What It Means To Love Quotes

As we embrace the mystery of love, we see that it contains not an absence of error, but the presence of grace. It contains not the absence of anger or pain, but the presence of forgiveness and healing. Not the absence of disharmony or confusion, but the presence of peace and clarity.
To make a home into a sanctuary, we must be willing to make room in our hearts for one another's limitations, as well as our gifts. For it is here in this sacred space of the home and family, so brimming with life, so full of every emotion available to our hearts, that we learn what it means to love within all the nuances of an intimate relationship. ~ Shea Darian

It is the assumption of this book that there is a typical human nature. It is the aim of this book to seek it. Just like a surgeon, a psychiatrist can make all sorts of basic assumptions when a patient lies down upon the couch. He can assume that the patient knows what it means to love, to envy, to trust, to think, to speak, to fear, to smile, to bargain, to covet, to dream, to remember, to sing, to quarrel, to lie. The 'smile' of a baboon is a threat; the smile of a man is a sign of pleasure: it is human nature, the world over. ~ Matt Ridley

We might hope to change the world through better, bigger programs to stop global warming, but global warming will not end unless people become less greedy and less wasteful, gaining a fresh vision of what it means to love our global neighbor. ~ Shane Claiborne

Some people
Never find the right kind of love
you know, the kind that steals
your breath away.
Like diving into a snowmelt.
The kind that jolts your heart,
sets it beating apace.
An anxious hiccuping of hummingbirds wings.
The kind that makes every terrible minute apart feel like hours.
Days.
Years.
Some people flit from one insane possibility to the next.
Never experincing the connection of two people.
rocked by destiny.
Never knowing what it means to love someone else,
more than themselves.
More than life itself, or the promise of something better.
Beyond this world,
More even (forgive me!) than god.
Lucky me, I found the right kind of love.
With the wrong person. ~ Ellen Hopkins

That's just what it means to love someone. They can hurt you worse than anyone, but they can also make you happier than another person ever could. ~ Suzanne Wright

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity. ~ Harriet Reuter Hapgood

I'm scared all the time," he admitted, bracing his hands on the counter. "I know he's powerful, I've seen him in battle, and yet the fear crushes me."
"Of course it does." Elena let her wing overlap his. "That's what it means to love someone. ~ Nalini Singh

Like Naokuo, I'm not really sure what it means to love another person. Though she meant it a little differently. I do want to try my best though. I have to, or else I won't know where to go. Like you said before, Naoko and I have to save each other. It's the only was for us to be saved! ~ Haruki Murakami

Just like God, a woman is not a problem to be solved but a vast wonder to be enjoyed. This is so true of her sexuality. Few women can or even want to "just do it." Foreplay is crucial to her heart, the whispering and loving and exploring of one another that culminates in intercourse. That is a picture of what it means to love her soul. She yearns to be known and that takes time and intimacy. It requires an unveiling. As she is sought after, she reveals more of her beauty. As she unveils her beauty, she draws us to know her more deeply. ~ John Eldredge

Good. Because I don't need protecting."
"I knew you'd say that.But the thing is, sometimes you do. And sometimes I do. We're meant to protect each other, but not from everything. Not from the truth. That's what it means to love someone but let them be themselves. ~ Cassandra Clare

Today I feel like pleasing you more than before
Today I know what I want to do but I don't know what for
To be living for you is all I want to do
To be loving you it'll all be there when my dreams come true
Today you'll make me say that I somehow have changed
Today you'll look into my eyes, I'm just not the same
To be anymore than all I am would be a lie
I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry
Today everything you want, I swear it all will come true
Today I realize how much I'm in love with you
With you standing here I could tell the world what it means to love
To go on from here I can't use words, they don't say enough
Please, please listen to me
It's taken so long to come true
And it's all for you
all for you.... ~ Jefferson Airplane

There is a moment in your 20s when you know what it means to love rightly, but not how to do it, and then you begin to learn. ~ Melissa Febos

It is easier to understand if you think of it in terms of music. Sometimes a man enjoys a symphony. Elsetimes he finds a jig more suited to his taste.
The same holds true for lovemaking. One type is suited to the deep cushions of a twilight forest glade. Another comes quite naturally tangled in the sheets of narrow beds upstairs in inns. Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.
Some might take offense at this way of seeing things, not understanding how a trouper views his music. They might think I degrade women. They might consider me callous, or boorish, or crude.
But those people do not understand love, or music, or me. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

An old story is told about Rabia of Basra, an eighth-century Sufi mystic who was seen running through the streets of her city one day carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When someone asked her what she was doing, she said she wanted to burn down the rewards of paradise with the torch and put out the fires of hell with the water, because both blocked the way to God, 'O, Allah,' Rabia prayed, 'if I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your Own sake, grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.'

In Christian tradition this comes under the heading of unconditional love, though it is usually understood as the kind of love God exercises toward humans instead of the other way around. Now, thanks to a Muslim mystic from Iraq, I have a new way of understanding what it means to love God unconditionally. Whenever I am tempted to act from fear of divine punishment or hope of divine reward, Rabia leans over from here religion into mine and empties a bucket of water on my head. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor

It is only when one knows the unutterability of the name of God that one can utter the name of Jesus Christ; it is only when one loves life and the earth so much that without them everything seems to be over that one may believe in the resurrection and a new world; it is only when one submits to God's law that one may speak of grace; and it is only when God's wrath and vengeance are hanging as grim realities over the heads of one's enemies that something of what it means to love and forgive them can touch our hearts. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In being with dying, we arrive at a natural crucible of what it means to love and be loved. And we can ask ourselves this: Knowing that death is inevitable, what is most precious today? ~ Joan Halifax

And think it's funny how, now that I know what it means to love and be loved, I see it everywhere. ~ Laurelin Paige

So after he died, I didn't know how to relate to other people. I didn't know what it means to love another person. ~ Haruki Murakami

You're a talking cat?" Endora asked with a look of disbelief on her face.
"My, my, my, aren't you the bright bulb of the bunch," he replied with a bit of snarky smugness. "Tell me then, bright-bulb, do you suppose that I need your permission to talk just because I'm a cat?" He raised his paw to his face, admiring his newly gnawed manicure. After he observed the last nail, he slapped his paw down on the floorboards, making a low thud sound. "Because I don't," he smirked.
Endora was taken by surprise at his rudeness. She stared back at him, speechless and not quite sure how to respond.
"Are you a magic cat?" Mila busted in with a question that seemed as silly to her as to the cat.
He glared and narrowed his eyes at her. "A magic cat," he said, standing up to arch his furry back. "Is my talking some sort of magic to you? If it is… then I am." He stretched his back higher and let out a long purr that turned into, "Purrhaps, you four little witchy girls should clearly refine your meaning of magic so you know what it means before you say the word magic."
"I rather am quite fond of talking cats," Selena said with a big smile. "Of course, you're the first one I've ever seen."
The cat narrowed its eyes tighter. "Indeed," he said, letting out a yawn as if the whole conversation were a bore. He leapt off the porch and dash away, mumbling and grumbling his way down the corridor.
Selena looked over at Endora. "Rude little snot, isn't he?" she said. ~ Sophie Palmer

When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't see, which are directly in front of your eyes. ~ Hermann Hesse

See, everything that ever could possibly have happened, in the entire history of the universe right from the Big Bang up until now, _did_ happen -- somewhere. And _every_ possible difference means a different universe. Not just if Napoleon lost at Waterloo, or won, or whatever he didn't do here; what does Napoleon matter to the _universe_, anyway? Betelgeuse doesn't give a flying damn for all of Europe, past, present, or future. But every single atom or particle or whatever, whenever it had a chance to do something -- break up or stay together, or move one direction instead of another, whatever -- it did _all_ of them, but all in different universes. They didn't branch off, either -- all the universes were always there, there just wasn't any difference between them until this particular event came along. And that means that there are millions and millions of identical universes, too, where the differences haven't happened yet. There's an infinite number of universes, more than that an infinity of infinities, I mean you can't really comprehend it. If you think you're close then multiply that a few zillion times -- everything is out there. ~ Lawrence Watt-Evans

Cinema is a director's medium, so you're saying, 'What do you want?' Being an actor is about adapting - physically and emotionally. If that means you have to look great for it and they can make you look great, then thank you. And if you have to have everything washed away, then I'm willing to do that too. ~ Nicole Kidman

I think that, generally, people of the world typify a "free and wild" person as someone who's uprooted, detached and uninhibited. But I don't believe in that kind of freedom. I think that's an infantile concept. Freedom means something when it has escaped something! Those people who escaped things - their inner cages, cages set by others around them - when those people are able to roam free and say, "This is who I am because this is who I choose to be", THAT is freedom. Freedom isn't being stupid; freedom is being so smart that you develop a strength strong enough to break free and become your own person. A better person than what your circumstances would like to define you as. ~ C. JoyBell C.

I've often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they're on, why they don't fall off it, how much time they've probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don't fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn't explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I'd tell them how we reproduce, how long we've been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it. ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Goethe (I don't know why, but Goethe somehow always speaks up in my critical moments) said: "Man must experience his own destiny" - not a factual destiny forced on him by History, but the nonrecurrent, his very own. Perhaps this was possible a hundred years ago. At the time of the French Revolution and also of the Napoleonic Wars, an individual still had the means of turning against the collective destiny adroitly, cunningly. He could hide or build emergency dams hastily in his soul. And a hundred years ago when someone mounted the scaffold or fell on the battlefield, he knew that what was then being consummated personally was his destiny. But today? There is no longer a "personal destiny;" there are only statistical probabilities. One cannot feel it to be personal destiny when an atom bomb explodes or when a dictatorship enunciates an outmoded, stupid judgment on a society. This is why I must go somewhere from this place where, perhaps, it will be possible for me to live my own destiny for a time. Because here I have already become only a piece of data in a category. ~ Sandor Marai

One must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm alive and it's not my fault, which means I must somehow go on living the best I can, without bothering anybody, until I die.'
'But what makes you live? With such thoughts, you'll sit without moving, without undertaking anything ... '
'Life won't leave one alone as it is. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Three Rules To Write By

Write naked.
That means to write what you would never say.

Write in blood.
As if ink is so precious you can't waste it.

Write in exile
as if you are never going to get home again, and you have to call back every detail.

Denis Johnson ~ Denis Johnson

Science, is the creation by humans of a particular paradigm and methodology for discovering truth and understanding reality. Hence it can never fully reflect the hidden face of humanity, its creator, in the same sense that a computer can never become fully human or know what it means to be human: however sophisticated, these machines will forever remain mere artifacts of humanity. ~ Stephen A. Diamond

The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we've connected it to all the other things we know. That's why it's almost always wrong to seek the "real meaning" of anything. A thing with just one meaning has scarcely any meaning at all. ~ Marvin Minsky

Emma, calm down. I had to know-"
I point my finger in his face, almost touching his eyeball. "It's one thing for me to give your permission to look into it. But I'm pretty sure looking into it without my consent is illegal. In fact, I'm pretty sure everything that woman does is illegal. Do you even know what the Mafia is, Galen?"
His eyebrows lift in surprise. "She told you who she is? I mean, who she used to be?"
I nod. "While you were checking in with Grom. Once in the Mob, always in the Mob, if you ask me. How else would she get all her money? But I guess you wouldn't care about that, since she buys you houses and cars and fake IDs." I snatch my wrist away and turn back toward our hotel. At least, I hope it's our hotel.
Galen laughs. "Emma, it's not Rachel's money; it's mine."
I whirl on him. "You are a fish. You don't have a job. And I don't think Syrena currency has any of our presidents on it." Now "our" means I'm human again. I wish I could make up my mind.
He crosses his arms. "I earn it another way. Walk to the Gulfarium with me, and I'll tell you how."
The temptation divides me like a cleaver. I'm one part hissy fit and one part swoon. I have a right to be mad, to press charges, to cut Rachel's hair while she's sleeping. But do I really want to risk the chance that she keeps a gun under her pillow? Do I want to miss the opportunity to scrunch my toes in the sand and listen to Galen's rich voice tell me how a fish came to be wealthy ~ Anna Banks

It's broke again, akri. The man downstairs done said that the Simi can't charge nothing else until I'm not over my limit no more. I don't know what that means, but I don't like it. Fix it, akri, or else I might eat him. The Simi gots needs and I needs my plastic to work. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

They think they know the book by its cover, but the book knows what it is. Now he knew better; if the book never opens up and comes out, it can be warped to fit the image others see.
... No, a book wasn't invulnerable to the appearance of its cover, not by any means. ~ Ken Kesey

An icon means nothing to me. I don't understand what it means to anybody actually. It seems like a word of convenience. It seems to attend to the huge success of certain kinds of movies that I did, but there's no personal utility in being an icon. I don't know what an icon does, except stand in a corner quietly accepting everyone's attention. I like to work, so there's no utility in being an icon. ~ Harrison Ford

This is the arena in which a spiritualized disobedience means most. It doesn't mean a second New Deal, another massive bureaucratic attack on our problems. It doesn't mean taking to the streets, throwing bricks through the window at the Bank of America, or driving a tractor through the local McDonald's. It means living differently. It means taking responsibility for the character of the human world. That's a real confrontation with the problem of value. In short, refusal of the present is a return to what Thoreau and Ruskin called "human fundamentals, valuable things," and it is a movement into the future. This movement into the future is also a powerful expression of that most human spiritual emotion, Hope.
p.124 ~ Curtis White

The silly ass had left the kitchen door open, and I hadn't gone two steps when his voice caught me squarely in the eardrum.
'You will find Mr Wooster', he was saying to the substitue chappie, 'an extremely pleasant and amiable young gentleman, but not intelligent. By no means intelligent. Mentally he is negligible - quite negligible'.
Well, I mean to say. What!
I suppose, strictly speaking, I ought to have charged in and ticked the blighter off properly in no uncertain voice. But I doubht whether it is humanly possible to tick Jeeves off. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Everything is arranged," John Robertson told me.

Thank God."

I forgot to mention that we appear to have one small problem," he said.

Okay..."

Evidently it seems Winston Holder has already left this morning to the border and Gbarnga. He took a journalist in."

A journalist? Who?"

I don't know who. They thought it must be you."

But it wasn't me. I'm me," I said, though from the first hour in this country I'd begun to doubt it.

I have Lincoln Smythe's address. He'll put us right. Everything will be arranged promptly, and we'll work out your itinerary."

I thought everything was arranged," I said.

By the bare bulb hung above our straw beds I saw, far back in John Robertson's eyes, the eternal West African question: What is this guy going on about?

Naturally," he said, "but we just have to work out your itinerary."

Everything is arranged doesn't mean you should expect to get anywhere or accomplish anything. In fact, for sanity's sake, those two ideas have to be banished: the idea of getting somewhere and the idea of accomplishing something. Everything is arranged means that all is complete, the great plan of the universe is unfolding before our eyes. So eat, drink, sleep. Everything is arranged. ~ Denis Johnson

I praise mirth" [Eccl. viii. 15]. This means the righteous man rejoices when he performs a meritorious act. "And of joy, what doth this do?" [Eccl. ii. 2] alludes to rejoicing that comes not through a Heaven-pleasing deed. This teaches that the divine presence (Shekhina) comes not by sadness, by indolence, by hilarity, by levity, by gossip, or by senseless talk, but through rejoicing in a meritorious deed; as it is written: "Now bring me a minstrel; and when the minstrel played, the power of the Lord was upon him" [II Kings, iii. 15]. Rabba said: The same (should be done) in order to enjoy good dreams. R. Jehudah says: The same (should be done) to predispose one's self for legislative work, as Rabba did: Before commencing to expound a Halakha he introduced it with a simile and caused the masters to become joyful; afterward, he sat down in the fear of the Lord and began to expound the Halakha. ~ Michael Rodkinson

Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust ... They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice. ~ Richard J. Foster

To reach only for that which pleasantly enchants you is the least of imagination, if even imagination at all, by the obvious reality of remaining within your means. The greater of imagination is parallel to risk. It extends beyond your comfort zone or haven, or sense of beauty, or what you personally believe suits you in exploration of what may not. ~ Criss Jami

Thinking in terms of risk certainly has its unsettling aspects ( ... ), but it is also a means of seeking to stabilise outcomes, a mode of colonising the future. The more or less constant, profound and rapid momentum of change characteristic of modern institutions, coupled with structured reflexivity, mean that on the level of everyday practice as well as philosophical [Seitenwechsel] interpretation, nothing can be taken for granted. What is acceptable/appropriate/recommended behaviour today may be seen differently tomorrow in the light of altered circumstances or incoming knowledge-claims. ~ Anthony Giddens

In my experience, the universe falls in with worthy plans and most especially with festive and expansive ones. I have seldom conceived a delicious plan without being given the means to accomplish it. Understand that the what must come before the how. First choose what you would do. The how usually falls into place of itself. ~ Julia Cameron

Perhaps that had been one of the ineradicable faults of mankind - for even a convinced atheist had to admit there were faults - that it was never content with a thing as a thing; it had to turn things into symbols of other things. A rainbow was never only a rainbow; a storm was a sign of celestial anger; and even from the puddingy earth came forth dark chthonian gods. What did it all mean? What an agnostic believed and what the willowy parson believed were not only irreconcilable systems of thought: they were equally valid systems of thought because, somewhere along the evolutionary line, man, developing this habit of thinking of symbols, had provided himself with more alternatives than he could manage. Animals moved in no such channel of imagination - they copulated and they ate; but the the saint, bread was a symbol of life, as the phallus was to the pagan. The animals themselves were pressed into symbolic service - and not only in the medieval bestiaries, by any means.

Such a usage was a distortion, although man seemed unable to ratiocinate without it. That had been the trouble right from the beginning. Perhaps it had even been the beginning, back among the first men that man could never get clearly defined (for the early men, being also symbols, had to be either lumbering brutes, or timid noble savages, or to undergo some other interpretation). Perhaps the first fire, the first tool, the first wheel, the first carving in a limestone cave, had each possessed a ~ Brian W. Aldiss

I found myself thinking a lot about my own spirituality. What it means to be Jewish, what it means to forgive, what it means to sacrifice, but mostly what it means to be alive, how to be a better person, how not to make the mistakes my parents had made. I guess that's what one might typically call a midlife crisis. ~ Tod Goldberg

What it means to be a 'better person', then, must be concrete and practical - that is to say, concerned with people's political situations as a whole - rather than narrowly abstract, concerned only with the immediate interpersonal relations which can be abstracted from this concrete whole. It must be a question of political and not only of 'moral' argument: that is to say, it must be genuine moral argument, which sees the relations between individual qualities and values and our whole material conditions of existence. Political argument is not an alternative to moral preoccupations: it is those preoccupations taken seriously in their full implications. ~ Terry Eagleton

To design things means to interfere with things: to think of how they might be and to alter how they are. Design is to making as writing is to speech: it is an ordinary physical activity pushed to a conscious edge. That interference with the given world can still be founded on admiration. Where it is not, what is the point of designing at all? ~ Robert Bringhurst

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to do, and you do know what that means. ~ Idries Shah

This new situation, in which "humanity" has in effect assumed the role formerly ascribed to nature or history, would mean in this context that the right to have rights, or the right of every individual to belong to humanity, should be guaranteed by humanity itself. It is by no means certain whether this is possible. For, contrary to the best-intentioned humanitarian attempts to obtain new declarations of human rights from international organizations, it should be understood that this idea transcends the present sphere of international law which still operates in terms of reciprocal agreements and treaties between sovereign states; and, for the time being, a sphere that is above the nation does not exist. Furthermore, this dilemma would by no means be eliminated by the establishment of a "world government." Such a world government is indeed within the realm of possibility, but one may suspect that in reality it might differ considerably from the version promoted by idealistic-minded organizations. The crimes against human rights, which have become a specialty of totalitarian regimes, can always be justified by the pretext that right is equivalent to being good or useful for the whole in distinction to its parts. (Hitler's motto that "Right is what is good for the German people" is only the vulgarized form of a conception of law which can be found everywhere and which in practice will remain effectual only so long as older traditions that are still effective in the constitution ~ Hannah Arendt

Precious child, what is the meaning of the saying,
"We must die before death?"
It means we must make all the evil qualities,
all the qualities of satan within us, die before our death.
If those qualities die, then the world within us dies.
And if the world within us dies, then all the sins,
ghosts, demons, and satan's contained within it also die.
The desire for earth, gold, and sexual pleasure
all die along with the world within us.
All that is left is Allah and His power (quadrat).
If all the evil qualities die within us,
then we die before death
and only Allah's qualities, actions and conduct will remain.
Then there will be no death for us.
We will have attained eternal life (hayat).
If we attain eternal life, where will we live?
We will live in heaven, in God's kingdom.

To Die Before Death: The Sufi Way of Life- pg. 116-117 ~ Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen

Luxury means being able to relax and savor the moment, knowing that it doesn't get any better than this.

Feeling that way doesn't require money. It doesn't require the perfect scenery. All that's required is an ability to survey a landscape that is disheveled, that is off-kilter, that is slightly unattractive or unsettling, and say to yourself: this is exactly how it should be. This requires a big shift in perspective: Since your thoughts and feelings can't simply be turned off, you have to train your thoughts and feelings to experience imperfections as acceptable or preferable--even divine.

The sky is gray. A fly lands on you hand. Your cocktail is lukewarm. And still, for some reason, if you slow down and accept reality enough, it starts to feel right. Better than right. You are not comparing reality to some imagined perfect alternative. You are welcoming reality for what it already is.

And what if you have no cocktail, because you're sober now? And what if your neck is aching? Maybe you're running late. Maybe you feel anxious. Still, you pay attention to each little fold, each disappointment, each impatient attempt by mind and body to "fix" what already is. And then surrender to all of it. These details are irreplaceable. They give the moment its value. The chance to soak in this mundane, uneven moment is the purest luxury of all. ~ Heather Havrilesky

So, let's get back to why the roots are the most important part of a tree. Conceivably, this is where the tree equivalent of a brain is located. Brain? you ask. Isn't that a bit farfetched? Possibly, but now we know that trees can learn. This means they must store experiences somewhere, and therefore, there must be some kind of a storage mechanism inside the organism. Just where it is, no one knows, but the roots are the part of the tree best suited to the task. The old spruce in Sweden also shows that what grows underground is the most permanent part of the tree-and where else would it store important information over a long period of time? Moreover, current research shows that a tree's delicate root networks is full of surprises.

It is now an accepted fact that the root network is in charge of all chemical activity in the tree. And there's nothing earth shattering about that. Many of our internal processes are also regulated by chemical messengers. Roots absorb substances and bring them into the tree. In the other direction, they deliver the products of photosynthesis to the tree's fungal partners and even route warning signals to neighboring trees. But a brain? For there to be something we would recognize as a brain, neurological processes must be involved, and for these, in addition to chemical messages, you need electrical impulses. And these are precisely what we can measure in the tree, and we've been able to do so since as far back as the nineteenth century ~ Peter Wohlleben

It is a tremendous honor to be named poet laureate, but one that I find humbling as well, because it's the kind of thing that makes me feel like - even as it's been bestowed upon me - I must continue to live up to what it means ... Being the younger laureate in the age of social media is a new challenge. ~ Natasha Trethewey

I don't claim to know what it means to say that we are made in the image of God, but I profoundly and instinctively believe it and all that it implies. ~ Marilynne Robinson

If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief! ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

Madness and passion have always been interchangeable. Throughout the entire western literary tradition. Madness is an abundance of existence. Madness is a way of asking difficult questions. What did he mean, the powerless tyrant king? O Fool, I shall go mad.
Maybe madness is the excess of possibility, ... And writingis about reducing possibility to ne idea, one book, one sentence, one word. Madness is a form of self-expression. It is the opposite of creativity. You cannot make anything that can be separated from yourself if you are mad. And yet, look at Rimbaud
and your wonderful Christopher Smart. But don't harbour any romantic ideas about what it means to be mad. My language was my protection, my guarantee against madness and when there was no one to listen my language vanished along with my reader. ~ Patricia Duncker

The third note in a chord is what depicts whether it's major or minor. Rhythm and Blues hardly ever uses it because it means that the melody is free to move between major and minor because you're not clashing with the third being depicted one way or the other. ~ Robert Palmer

John [the father] kept saying, "You have a penis. That means you're a boy." One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. "He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn't belong here. So I'm going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can't do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay. ~ Andrew Solomon

Father," she said late one night. "I can't keep up. Our goats are dying. We're going to have to ask the neighbors for help."
"Have we ever done that before?" he said.
"We've never needed help before," said Capable.
"Well I'm against it," he said. "If we haven't done it before, it stands to reason that this time is the first time we've done it, which means that, relative to what we've done in the past, this is different, which I am very much against, as I always have been, as you well know. I have consistently been very very consistent about this. ~ George Saunders

If you are aware of chronic or severe mistreatment and do not speak out against it, your silence communicates implicitly that you see nothing unacceptable taking place. Abusers interpret silence as approval, or at least as forgiveness. To abused women, meanwhile, the silence means that no one will help - just what her partner wants her to believe. Anyone who chooses to quietly look the other way therefore unwittingly becomes the abuser's ally. ~ Lundy Bancroft

They say the princess is a stunner," said Peashot. "They also say she's eighteen and twice as tall as you," Vayle replied. "I meant the younger one." "The younger one is a boy." "Oh. Well then I meant the older one. Five years is not so much, and anyway, I'll grow." "Yes, I'm sure she thinks daily of a delinquent midget apprentice growing up to claim her hand ahead of all the nobles and princes of the realm. What could any of them possibly give that you don't have, except titles, land, wealth and all that. You don't have any of those things lying around, do you?" "You're an idiot, Vayle. What does delinquent mean?" "It means you. If anybody asks you to describe yourself, that's the word you want." "Thanks. Idiot." "My pleasure. Allisian is pretty though, but I've heard that the prince chops off the heads of men who stare at his sister." Peashot snorted. ~ Jonathan Renshaw

I try not to focus on fame; I don't even really know what it means exactly because it's so fleeting. ~ Taylor Momsen

It is clear, then, that the desire for certainty shapes our spaces of possibility, our perceptions, and our lives both personally and professionally. Usually, this need saves us. But it also sabotages us. This produces an ongoing tension between what we might think of as our conscious selves and our automatic selves. To overcome our inborn reflex that pushes us to seek certainty (sometimes at any cost), we must lead with our conscious selves and tell ourselves a new story, one that with insistent practice will change our future past and even our physiological responses. We must create internal and external ecologies that… celebrate doubt!
This means the biggest obstacle to deviation and seeing differently isn't actually our environment as such, or our" intelligence, or even - ironically - the challenge of reaching the mythical "aha" moment. Rather, it is the nature of human perception itself, and in particular the perceived need for knowing. Yet the deep paradox is that the mechanisms of perception are also the process by which we can unlock powerful new perceptions and ways to deviate. Which means that mechanism of generating a perception is the blocker… and the process of creating perception is the enabler of creativity ~ Beau Lotto

Rob glanced back at the glint of the blade as Caleb spun it once more. 'So what - you want information?' he asked,looking back at him'You want to talk'?.
'If talking means I ask questions and you answer them'.
Rob exhaled sharply. 'Is that what the tickingclocks about?some kind of threat. ~ Lindsay J. Pryor

I mean, if you pause over what it means at the age of 76 that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, the happiest single day of her life was the day she made the first team at field hockey. Field hockey is a team sport. Field hockey is a knockabout - I mean, picture Allenswood, the swamps of north London. It's a messy sport. So she really enjoyed playing this rough-and-tumble sport in the mud of Allenswood, a team sport. And she was very competitive. And she loved being competitive, and she loved to win. And that, I think, was all of the things that Allenswood enabled. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook