only time you have. ~ Padma Lakshmi

We danced in the handkerchief-big space between the speak-easy tables, in which stood the plates of half-eaten spaghetti or chicken bones and the bottles of Dago red. For about five minutes the dancing had some value in itself, then it became very much like acting out some complicated and portentous business in a dream which seems to have a meaning but whose meaning you can't figure out. Then the music was over, and stopping dancing was like waking up from the dream, being glad to wake up and escape and yet distressed because now you won't ever know what it had been all about. ~ Robert Penn Warren

Waking up, for many people, is apparently a positive experience. There are twittering birds and the smell of fresh coffee fills the air.

These people do not live at my house. ~ Amy Petrie Shaw

I am not against marriage, but I like the idea of waking up each morning together and deciding to be that way for another day. I find that more powerful, liberating, and purer than a set of rules binding us. I want to be together not because the society permits us to, but because we want to, and because we are crazy about each-other… ~ Arka Datta

I began waking up slowly into history, from which we do not emerge as from other nightmares. ~ Martha Cooley

Wisdom is Awakening
The wise man wakes up and takes nothing for granted ~
even waking up. ~ Beryl Dov

Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one's head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning. ~ Arnold Schoenberg

By the light coming from the patio, it looked a shade after sunrise. I had to stop waking up at this hour. It was just insane. ~ Kim Harrison

You are the only person I'd like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense. And if I should hear that you died, my life as I know it, the me who is speaking with you now, will cease to exist. Sometimes I have this awful picture of waking up in our house in B. and, looking out to the sea, hearing the news from the waves themselves, He died last night. We missed out on so much. It was a coma. Tomorrow I go back to my coma, and you to yours. ~ Andre Aciman

Many endurance athletes insist on waking up super early to train. I am not one of those athletes. I'm a runner, not a f*cking werewolf. ~ Matthew Inman

She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer. ~ Rainbow Rowell

Travel had seemed the key to the kingdom, back then. One dreamed of a life that would enable travel. Howard looked through his window at a lamp-post buried to its waist in show supporting two chained-up, frozen bikes, identifiable only by the tips of their handlebars. He imagined waking up this morning and digging his bike out of the snow and riding to a proper job, the kind Belseys had had for generations, and found he couldn't imagine it. This interested Howard, for a moment: the idea that he could no longer gauge the luxuries of his own life. ~ Zadie Smith

I had to stop drinkin, cuz I got tired of waking up in my car driving ninety. ~ Richard Pryor

Does everyone get this opportunity?" he asked while walking beside her along the shore.

"Of course they do," she replied. "But..."

"But what?"

"But first they have to wake up. Do you understand the meaning of what I am telling you?"

In a strange new way, he was beginning to understand. "I do. And I also now know that 11:11 is somehow connected to this process of waking up."

She smiled. "For some people, yes. For others it represents a profound moment of growth. Still others receive it as an affirmation of what they already know. ~ Eric Rankin

The alternatives in my life went through my mind. Unemployed, alone, despairing, watching daytime TV. That couldn't end well.

Or helping people, like genuinely making a difference. Imagine waking up and doing that every day? ~ Ruth Ahmed

Sometimes it's just lying in bed and staring at the ceiling listening to the same song over and over again as it slowly loses its meaning. Sometimes it's how people go mad because they couldn't tame the darkness that was growing within them over time. Some days it's a girl waking up without her soul. Some nights it's a boy falling asleep with his spirit crushed. Sometimes it's someone wanting to lose themselves to a person, but instead, they push that person away.

Solitude only becomes a prison when you do not love yourself. And even if you do love yourself it's still a very dangerous thing, and the very benefits of it are the stars shining in its purest darkness.

Solitude isn't always pretty but also are the truths that we find within ourselves when we learn to find solace in it. ~ Juansen Dizon

We Indians are an extremely intelligent people but we can progress as a nation only when we learn the secret of unleashing this positive power of the people. Whenever this happens it disturbs a lot of people - because they know that a giant is waking up. ~ Verghese Kurien

I like everything about you, Larry. I like the way you look and how you're so clever, and I like it when we laugh together and watch TV together. I like going to art galleries with you and hearing you get all bitchy about some of the artists. I like watching you when you're doing marking, 'cause you get these funny looks on your face. I like watching you sleep and hearing that snuffly noise you make. I like waking up with you at weekends and spending the day together, just doing stuff like walking round town and shopping and cooking and stuff." I kind of ran out of breath after that.
For a moment, I thought he was going to cry."Is there anything you don't like about me? ~ J.L. Merrow

All of this is mystification. The city itself lives on its own myth. Instead of waking up and silently existing, the city people prefer a stubborn and fabricated dream; they do not care to be a part of the night, or to be merely of the world. They have constructed a world outside the world, against the world, a world of mechanical fictions which contemn nature and seek only to use it up, thus preventing it from renewing itself and man. ~ Thomas Merton

Mindfulness has to do with waking up and living in harmony with oneself and with the world. It is examining who we are, constantly questioning our views of the world and our place in it, while cultivating appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted. It is empowering as well, because paying attention in this way opens channels to deep reservoirs of creativity, intelligence, imagination, clarity, determination, choice, and wisdom within us. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Nothing seemed as scary as waking up at 40 and realizing that I had not lived a very courageous life. ~ Brit Marling

I looked over at him, a hump of bloodied flesh on the floor, his wire-rimmed glasses askew on his face. His eyes opened behind them. "Fuck!" My heart exploded and I covered my mouth to keep from screaming. It was the first normal reaction I'd had since waking up in here. "Fuck," I said again. Wayne's small, piggy eyes followed my every movement. He was alive. Conscious. ~ Michelle Hodkin

Happiness is, waking up without a hangover. ~ Robert Black

I have a hard time waking up. No alarm clock works! It sounds childish, but I seriously have my manager, my mom or a buddy of mine wake me up if I have to be somewhere. It's a serious issue! I've been very late for some serious gigs because of it! ~ Jesse McCartney

It was an unfamiliar feeling, waking up with a place to go, a place I was actually beginning to comprehend and face without a sense of terror.
More than that, I was even questioning the assumption that I was, in my bones, a scared and anxious and miserable person. It felt like the days were almost supernaturally good, that I could wake up without the usual wave of terror, that the days were admixed with some foreign substance dripping into them, some animating essence, like the dragonborn races of Endoria, dragonborn days. I felt like I'd stumbled on one of the open secrets of the world. Why hadn't I realized before that being a grown-up could be anything you wanted it to be? ~ Austin Grossman

Even then, it hurt. The pain was always there, pulling me inside of myself, demanding to be felt. It always felt like I was waking up from the pain when something in the world outside of me suddenly required my comment or attention. ~ John Green

She said moments like this were like waking up in the middle of the night: You're scared, you're disoriented, and you're completely convinced you're right. But then you stay awake a little longer and you realize things aren't as fearful as they seem."
Excerpt From: David Levithan. "The Lover's Dictionary." iBooks. ~ David Levithan

Confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones. ~ Leslie Jamison

I woke in the hour before dawn, stuck in that strange state where the memory of your dreams is still powerful enough to motivate your actions. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

Tomorrow, I'll see his face in the mirror, and, somehow, I"ll have to make it mine. To do that, I need to start again, free of the past, free of him and the mistakes he made.
Instead of the impossible, I'll need only to concern myself with the ordinary. The luxury of waking up in the same bed.... The luxury of sunshine. The luxury of honesty. The luxury of living a life...
Tomorrow can be whatever I want it to be, which means for the first time in decades, I can look forward to it. Instead of being something to fear, it can be a promise I make myself. A chance to be braver or kinder, to make what was wrong right. To be better than I am today.
Every day after this one is a gift.
I just have to keep walking until I get there. ~ Stuart Turton

He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up - pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm. ~ Rick Riordan

The earth offers gift after gift - life and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiveness. My god, the forgiveness, time, and the scouring tides. How does one accept gifts as great as these and hold them in the mind?

Failing to notice a gift dishonors it, and deflects the love of the giver. That's what's wrong with living a careless life, storing up sorrow, waking up regretful, walking unaware. But to turn the gift in your hand, to say, this is wonderful and beautiful, this is a great gift - this honors the gift and the giver of it. Maybe this is what [my friend] Hank has been trying to make me understand: Notice the gift. Be astonished at it. Be glad for it, care about it. Keep it in mind. This is the greatest gift a person can give in return.

'This is your work,' my friend told me, 'which is a work of substance and prayer and mad attentiveness, which is the real deal, which is why we are here. ~ Kathleen Dean Moore

We feel like 'Lost' deserved a real resolution, not a 'snow globe, waking up in bed, it's all been a dream, cut to black' kind of ending. We thought that would be kind of a betrayal to an audience that's been on this journey for six years. We thought that was not the right ending for our show. ~ Carlton Cuse

Up to that point I'd never believed in love at first sight, and it's not something that you can easily explain, but it's a state of the mind and heart that makes your body feel alive and makes each morning that comes worth waking up for. ~ Andrea Busfield

One key to success is to have lunch at the time of day most people have breakfast. ~ Robert Breault

We're constantly waking up to what we're about, what we're really doing in our lives. And the fact is, that's painful. But there's no possibility of freedom without this pain. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck

There are two ways of waking up in the morning. One is to say, 'Good morning, God,' and the other is to say, 'Good God, morning'! ~ Fulton J. Sheen

I mean, who wants to live waking up ... at least I don't want to live waking up everyday about revenge. ~ Mitchell Baker

Then it is in me, too, the psychotic streak. A psychotic world we live in. The madmen are in power. How long have we known this? Faced this? And-how many of us do know it? ... Perhaps if you know you are insane then you are not insane. Or you are becoming sane, finally. Waking up. I suppose only a few are aware of all this. Isolated persons here and there. But the broad masses-what do they think? All these hundreds of thousands in this city, here. Do they imagine that they live in a sane world? Or do they guess, glimpse, the truth ... ? ~ Philip K. Dick

And what's the point of waking up in the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces in the world with something powerful in your own life? ~ Don DeLillo

My first thought after waking up, since the first time we met, has always been you... ~ Yuli Pritania

His sixth year, it seemed to him, had lasted a remarkably long time and there were points at which he frankly wondered whether he would ever turn seven. But now it was the night before his birthday, and barring some cosmic disaster, the advent of some unexpected black hole into which the earth might be sucked, with the attendant reversal or suspension of time, in very few hours he would be waking up to a world in which he was numbered among the seven-year-olds. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

I've never woken to another's body in the same bed, not since I was a child. There is something about it that makes waking up alone seem unnatural. Man is not meant to be alone, yet men like us (or maybe men like me) appear to be lonelier than others. ~ Aleksandr Voinov

A lot of it is just waking up and putting one foot in front of the other and going where I just go, a natural progression. The other thing is I do have a lot of ideas. TV seems to be where it happens faster, quicker. You are trying to get a movie off the ground, and it's very difficult. One movie takes two years to make ~ Kevin D. Williamson

I wasn't in danger today," I tell him in a choked voice. "I escaped danger today." And I did... I feel like the whole day has been an electrical shock, paddles straight to my heart, bringing me out of a lifelong torpor I hadn't even known I was in. "I escaped," I repeat. ~ Gayle Forman

Some moment happens in your life that you say yes right up to the roots of your hair, that makes it worth having been born just to have happen. laughing with somebody till the tears run down your cheeks. waking up to the first snow. being in bed with somebody you love ... whether you thank god for such a moment or thank your lucky stars, it is a moment that is trying to open up your whole life. If you turn your back on such a moment and hurry along to business as usual, it may lose you the ball game. if you throw your arms around such a moment and hug it like crazy, it may save your soul. ~ Frederick Buechner

I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored. ~ Jonathan Stroud

You are not only waking up sleep deprived, but now you are also sleep deprived and in charge of another human being. ~ Jim Gaffigan

I saw my town as if I had just arrived. It was as if I was waking up. You see houses and buildings every day, and you walk by them on your way to something else, and you hardly see. You hardly notice they're even there, mostly because there's something else going on right in front of your face, But when the town itself becomes the thing that is going on right in front of your face, it all changes, and you're not just looking at a house, but at what's happened in that house before you were born. ~ Gary D. Schmidt

Any seed or insect or lizard or mammal that found itself in LA had to believe that there was a chance to thrive. Living in Southern California was like waking up in a children's book titled Would Be If I Could Be. ~ Walter Mosley

Imagine waking up in the morning and going to the kitchen and to make yourself some breakfast. You take some soybean grits, mix them with some tainted cattle meat, throw in a few beaks and feathers, smother your concoction with processed sugar syrup and chemicals, then sprinkle on a few preservatives and dyes. Pressure cook the hell out of it, let it cool-and dig in! ~ Martin Goldstein

Oh, got no reason, got not shame
Got no family I can blame
Just don't let me disappear
I'mma tell you everything ~ Ryan Tedder

I think, maybe,
I fell in love with your
patterns and inconsistencies,
like the way you squeak
in your sleep.
And the way your heart beats.

I want to be your heartbeat
just to be that much
closer to you,
living there inside your chest,
making a home
under your flesh.

And waking up to
sunshine is nice,
I guess,
but waking to your smile
is like having sunshine
in my bed every morning,
warmth radiating
from your side
of the mattress.

And I would love to make
you a regular thing;
pillow talk in evenings,
coffee and muffins in the morning,
making everyday
as stunning as this one.

take me in small doses;
I'll take you all at once. ~ Charlotte Scott

After his initial homecoming week, after he'd been taken to a bunch of sights by his cousins, after he'd gotten somewhat used to the scorching weather and the surprise of waking up to the roosters and being called Huascar by everybody (that was his Dominican name, something else he'd forgotten), after he refused to succumb to that whisper that all long-term immigrants carry inside themselves, the whisper that says You do not belong, after he'd gone to about fifty clubs and because he couldn't dance salsa, merengue, or bachata had sat and drunk Presidentes while Lola and his cousins burned holes in the floor, after he'd explained to people a hundred times that he'd been separated from his sister at birth, after he spent a couple of quiet mornings on his own, writing, after he'd given out all his taxi money to beggars and had to call his cousin Pedro Pablo to pick him up, after he'd watched shirtless shoeless seven-year-olds fighting each other for the scraps he'd left on his plate at an outdoor cafe, after his mother took them all to dinner in the Zona Colonial and the waiters kept looking at their party askance (Watch out, Mom, Lola said, they probably think you're Haitian - La unica haitiana aqui eres tu, mi amor, she retorted), after a skeletal vieja grabbed both his hands and begged him for a penny, after his sister had said, You think that's bad, you should see the bateys, after he'd spent a day in Bani (the camp where La Inca had been raised) and he'd taken a dump in a l ~ Junot Diaz

Hup! ... and here we are, waking up. Quick scan around, nothing immediately threatening, it would seem ... Hmm. Floating in space. Odd. Nobody else around. That's funny. View's a bit degraded. Oh-oh, that's a bad sign. Don't feel quite right, either. Stuff missing here ... Clock running way slow, like it's down amongst the electronics crap ... Run full system check ... Oh, good grief! ~ Iain M. Banks

A lot of corpses woke up every morning from their graves. Stood in front of the mirror and wore the masks which made them look alive. Stuck in the vicious circle of death. Scared to break out and scared of falling into the infinite pit of darkness, they beat down their souls that were fighting for an escape, mercilessly every day. They walked out into the world with pain, only to return back to the home, which did not feel like a home anymore, again in the night. They removed their masks in front of the mirror, stared into those empty eyes and walked back to their graves silently, with the fear of waking up again next day and with nothing to celebrate in their heart. ~ Akshay Vasu

I did almost every job in the bank. It was real life, waking up in the morning, putting on a suit and tie and then having to go to work. ~ Romain Grosjean

As soon as something stops being fun, I think it's time to move on. Life is too short to be unhappy. Waking up stressed and miserable is not a good way to live. ~ Richard Branson

For too long, our country's version of an energy policy has consisted of Americans waking up every day and wondering how much it will cost to drive to work, how much it will cost to keep their business running, how much it will cost to heat or cool their homes. ~ Bob Beauprez

And his kisses.
God, his lips feel like they were custom made to fit perfectly against mine.
He alternates between soft and sweet, hard and hungry. And I get it.
Though we've shared plenty of kisses, this one is different. It's like discovering a lake in the middle of a desert. Or waking up on Christmas morning to a glistening blanket of show. The equivalent of winning the lottery.
And though it redefines the "cheese" in cheesiness, that's what it feels like to have Logan back in my life, back in my arms, when I thought he was lost to me forever.
Being with him means more than I can express. It's everything. He's everything. I start and end with him. ~ Siobhan Davis

Sometimes, when you sleep with the enemy, waking up is the hardest part." ~ Muse ~ Pippa DaCosta

I'm not the Princess, I'm the Dragon. I will roast you and eat you whole ~ Nicola Noble

For a billion years the patient earth amassed documents and inscribed them with signs and pictures which lay unnoticed and unused. Today, at last, they are waking up, because man has come to rouse them. Stones have begun to speak, because an ear is there to hear them. Layers become history and, released from the enchanted sleep of eternity, life's motley, never-ending dance rises out of the black depths of the past into the light of the present. ~ Hans Cloos

She was having a hard time managing her feelings at this point, mostly because she hadn't felt them in so long-they confused her... After you've been numbed for a while, disorientation is a natural reaction as you come back around. It's like waking up from anesthesia and not knowing exactly where you are. ~ Danielle LaPorte

My next memory is of waking up, it then being dark outside, and my brother and sister fast asleep on the couch. Sitting up I sensed something was broken. Maybe the night? It was open and alive with lights and noises and worried voices. The adults were up, and in and out: we were all waiting for something. ~ Shane Levene

I'm always swimming forward like a shark. You just keep going and you don't rest. I love waking up knowing that I have a problem to solve. ~ Nile Rodgers

Subject: Sundown
Date: June 14 2011 09:35
To: Christian Grey
Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten
I love waking up with you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bathtubs and strange wooden crosses with shackles and four poster beds with red satin sheets and boathouses and childhood bedrooms.
Yours
Sex Mad and Insatiable xx ~ E.L. James

I want to marry you, because you're my best friend. I want to marry you, because I love waking up beside you. I want to marry you, because I love seeing you strut around in my shirts. I want to marry you, because I love having you in my house, in my space and I love knowing you've been there and that you're coming back. I want to marry you, because without you my life feels incomplete." He paused, taking a deep breath. "But most importantly, I want to marry you because I love you - I have since I was sixteen years old - and I'll never stop. ~ Micalea Smeltzer

It all just depends on the person you're with. If you can look at that person and know without a doubt that you want to spend the rest of your life kissing them goodnight and waking up next to them, marriage is for you. ~ Tara Sivec

There is something terrible in the moments after waking up, when the subconscious
knows that something terrible has happened but before all the memories flash back in
their entirety ~ Nicholas Sparks

And religious music and the sort of symbolism of it and everything. But I had this idea. Actually, I sort of dreamt it. I woke up - just before waking up one morning, I sort of dreamt this song or the idea of it and the first little bit of it. And I jumped out of bed and I thought, well, you're still asleep. You're going to forget this in a minute - you know, like you do when you've had a dream ... ~ Nick Lowe

Healing was more than just being cured of cancer or finding the one who actually saw you for you. It was more than getting over your past, embracing your future. Healing's waking up every day when you'd rather stay in bed; healing's when you smile instead of cry; healing's when you can hold your head high, despite what demons try to pull it down. And life was full of it, full of opportunities to cut and run, rather than stay put and face the storm. They never ~ Rachel Van Dyken

For me, even if I'm not a fan of the band in general or maybe it's not the style of music I want to put on for my daughter and me when we're waking up in the morning, there's always something that I can learn from it. And I think those are the things that are surprising. ~ Jon Foreman

He'd been thinking about a lot of things lately, things that would
never happen, things it was best not to think about. Things like waking up with Delaney every morning for the rest of his life and watching her hair turn
gray. ~ Rachel Gibson

And scholars of the mystical, or esoteric, or inner teachings of the world's Great Traditions are fairly unanimous in saying that although the outer teachings of each tradition are considerably different, often even contradictory, the inner esoteric teachings, the teachings based not on beliefs but on direct spiritual experiences of Waking Up, show a remarkable similarity in what they say, which is why the mystics of virtually all the world's religions have great ease in understanding each other, even as their exoteric brethren argue themselves silly. ~ Ken Wilber

When your dream doesn't let you sleep even after 22 hours of waking up, its worth chasing. ~ Dhaval Gajera

Wake me up Wake me up, you said But I was sleeping, too I was dreaming But now Im waking up Still waking up I can see the sun ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I used to - my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I've always heard kind of melodies in my head. ~ Bono

I only remember the end of my dreams, like waking up at a steering wheel, or falling. ~ Ben Barnes

The devil doesn't want God's Word to get to you. He doesn't want it to be pure when it does reach your ears. He wants to snatch the Word of God right out of the air on its way to the ground of your heart. He attacks the church, the pastors and teachers, and he attacks the doctrine; he attacks the hearer and the hearing of the Word. He makes it hard for you to go to church. He makes it hard for the church to continue.

Have you ever wondered why Sunday mornings are so difficult? Why waking up and driving to church seems much more difficult than it ought to? Why listening to a sermon is such hard work? Or have you wondered why things are so difficult in the church, why there never seems to be peace, but there is always trouble? The Word of God is always opposed, and getting our ears and our hearts to the place where they hear God's Word is spiritual warfare.

Here's why:

The preaching and teaching of God's Word is the supply line for the Christian life. ~ Bryan Wolfmueller

Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. There is the sun dissolving the dark, and light as clear as music, filling the room where you sleep and the other rooms behind your eyes. ~ Jeanette Winterson

I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking up and asking Dick Cheney to validate your sense of inner worth. ~ Anne Lamott

Strength does not always mean fists, my heart. Sometimes it means waking up to endure another day. ~ Ruby Dixon

I can tell the time, though, by speak-ing, and as I nev-er sleep I can wak-en you at an-y hour you wish to get up in the morn-ing.'
'That's nice,' said the little girl; 'only I never wish to get up in the morning. ~ L. Frank Baum

But I reckon to tell you there are soft truths, too. It doesn't always have to be like running into a wall. Sometimes it's just like waking up. ~ David Levithan

My idea of a perfect holiday is spending time with the family, waking up on Christmas morning or Thanksgiving morning, watching football all day, having the family come over, people you haven't seen. ~ Morris Chestnut

Here's to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here's to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here's to the janitors who don't understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here's to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here's to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here's to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here's to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here's to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here's to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here's to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on. ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo

To: Christian Grey
Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten
I love waking up to you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bathtubs and strange wooden crosses with shackels and four-poster beds with red satin sheets and boathouses and childhood bedrooms. ~ E.L. James

Looking at her is like waking up. ~ Veronica Roth

I can't imagine any greater fear
Than waking up without you here
And though the sun would still shine on
My whole world would all be gone ~ Sara Evans

Hope to sin only in the service of waking up. ~ Alice Walker