Why Am I Second Best Quotes

I lay my fantasy in the backseat of Isa's car and slide in next to her. She snuggles up, using me as her personal pillow, her blond curls sprawled over my crotch. I close my eyes for a second, trying to get the image out of my head. And I don't know what to do with my hands. My right one is on the door armrest. My left one hovers over Brittany.
I hesitate. Who am I kidding? I'm not a virgin. I'm an eighteen-year-old guy who can deal with having a hot, passed-out girl next to me. Why am I afraid of putting my arm where it's comfortable, right over her midsection?
I hold my breath as I settle my arm on her. She cuddles closer and I'm feeling weird and light-headed. Either it's the aftereffects from the joint or . . . I don't want to think about the "or." Her long hair is wrapped around my thigh. Without thinking, I weave my hands in her hair and watch as the silky strands slowly fall through the V's between my fingers. ~ Simone Elkeles

Three prisoners in the gulag get to talking about why they are there. "I am here because I always got to work five minutes late, and they charged me with sabotage," says the first. "I am here because I kept getting to work five minutes early, and they charged me with spying," says the second. "I am here because I got to work on time every day," says the third, "and they charged me with owning a western watch. ~ Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev

On a second note, though, I have something to say about pain. There are lots of kinds of pain. Pain of smashing your fingers in a car door, pains of loosing a baby, pain of failing a test. But in their own little ways, these pains are all agonizing. Which is sad, and yet, happy, if you really think about it. If we never lost our car keys, or stepped in gum, or had a bad hair day, what kind of people would we be? In a word? Boring. We wouldn't be passionate; we wouldn't know it was exciting to get pregnant, or score an A on a final. So that's why, today at least, I am grateful for pain. Because it's part of what makes me the whacky, goofy, jaded, person that I am. Peace. ~ Alysha Speer

My personal life is as monotonous as ever; but they have given me permission to walk in the garden, where there are almost seventeen trees ! This is a great happiness for me. Moreover, I am given a candle in the evenings - that's my second piece of luck. The third will be mine if you answer as soon as possible, and send me the next number of the 0. Z. I am in the same position as a country subscriber, and await each number as a great event, like some landed proprietor dying of boredom in the provinces. Will you send me some historical works ? That would be splendid. But best of all would be the Bible (both Testaments). I need one. Should it prove possible, send it in a French translation. But if you could add as well a Slav edition, it would be the height of bliss. Of ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Who cannot sympathize with the imprisoned Dmitri Karamazov as he tries to make sense of what he has just learned from a visiting academic?

"Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head - that is, these nerves are there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image appears ... it doesn't appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes ... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment - devil take the moment! - but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it! That's why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all because I've got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness. All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother, and it simply bowled me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A new man's arising - that I understand.... And yet I am sorry to lose God!"

Dostoevsky's prescience is itself astonishing, because in 1880 only the rudiments of neural functioning were understood, and a reasonable person could have doubted that all experience arises from quivering nerve tails. But no longer. One can say that the information-processing activity of the brain causes the mind, or one can say that it is the mind, but in either case the evidence is ov ~ Steven Pinker

I am not good at first or second impressions, and you have to spend some time with me to know me. Also, I don't want to put my best foot forward and prove something, as that is not me. I would rather be me and have you like me for who I am, instead of being someone else. ~ Emraan Hashmi

I am just like you. My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating.

Let's admit that we all start there. The False Self seems to have the "first gaze" at almost everything.

The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: "How will this affect me?" or "How can I get back in control of this situation?" This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live "undefended," can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes lots of practice.

On my better days, when I am "open, undefended, and immediately present," as Gerald May says, I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. The True Self seems to always be ridden and blinded by the defensive needs of the False Self. It is an hour-by-hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer, in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile "R ~ Richard Rohr

Why do you think I am like this?" It didn't really sound like a question; there was no regret, or sorrow, or genuine tinge of curiosity. I didn't think he expected a complex answer in any case, as I'm pretty sure we both knew that a team of neuroscientists and psychologists could work on Mad Dog for a decade and still not have all of the answers. Instead, I removed a sheet of paper from my legal folder and wrote one quatrain from a poem by W.H. Auden: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. He received this carefully and spent a moment looking it over. For the tiniest fraction of a second his face relaxed and his eyes softened and he seemed to shrink into himself as he breathed in. Then it was over, and he turned away from me, a dismissal if I ever saw one. He crumpled up my note angrily and tossed it away onto the floor. It was the last time we ever spoke. ~ Jean Casella

So Dad was cured?" I don't know why I feel so disappointed. I didn't even remember him; he died of cancer when I was one.
"He was." A muscle twitches in my mom's jaw. "But there were times I felt ... There were times it seemed as though he could still feel it, just for a second. Maybe I only imagined it. It doesn't matter. I loved him anyway. He was very good to me."
reminds me that she is not just my mother, but a woman who has fought her whole life for something she has never truly experienced.
My dad was cured. And you can't love, not fully, unless you are loved in return.
It makes me ache for her, a feeling I hate and am somehow ashamed of. ~ Lauren Oliver

I am convinced that companies should put staff first, customers second and shareholders third - ultimately that's in the best interest of customers and shareholders. ~ Richard Branson

Ethan's gaze returned to the swell of her breast above the top of her gown. "Cord once mentioned a room here at Sheffield House on the second floor, rather out of the way,I understand, and rarely used.I don't think anyone would miss us if we disappeared for a while, do you?"
Her pulse quickened. She couldn't look away from the smoky heat in his eyes or the sensual curve of his lips. They were equally matched, she thought, and perfectly mated,her mind slipping ahead to what would happen in that room. "No,I don't believe they would miss us in the least."
His look burned hotter. He glanced at the crush of people surrounding them, spoke just loudly enough for them to hear. "Come,my love.It's a bit warm in here.Why don't we take a stroll in the garden?"
Grace bit back a smile. "That is a very good notion,my lord.I believe the night is clear enough for us to see the stars.The Great Bear and the Little Lion should be visible tonight and I am ever so eager to see them."
Ethan's smile held a trace of amusement that disappeared beneath a look of sensual heat. ~ Kat Martin

If I'm feeling desperate, I'll go out image-hunting. I'll go to news agents and stand at the rack flicking through magazines or go to second-hand bookshops. And then, bit by bit, like concrete poetry, I start to realise that I am drawn to particular things, and then I start wondering why that is. ~ Gary Hume

In a fragment of a second you can understand: Things you know, things you don't know, things you don't know that you don't know, conscious, unconscious, things which in a fragrant of a second you can react to: we can all imagine why this capacity was given to us as human beings - I guess to survive. Architecture to me has the same kind of capacity. It takes longer to capture, but the essence to me is the same. I call this atmosphere. When you experience a building and it gets to you. It sticks in your memory and your feelings. I guess thats what I am trying to do. ~ Peter Zumthor

I Keep Six Honest Serving Men ..."

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.

But different folk have different views;
I know a person small -
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes -
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys! ~ Rudyard Kipling

Hello, sexy. I knew that you couldn't get through the night without me," Finn's smug, slightly sleepy voice filled my ear. "So why don't you tell me what you're wearing?"
I rolled my eyes. Apparently, my foster brother hadn't bothered to check his caller ID before he picked up the phone. I wondered if this was how he answered all his late night calls, or if he was actually expecting to hear from Bria. I really hoped it was the second one.
"What am I wearing? Well, right now it would be the blood of two giants, among other naughty unmentionables," I purred. "What does that do for you, sexy?"
Silence.
Then Finn cleared his throat. "Uh Gin? Did you dial my number by mistake? Shouldn't you be cooing these sweet, sweet nothings into Owen's ear instead of mine? ~ Jennifer Estep

I said that I am in love with you. I've tried not to be, I really have, but it's just useless. I know you don't feel the same way about me, but I had to tell you because ... well, you're all I think about. All the time. I miss you every second that you're not with me ... and I know you won't want to be around me anymore, but, Camilla ... you're one of the best friends I've ever had. You're smart and amazing and weird and probably the most beautiful person I've ever seen ... and before I met you, all I wanted was just to fast-forward through everything. But, really, I think my life was just paused, or something. You ... made me press play. You made everything move. And no matter where you go, or whatever you feel about me ... I will love you forever for that. ~ Melissa Keil

Once or twice a week I would set my alarm for six A.M. so I could get up and plug in Hot Stix ... I would study the curls in the mirror, impressed with both the appliance and my newfound ability to use it.
Then, without fail, at the last second before leaving for school, I would ask myself, "Am I supposed to brush it out or leave it?" Why could I never remember" That feeling of "I'm pretty sure this next step is wrong, but I'm just gonna do it anyway" is part of the same set of instincts that makes me such a great cook. ~ Tina Fey

There's this thing. I can, like, do a cast of your cock and make a vibrator out of it. How cool's that? Cos then, right, then I can suck you off and have you fucking me at the same time, like there's two of you. I've gone all tingly."
Lindsay doesn't know what to say for a second so he just stares at Valentine with something he imagines must look like horror. "What the hell am I doing with you?"
"Broadening your horizons. Or something."
"I must be crazy."
"That's okay, that's why it works. We're both a bit warped. Together we make sort of one whole person. ~ Richard Rider

Answer me, Kat. Did you see him in Lyon?" "Yes. For a second. It was--" "Why didn't you tell me?" Hale moved toward her, and she was glad for the dark. "Everything was happening so fast and... it was just for a second!" There was an anger in Hale's eyes, but something more than that. A hurt went deepr than Kat had ever seen. "You should've told me." Nick laughed. "I don't think she reports to you." "You really don't get it, new guy." Hale shook his head and stepped away. "She doesn't report to anyone." When Hale turned and started for the opposite side of the deck, Kat was the only one who followed. "I kissed you!" Kat hadn't meant to yell it, but she wasn't exactly sorry she did. The words had been there, throbbing like a pulse for weeks. She felt lighter without them--one more thing she didn't have to carry. "In New York--in the limo-- I kissed you." Hale stopped. "I remember." "I kissed you and you left. So either I am not someone you want to be kissing..." "No." He shook his head slowly. "That's not it." "Or I am a really bad kisser." Kat couldn't stop herself from going through the reasons--through the options--like it was just another con and she could master it if only her mind would stop spinning. "Kat--" He reached for her, but her reflexes were too strong. She pulled away and looked at him. "I kissed you and you left. ~ Ally Carter

Many Christians live their lives as though Jesus finished His work in the first century. They seem to think that being a Christian is simply accepting the finished work of Christ, going to church every Sunday to express their worship, and waiting for His second coming. No, no, no. Jesus is working today, just as He did 2,000 years ago, to accomplish His cosmic mission... Some people can grasp the idea that Jesus goes to work every day, just like we do. Or conversely, and more correctly, we go to work every day, just like Jesus does. He told His disciples, "My father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17). He still is.

The central task of the universe today is extending the kingdom of God into every corner of human life, one follower at a time, one conversation at a time. That's what Jesus is concentrating on, and that's what we should be spending the best part of our time and energy doing. You may have assumed that the most important thing you could be doing with your life is selling carpet... raising kids... governing... discovering a cure for cancer... or pastoring the second-largest church in a small town. Those are all worthwhile endeavors, but each one of those tasks is only significant when it is a subtask of the grand objective: building the kingdom of God. ~ D. Michael Henderson

There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man
and I am in this category
can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her. ~ Orhan Pamuk

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do you say I am?" How would you answer this question? What evidence would you use to support your conclusion? What evidence for the reliability of the Gospels is most compelling to you? Why? If Jesus believed he was God and fulfilled the attributes of God, then what are three implications, first, for other religions and, second, for yourself? ~ Ravi Zacharias

Once, when I was a child, I dreamed that Grimbeard the Ghastly, on the deck of his ship The Endless Journey, threw the sword Endeavor up into the air. Up and up it spun, through the inky blackness, across the cavernous span of a hundred years, until, entirely of its own accord, my own left hand sprang out of space and stars and never-ending time and caught it. Now that I am so very old, I am dreaming once again. And in my dream, I am the one throwing the sword. It is spinning now, in the black starlit waters of my dream, right above your head, dear reader. A sword that may look second-best, and secondhand, but but carries the memories of a thousand lost fights, a history lesson in itself. Reach out, and catch it by the hilt. Swear by its name, Endeavor, to do your utmost to make the world a better place than when you arrived in it. For look! There will be dragons all around you, as camouflaged as a Stealth Dragon. ~ Cressida Cowell

The question has been raised, General Ia, as to whether or not you already know the outcome of this tribunal. Do you?" he asked her. "Is that why you're trying to avoid being here? To avoid being bored?"

"Sirs, I deal in percentages. There are eight possible outcomes to this tribunal which are greater than one percent in their probability, and fifty-two possible outcomes that are less than one percent, most being less than one-tenth of one percent. However small those minor possibilities are, I cannot rule them out as an outcome. I was shot in the shoulder with a handheld laser cannon on a less than three percent probability, which most people would consider to be a highly unlikely outcome. I was also elevated to the rank of a four-star General, never mind that I am now a five-star, on a less than one-hundred-thousandth of a percent, when the largest percentile, forty-seven percent, was that I should have been elevated only to the rank of Rear Admiral.

"As for being bored . . . I actually would prefer to be here because that means nobody would be attacking our colonies. But they are, and that means my preferences must take second place to my sense of duty. I will admit I have sat through this tribunal around eight or nine times in the timestreams, examining those eight largest percentiles," Ia added candidly. "This has left me very familiar with the majority of all evidence the prosecution will be presenting against me . . . but again, the outcome is nev ~ Jean Johnson

Fat Charlie blew his nose. "I never knew I had a brother," he said.
"I did," said Spider. "I always meant to look you up, but I got distracted. You know how it is."
"Not really."
"Things came up."
"What kind of things?"
"Things. They came up. That's what things do. They come up. I can't be expected to keep track of them all."
"Well, give me a f'rinstance."
Spider drank more wine. "Okay. The last time I decided that you and I should meet, I, well, I spent days planning it. Wanted it to go perfectly. I had to choose my wardrobe. Then I had to decide what I'd say to you when we met. I knew that the meeting of two brothers, well, it's the subject of epics, isn't it? I decided that the only way to treat it with the appropriate gravity would be to do it in verse. But what kind of verse? Am I going to rap it? Declaim it? I mean, I'm not going to greet you with a limerick. So. It had to be something dark, something powerful, rhythmic, epic. And then I had it. The perfect line: Blood calls to blood like sirens in the night. It says so much. I knew I'd be able to get everything in there - people dying in alleys, sweat and nightmares, the power of free spirits uncrushable. Everything was going to be there. And then I had to come up with a second line, and the whole thing completely fell apart. The best I could come up with was Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty got a fright."
Fat Charlie blinked. "Who exactly is Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty?"
"It's not any ~ Neil Gaiman

Tina was hosting. She's a thirty-five-year-old version of Sienne, only bottle blonde.Same blind-you lipstick, same taste in clothes,same complete disregard for anyone else's opinion on anything.
They hate each other.
"You hate me!" Sienna wailed.
It wasn't Tina's voice that snapped back, but Dad's, "Oh,no. I am not playing that game with you. Do you have any idea what a hundred pounds of filet is gonna cost me? And now you want lobster?"
"But it's my wedding! Daddy-"
"Don't you Daddy me, princess! I'm already five grand in the hole for the damned hotel,not to mention two for the dress, and every time I turn around, you and your mother have added a new guest, bridesmaid,or crustacean!"
First of all,Dad was yelling.Almost. Second,he was swearing.Even damn is fighting talk for him.I set down my pizza and debated the best route for a sealthy escape.
I'd seen the dress.Pretty, in a Disney-princess, twenty-yards-of-tulle, boobs-shaped-into-missiles sort of way. Sienne looked deliriously happy in it. She looked beautiful.The less said about the bridesmaids' dressed, I'd decided, on seeing the purple sateen,the better.
"No lobster!" he yelled.
There was a dramatic howl, followed by the bang of the back door. When I peeked out,it was like a photo. Everything was frozen.Dad was standing over the massive pasta pot, red-faced and scowling, wooden spoon brandished like a sword. Leo and Ricky had retreated to the doorway of the freezer. Nonna ha ~ Melissa Jensen

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. ~ Alexandra Petri

MERCUTIO: Thou art like one of those fellows that when
he enters the confines of a tavern claps me his sword
upon the table and says "God send me no need of
thee!" and by the operation of the second cup draws it
on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.
BENVOLIO: Am I like such a fellow?
MERCUTIO: Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy
mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved to be moody,
and as soon moody to be moved.
BENVOLIO: And what to?
MERCUTIO: Nay, an there were two such, we should
have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou!
why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair
more, or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast: thou
wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no
other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye
but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head
is as fun of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for
quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for
coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy
dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall
out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before
Easter? with another, for tying his new shoes with old
riband? and yet thou wilt tutor me from quarrelling!
BENVOLIO: An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any
man should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour
and ~ William Shakespeare

Yes, that dream ultimately failed, but I learned so much. Mostly tiny things, but it only takes a spark to light a fire. All those tiny things accumulated to make me who I am. If none of it had happened, I could have lived a far worse lie than I did. That's why, despite all the heartbreak, the failure and the secrets, if I was given the chance to go back in time and change things, I wouldn't. Not even a second. ~ Carrie Hope Fletcher

I'm so sorry, Henri," I whisper in his ear. I close my eyes. "I love you. I wouldn't have missed a second of it, either. Not for anything," I whisper. "I'm going to take you back yet. Somehow I am going to get you back to Lorien. We always joked about it but you were my father, the best father I could have ever asked for. I'll never forget you, not for a minute for as long as I live. I love you, Henri. I always did. ~ Pittacus Lore

What's the matter?" asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered fact.

"Why - why," said Elizabeth Ann, "I don't know what I am at all. If I'm second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?"

The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. "you aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You're just yourself, aren't you? What difference does it make what grade you're in! And what's the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don't know your multiplication table? ~ Dorothy Canfield

Here I am, a not over-good business man, a second-rate engineer. I can make poor mechanical drawings. I play the piano after a fashion. In fact, I am one of those proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who are usually failures. Why I am not, I can't tell you. ~ Charles M. Schwab

Sugar," Jake said, "I've wanted you since the first time you sassed me."

"I wanted to punch you in the nose."

He laughed and kissed her forehead. "My advertising skills left something to be desired."

"You rooked three unsuspecting women."

"I know." He kissed her lips, taking his time. "I'm offering you a chance for payback."

"And that payback is sex?" He smelled awesome, like a hot, sexy man who'd been in a kitchen trying to please her. Or maybe please himself. With Jake, you never knew.

He pulled her tighter against him, kissing her slowly, thoroughly. "I'd do my damnedest to make you a happy woman the second time I sold you something."

Sugar looked into Jake's eyes. He was too hot, too sexy, almost taking her breath away. "I think your gravy's burning."

"Nice try. I turned it off." He tugged her hips against him, kissing her as if he'd never tasted anything as good as her mouth. Sugar moaned and let Jake hike her up on his waist. "If I'm moving too fast, say so. I'll back off and feed you the best shrimp and steak dinner you've ever had. Just good friends breaking bread together."

Sugar gasped as Jake sank his teeth gently into her lower lip. Heat and warmth filled her, stealing her desire to tell him no about anything. "I'm not really that hungry."

His smile turned dangerous. "I am. ~ Tina Leonard

I feel anger and frustration when I think that one in ten Americans beyond the age of high school is on some kind of antidepressant, such as Prozac. Indeed, when you go through mood swings, you now have to justify why you are not on some medication. There may be a few good reasons to be on medication, in severely pathological cases, but my mood, my sadness, my bouts of anxiety, are a second source of intelligence--perhaps even the first source. I get mellow and lose physical energy when it rains, become more meditative, and tend to write more and more slowly then, with the raindrops hitting the window, what Verlaine called autumnal "sobs" (sanglots). Some days I enter poetic melancholic states, what the Portuguese call saudade or the Turks huzun (from the Arabic word for sadness). Other days I am more aggressive, have more energy--and will write less, walk more, do other things, argue with researchers, answer emails, draw graphs on blackboards. Should I be turned into a vegetable or a happy imbecile? ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

When my mother was alive, I was the daughter first and everything else second ... That's what made her death so painful. My mother was a big part of my life and a big reason why I did what I did. I've always derived a lot of energy from being a good daughter ... When she was gone, I suddenly thought, Why am I doing this? For whom? Losing my mom was really hard on me. I remember going to the Academy Awards shortly after she died and thinking, Well I'm all dressed up, and my mother won't see me. ~ Goldie Hawn

I am constantly mystified by what John ends up remembering… I just don't understand why he's able to hang on to information like that, while so many other more important memories evaporate.
Then again, I suppose so much of what stays with us is often insignificant. The memories we take to the ends of our lives have no real rhyme or reason, especially when you think of the endless things that you do over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. All the cups of coffee, hand-washings, changes of clothes, lunches, goings to the bathroom, headaches, naps, walks to school, trips to the grocery store, conversations about the weather - all the things so unimportant they should be immediately forgotten.
Yet they aren't. I often think of the Chinese red bathrobe I had when I was twenty-seven years old; the sound of our first cat Charlie's feet on the linoleum of our old house; the hot rarefied air around aluminum pot the moment before the kernels of popcorn burst open. I think of these things as often as I think about getting married or giving birth or the end of the Second World War.
What is truly amazing is that before you know it, sixty years go by and you can remember maybe eight or nine important events, along with a thousand meaningless ones. How can that be?
You want to think there's a pattern to it all because it makes you feel better, gives you some sense of a reason why we're here, but there really isn't any. People look for God in thes ~ Michael Zadoorian

On his deathbed, my grandpa told me three things to remember for after he died. First he said, "You can't own a cat. Ever." Second he told me, "Friendly boys make friendly friends." Finally he said, "You were adopted, just like your father before you, and his father before him." "So," I said, "you were adopted?" "Of course not!" he replied. "Your father's not my son, just like he's not your father." And to this day I am still confused. I have no idea why I can't own a cat. ~ Jarod Kintz

How?" I had seen it with my own eyes, but I still didn't believe it. Then something struck me. "Take off your shirt!"
"I'm not that kind of guy!" He frowned thoughtfully. "On second thought, why not?"
I blushed angrily and looked at Raquel. "What is he? I don't see anything!"
"He's not 'anything'.Just a talented boy."
"Then how did he make a door? How did he get through the Paths?"
"Wait,so am I allowed to put my shirt back on? Or did you want me to remove my pants,too?"
Lend and I joined forces in a dark glare. "Only if you want me to vomit," I snapped. ~ Kiersten White

Shane said, "Don't worry. I'll protect you."
Claire hit him in the shoulder. "I don't need you to protect me."
"Then why am I going first?"
"So you can take the first punch while I throw the second?"
"So I'm bait? Ouch. You've been in Morganville way too long, girl. ~ Rachel Caine

Although I am cursed by dreams, I still cannot stop myself sleeping. I drop into darkness every night and dream that Richard has come to me, laughing. He tells me that the battle went his way and we are to be married. He holds my hands as I protest that they came and told me that Henry had won, and he kisses me and calls me a fool, a little darling fool. I wake believing it to be true, and feel a sudden sick realization when I look at the walls of the second-best bedroom, and Cecily sharing my bed, and remember that my love lies dead and cold in an unmarked grave, while his country sweats in the heat. My ~ Philippa Gregory

You are the minute hand and I am the hour hand. The female said and continued, "You move that's why I move." "And what about the second hand?" The man queried. "That's our love for each other. We move because, and only if, it moves. ~ Novoneel Chakraborty

He Is Too Good To Be True!!

When I first meet you we were suppose to be friends
Who would of thought that I would love you in the end?
We talked and talked for months and months
Got to know each other in a way that no one would
I didn't want to give you my heart I was so scared that
You would tear it apart, but then I gradually let to commit the perfect crime
Cause you stole my heart with no intentions of giving it back
Now is the time for us to grow old together that is what you say
But I just cannot wait for that special day.
Every time that I'm with you I still get butterflies after all these months
You are so cute the way that you smile
Your eyes looking into mine makes me want to kiss you every time
The way that you hold me at night makes me feel like I am floating in the air
It all just feels so right to be next to every single second of the day
Your love lights up my life and when I am down it lights up the stars in the night.
I promise to love you in every way that I can and to be by your side in every way.
You just make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have you as a boyfriend and my best friend. From now until forever I will always love you ~ Angela Gutiérrez

You're kind of... distracting.

Am I?

Yes. In the best way. ~ Tia Giacalone

Everything seems simple and near. Then, all of a sudden, I cannot understand this simplicity. Again, I'm calm. In a second I grow fearful, because I am calm. I always used to be afraid, my whole life long; but now that there's a great deal to be afraid of, I have very little fear. Why is it? I cannot understand. ~ Maxim Gorky

That drawer was full of photographs of her. She showed me any number, old and recent.

"All dead," I told her.

She turned her head and glanced at me quickly:

"Dead?"

"Yes, for all they appear to be alive."

"Even this one with the smile?"

"Yes. And this pensive one: and the one with the eyes drooped."

"But how can they be dead, if I here am alive?"

"Ah, you, yes; because you do not see yourself now. But when you are in front of a mirror, the moment you look at yourself again, you are no longer alive."

"And why not?"

"Because, in order to behold yourself, you must for a moment halt life within you. Excuse me, but seeing that you go to the photographer's so often - when the photographer, in front of you with his camera, tells you to be sure not to move, you must have noticed - life is suspended in you - and you feel that such suspension cannot last more than a second - it is like turning into a statue - For life is constant motion, and one can never really see one's self."

"You mean to say that I, while living, have never seen myself?"

"Never; not as I can see you. But I see a likeness of you that is mine and mine alone; it is assuredly not yours. You, while living, have possibly been able to catch no more than a bare glimpse of your own in some snapshot or other that has been made of you; and it has come as an unpleasant surprise; it may even have p ~ Luigi Pirandello

Apart from such chaotic classics as these, my own taste in novel reading is one which I am prepared in a rather especial manner, not only to declare, but to defend. My taste is for the sensational novel, the detective story, the story about death, robbery and secret societies; a taste which I share in common with the bulk at least of the male population of this world. There was a time in my own melodramatic boyhood when I became quite fastidious in this respect. I would look at the first chapter of any new novel as a final test of its merits. If there was a murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I read the story. If there was no murdered man under the sofa in the first chapter, I dismissed the story as tea-table twaddle, which it often really was. But we all lose a little of that fine edge of austerity and idealism which sharpened our spiritual standard in our youth. I have come to compromise with the tea-table and to be less insistent about the sofa. As long as a corpse or two turns up in the second, the third, nay even the fourth or fifth chapter, I make allowance for human weakness, and I ask no more. But a novel without any death in it is still to me a novel without any life in it. I admit that the very best of the tea-table novels are great art - for instance, Emma or Northanger Abbey. Sheer elemental genius can make a work of art out of anything. Michelangelo might make a statue out of mud, and Jane Austen could make a novel out of tea - that much more contem ~ G.K. Chesterton

People move; this is normal and happens frequently, especially for a single 20-something. Sometimes you wonder why you self-imposed such a hard thing-but with any hope, you're happy with the change despite moments of second-guessing. I am definitely happy, and I don't wish I hadn't done it. ~ Sarah Protzman