Did you really leave me again? After all the seasons I spent waiting, watching out the window, listening at the door, waiting for the news of your return? for the news that you realized that someone important was waiting for you. A whole lifetime I've been waiting. I can't believe you're not coming back. I can't believe I'm supposed to stop waiting. I can't believe you left me again...

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Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is watching.

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Draw a crazy picture,Write a nutty poem,Sing a mumble-gumble song,Whistle through your comb.Do a loony-goony dance'Cross the kitchen floor,Put something silly in the worldThat ain't been there before.

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What though the radiance which was once so bright Be not forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; Grief not, rather find, Strength in what remains behind, In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be, In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of Human suffering, In the faith that looks through death In years that bring philophic mind.

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Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.

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My skin is kind of sort of brownish Pinkish yellowish white. My eyes are greyish blueish green, But I'm told they look orange in the night. My hair is reddish blondish brown, But it's silver when it's wet. And all the colors I am inside Have not been invented yet.

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Take this kiss upon the brow And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow--You are not wrong who deemThat my days have been a dreamYet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less goneAll that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.

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For Africa to me is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

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Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas,

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Let four captains Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage, For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most royally.

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Peaceableness toward enemies is an idea that will, of course, continue to be denounced as impractical. It has been too little tried by individuals, much less by nations. It will not readily or easily serve those who are greedy for power. It cannot be effectively used for bad ends. It could not be used as the basis of an empire. It does not afford opportunities for profit. It involves danger to practitioners. It requires sacrifice. And yet it seems to me that it is practical, for it offers the only escape from the logic of retribution. It is the only way by which we can cease to look to war for peace. ... Peaceableness is not passive. It is the ability to act to resolve conflict without violence. If it is not a practical and practicable method, it is nothing. As a practicable method, it reduces helplessness in the face of conflict. In the face of conflict, the peaceable person may find several solutions, the violent person only one.

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Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish fill the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

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Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.

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Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

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What though the radiance which was once so bright Be not forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower Strength in what remains behind, In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be, In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of Human suffering, In the faith that looks through death In years that bring philophic mind.

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There is a silence where hath been no sound There is a silence where no sound may be In the cold grave, under the deep deep sea

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The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

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....Then he felt quite ashamed, and hid his head under his wing; for he did not know what to do, he was so happy, and yet not at all proud. He had been persecuted and despised for his ugliness, and now he heard them say he was the most beautiful of all the birds. Even the elder-tree bent down its bows into the water before him, and the sun shone warm and bright. He would never became vain or conceited, and would always remembered how it felt to be despised and teased, and he was very sorry for all the creatures who are so treated merely because they are different from those around them. Then he rustled his feathers, curved his slender neck, and cried joyfully, from the depths of his heart,

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Four years and thirty, told this very week,Have I been now a sojourner on earth,And yet the morning gladness is not goneWhich then was in my mind.

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My husband is exceedingly busy. For some time the talk of his going had been slack, but just now again there seems to be a move to get him sent to the front!

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I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

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Had we never lov'd sae kindly, Had we never lov'd sae blindly, Never met -- or never parted -- we had never been broken-hearted.

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Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence.... When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

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The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

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Under the general name of Commodity, I rank all those advantages which our senses owe to nature. This, of course, is a benefit which is temporary and mediate, not ultimate, like its service to the soul. Yet although low, it is perfect in its kind, and is the only use of nature which all men apprehend. The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? this zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.

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I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a l...

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My pipe is out, my glass is dry; My fire is almost ashes too; But once again, before you go, And I prepare to meet the New; Old Year! a parting word that's true, For we've been comrades, you and I-- I thank God for each day of you; There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

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No civilized society can thrive upon victims, whose humanity has been permanently mutilated.

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Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. Wouldn't you say, she asked, that killings like this are influenced by violent movies? No, I said, I wouldn't say that. But what about 'Basketball Diaries'? She asked. Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun? The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office, and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. Events like this, I said, if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; These two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory.

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Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

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