Background Image

...

Starting Is Hard So I Really Need To Give Myself Permission To Do A Bad Job. I Always Give Myself Leave To Write Total Nonsense For As Long As I Need To Release The Pressure, Because It's Really Hard To Start If You Feel Like That First Sentence You Write Has To Actually Mean Something.

-Ann Brashares

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Starting Is Hard So

Ann Brashares

...

Starting Is Hard So I Really Need To Give Myself Permission To Do A Bad Job. I Always Give Myself Leave To Write Total Nonsense For As Long As I Need To Release The Pressure, Because It's Really Hard To Start If You Feel Like That First Sentence You Write Has To Actually Mean Something.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Ann Brashares

It Was Wrong. But It Was Worth It.

You Don't Have Time, Len. That Is The Most Bitter And The Most Beautiful Pieve Of Advice I Can Offer. If You Don't Have What You Want Now, You Don't Have What You Want. -pg276

He Could Lose Himself In Her Forever, He Thought.

There Are Two Kinds Of People In This World. The Kind Who Divide The World Into Two Kinds Of People And Those Who Don't.

I Love Her. I Need Her. I Gave Away Everything I Had For Her. I Just Wanted Her To Know Me.

She Got Tired Of Herself. She Got Tired Of Not Being Able To Say What She Wanted Or Do What She Wanted Or Even Want What She Wanted.

There Are Moments In Your Life When The Big Pieces Slide And Shift. Sometimes The Big Changes Dong Happen Gradually But All At Once. That's How It Was For Us. That Was The Day We Discovered That Friends Can Do Things For You That Your Parents Can't.

I Love The Idea Of Fictional Worlds Kind Of All Cohering In Some Way.

I Think Pants Have Unique Qualities, Especially In A Woman’s Life. Whatever Bodily Insecurities We Have, We Seem To Take Out On Our Pants.

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight--at Least As They Normally Experienced Them....some People Lost Their Individuality In The Water, But Riley Always Felt Most Herself. Water Was Supposed To Symbolize Renewal, She Knew, But When Riley Swam, Pared Down, Alone, And Unreachable--she Felt A Deeper Sense Of Who She Already Was.

No Matter How Far Back You Cut A Willow Tree, It Will Never Really Die.

Someday When You're Twenty, Maybe, I'll See You Again. You'll Be This Hot Soccer Star At Some Great School, With A Million Guys More Interesting Than I Am Chasing You Down. And You Know What? I'll See You And I'll Pray You Want Me Still.

For Some Reason Our Lives Were Marked By Summers. . . . Summer Was The Time When Our Lives Joined Completely, When We All Had Our Birthdays, When Really Important Things Happened

Pain Is Fear, And I'm Not Afraid.

Today Is The Tomorrow We Worried About Yesterday.

Let Me Love You, But Don't Love Me Back. Do Love Me And Let Me Hate You For A While. Let Me Feel Like I Have Some Control, Because I Know I Never Do.

Every Life I Start With Her, My Original Sin. I Know Myself Through Her.

Exactly! We Run Or We Lose Ourselves In Something, Somebody, Anything To Try And Ease Our Pain.

Gestating Characters Feels Something Like The Mental Equivalent Of Gestating A Baby. In Both Cases, To Create Them You Lose Yourself. Or At Least You Reshape Yourself To Encompass Them.

Losing Yourself

When I Turned Fifteen, I Remember My Father Gave Me A Credit Card Which I Was Allowed To Use For Two Things: Emergencies And Books.

Maybe They Would Look At Each Other And Feel Some Odd Yearning, But Neither Of Them Would Know Why. They Would Want To Stop, But They Would Be Embarrassed, And Neither Would Know What To Say. They Would Go Their Separate Ways. Who Knew? Maybe That Happened Every Day To People Who'd Once Loved Each Other.

Besides Being Asked Why I Write About Young Characters, I Am Often Asked How I Write About Young Characters. How Do I Throw Myself Across The Chasm Of Full Adulthood To Relive That Period? I Guess I Don’t, Really. Age Is Not So Much A Feature Of Your Character, As The Spot Where You Stand For A Pretty Fleeting Time On The Arc Of Your Life.

She Cared About Him Too Much, And He Was A Dangerous Person To Love. He Wouldn't Love Her Back.

To Write A Story, I Think You Really Have To Open Yourself Up To The World.

But There Were Times When You Felt Miserable And You Wanted To Feel Better, And Other Times When You Felt Miserable And You Figured You Would Just Keep On Feeling Miserable.

It Was Funny How The Old Practices Always Came Around Again. It Was The Rhythm Of Human Enterprise To Invent And Worship Some New Approach, To Fully Reject It A Generation Later, To Realize The Need For It Again A Generation Or Two After That And Then Hastily Reinvent It As New, Usually Without Its Original Elegance. Scientists Hated To Look Backward For Anything.

Bridget Cried For The Leavers And The Left. For The People, Like Herself, Grimly Forsaking What Precious Gifts They Would Ever Get.

You Get Older And You Learn There Is One Sentence Just Four Worlds Long And If You Can Say It To Yourself It Offers More Comfort Than Almost Any Other. It Goes Like This… Ready ” “ready.” “at Least I Tried.

Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

She Liked The Life She Had. She Loved Habits. She Craved A Day With Nothing In It, A Long, Quiet Stretch Of Hours In The Studio.

How Sad It Was, Carmen Thought, That You Acted Awful When You Were Desperately Sad And Hurt And Wanted To Be Loved. How Tragic Then, The Way Everyone Avoided You And Tiptoed Around You When You Really Needed Them. Carmen Knew This Vicious Predicament As Well As Anyone In The World. How Bitter It Felt When You Acted Badly To Everyone And Ended Up Hating Yourself The Most.

She Thought She Was Independent And Strong, But She Got One Small Taste Of Love And She Was Hungrier Than Anyone. She Was Ravenous.

The Path Of Your Life Can Change In An Instant.

Life Can Change In An Instant

Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Were A World-famous Heartthrob Or A Painful Geek. Maybe It Didn’t Matter If You Friend Was Possibly Dying. Maybe You Just Got Through It. Maybe That Was All You Could Ask For.

The Distinction Has Blurred Between Young Adult And Adult Books. Some Of The Teen Books Have Become More Sophisticated.

Try, Reach, Want, And You May Fall. But Even If You Do, You Might Be Okay Anyway. If You Don't Try, You Save Nothing, Because You Might As Well Be Dead.

The Ocean Was The Best Place, Of Course. That Was What She Loved Most. It Was A Feeling Of Freedom Like No Other, And Yet A Feeling Of Communion With All The Other Places And Creatures The Water Touched.

All My Life, Everybody Has Seen Me A Certain Way. What Do You See?

Some Things Have To Be Believed To Be Seen. -ralph Hodgson

Please Don't Judge Me Too Much Until You Are Older And Know More Things. (spoken From Mother To Daughter)

Sex Could Be A Blissful Communion,. But It Could Also Be A Weapon, And Its Absence, Sometimes, Was Required For The Establishment Of Peace.

Once Paul Told Her That The Beach Was Like Him Because It Changed Every Day But It Never Made Any Progress. Later She Remembered Thinking That A Normal Person Might Have Begun By Saying That He Was Like The Beach.

His Distress And Pleasure Mixed And Married, Giving Birth To Several Anxious Children.

Someday Was The Thing He Had, Because It Was A Lot Harder To Ruin Than Today.

I Want To Go Where You're Going. I'm Not Scared Of Dying. I Want To Stay Together And Come Back Together. You Said That Souls Cohere. I Want To Stay With You.

My Household Is, In A Nice Way, Very Busy.

She Knew That When She Got Old It Would Be More Fun To Look Back On A Life Of Romance And Adventure Than A Life Of Quiet Habits. But Looking Back Was Easy. It Was The Doing That Was Painful. There Were Plenty Of Things She Would Like To Look Back On But Wasn't Willing To Risk.

She Wondered Again About Her Inclination To Wish For Things That Made Her So Deeply Unhappy.

When She Is Happy, She Can't Stop Talking, When She Is Sad She Doesn't Say A Word.

I Agree That A Love Of Reading Is A Great Gift For A Parent To Pass On To His Or Her Child.

I Sometimes Think The Stronger You Feel About Someone, The Harder It Is To Picture Their Face When You Are Away From Them.

The Present No Matter What I Brought Couldn’t Change The Past. The Past Was Set And Sealed.

She Was Astonished, And At The Same Time She Knew. There Were Many Things In Life Like That. You Couldn’t Imagine It, And Then It Happened And You Couldn’t Really Imagine It Hadn’t.

You Surround Yourself With Your Pain Or You Avoid It And Let It Find You When You Are Trying To Do Other Things

Surround Yourself

I'm Afraid Of Time... I Mean, I'm Afraid Of Not Having Enough Time. Not Enough Time To Understand People, How They Really Are, Or To Be Understood Myself. I'm Afraid Of The Quick Judgements Or Mistakes Everybody Makes. You Can't Fix Them Without Time. I'm Afraid Of Seeing Snapshots, Not Movies.

He Had To Fight. That's All He Had. Not Memories, Not Experiences, Not Skills. He Had A Will. And His Will Was To Fight Until He Couldn't Fight Anymore.

She Perched On Her Windowsill, Gazing At The Lurid Sun Soaking Into The Caldera, Trying To Appreciate It Even Though She Couldn’t Have It. Why Did She Always Feel She Had To Do Something In The Face Of Beauty?

He'd Pushed Her. He'd Scared Her. He'd Besieged Her. He'd Vowed He Wouldn't, And He Did.

Everyone Is Fragile. Everything Beautiful Is Fragile

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times

You Should Find Him Because He Loves You.

I Did Love Her. I've Loved Her From The First Time I Saw Her.

Sometimes It Is A Relief To Be Invisible

Maybe Happiness Was Just A Matter Of The Little Upticks- The Traffic Signal That Said "walk" The Second You Go There- And Downticks- The Itch Tag At The Back Of Your Collar- That Happened To Every Person In The Course Of The Day. Maybe Everybody Had The Same Allotted Measure Of Happiness Within Each Day.

Tibby's Wish Would Be To Hold On To The Idea Of Love Even In The Face Of Darkest Doubt. Because That Was The Way In Which She Failed. Not Once, But Again And Again.

What Happened To Me By Myself Felt Partly Dreamed, Partly Imagined, Definitely Shifted And Warped By My Own Fears And Wants. But Who Knows? Maybe There Is More Truth In How You Feel Than In What Actually Happens.

She Had Willed Her Heart To Stay Small And Contained, But It Wouldn’t Be. Oh, Well.

Grief Was Like A Newborn, And The First Three Months Were Hard As Hell, But By Six Months You'd Recognized Defeat, Shifted Your Life Around, And Made Room For It.

There Was One Thing Bridget Like About Guys. They Took Insults Well.

It’s More That I’m Afraid Of Time. And Not Having Enough Of It. Time To Figure Out Who I’m Supposed To Be… To Find My Place In The World Before I Have To Leave It. I’m Afraid Of What I’ll Miss.

She Thought She Would Know When It Happened. But Now, As She Looked Around, She Wondered If It Was Really Like That At All. Maybe It Happened In A Million Different Ways, When You Were Thinking Of It And You Weren't. Maybe There Was No Gap, No Jump, No Chasm. You Didn't Forget Yourself All At Once. Maybe You Just Looked Around One Time Or Another And You Thought, Hey. And There You Were.

He Wanted To Take His Love Back From Her So Badly. The Old Techniques Didn’t Work Anymore. In Fact, They’d Never Worked. How Do You Stop Loving Someone? It Was One Of The World’s More Brutal Mysteries. The More You Tried, The Less It Worked.

So Far, She’d Been Her Usual Lame Self: Solitary And Routine-loving, Carefully Avoiding Any Path That Might Lead To Spontaneous Human Interaction. Lena Kaligaris

The Bottom Had Arrived. She Crashed Against It, But It Brought No Sense Of Closure Or Understanding. She Just Lay There At The Bottom Looking Up. She Knew There Must Be A Very Tiny Circle Of Light Up There Somewhere, But Just Now She Couldn’t See It.

It Was Their Mothers, Long Ago. Tibby Noted With Joy That All Four Of Them Were Wearing Jeans.

The Word Friends Doesn't Seem To Stretch Big Enough To Describe How We Feel About Each Other. We Forget Where One Of Us Starts And The Other One Stops.

She Felt Like Parts Of Her Soul Were Missing, Had Left Her Body Long Ago. It Had Happened Not In Greece Three Months Ago, But Long Before That. It Was In Greece That She'd Realized Those Parts Had Left Her And Were Not Coming Back.

Relief Is A Short-lived Emotion, Passive And Thin. The Agony Of Doubt Disappears, Leaving Little Memory Of How It Really Felt. Life Aligns Behind The New Truth.

Time Is What Keeps Things From Happening All At Once.

It's So Much Easier To Have No Expectations Than To Have Big Ones.

He Took Her In His Arms Right Away. "i'm So Sorry," He Murmured In Her Ear. He Rocked Her, Saying It Over And Over. But No Matter How Many Times He Said It, No Matter How Much She Knew He Meant It, The Words Stirred Around In Her Ear But Didn't Get Into Her Brain. Sometimes He Could Comfort Her. Sometimes He Said What She Needed, But Today He Couldn't Reach Her. Nothing Could.

She Was Still Waiting For Him To Come Back To Her, Even Though He Wasn't Going To. She Was Still Holding Out For Something That Wasn't Going To Happen. She Was Good At Waiting. That Seemed Like A Sad Thing To Be Good At.

As The Three Of Them Walked Home From The Trees, Nobody Needed To Say It, But Ama Knew. They Had Questioned Their Friendship. They Had Searched And Wondered, Looking For A Sign. And All Along They'd Had Their Trees. You Couldn't Wear Them. You Couldn't Pass Them Around. They Offered No Fashion Advantage. But They Had Roots. They Lived.

He Didn't Seem To Realize That Three Excuses Was As Good As No Excuse.

Why Does He Have To Be My Boyfriend? Are You Inferior If You Don't Have A Boyfriend? Why Does Everybody Have To Be In Love With Somebody?

They Were Here All At Once, But Not Together. Survival Took Self-absorption, And It Made Them Strangers With Nothing To Do And No Way To Relate. Emergencies Gave You A Shape And A Plot To Take Part In, While Death Was No Story At All. It Left You Nothing.

I Like That You Let Yourself Be Surprised

Please Believe Him. Keep Your Heart Open To Him. He Can Make You Happy. He Has Always Loved You, And You Once Loved Him With All Your Heart.

He Just Wanted To Look At Her And Know Her Life Was Marching Along Under The Same Arch Of Time And Space As He Is.

Carmen Sat Up When She Heard A Familiar Trill From Her Computer. It Was An Instant Message From Bee. Beezy3: Packing. Do You Have My Purple Sock With The Heart On The Ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I'd Wear Your Socks. Carmen Looked From Her Computer Screen Down To Her Feet. To Her Dismay, Her Socks Were Two Faintly Different Shades Of Purple. She Rotated Her Foot To Get A View Of Her Anklebone. Carmabelle: Ahem. Might Possibly Have Sock.

She Was Alive, And They Were Dead. She Had To Try To Make Her Life Big. As Big As She Could. She Promised Bailey She Would Keep Playing.

All I Could Think To Do Was Love Her. That's All A Person Can Do.

She Couldn’t Hide From Everyone For The Rest Of Her Life… Well She Could. That Was The Direction Things Were Going. But She Knew From Long-ago Experience That When You Were Uncertain And If You Were Courageous Enough To Let Her In A Real Friend Could Do A World Of Good.

You Know What The Secret Is? It's So Simple. We Love One Another. We're Nice To One Another. Do You Know How Rare That Is? - Carmen

If You Ever Meet A Guy And You Fall In Love With Him, But Because Of Some Weird Genetic Mutation He Doesn't Seem To Return The Feeling?... Wear That Dress.

Falling In Love

Do You Have Any Idea How Much I've Loved You?

I'm Not Going Anywhere Without You. We're Swimming To China Together. And If The Worst Happens, I'm Dying With You Before I'm Living Without You.

There Are Going To Be Moments Of Deep, Deep Doubts, And You Have To Have Faith That Your Initial Idea Was Good And Just Muddle Through.

Tibby Sat On The Outside Of A Group Of Kids In The Film Program. There Was A Lot Of Dark Clothing And Heavy Footwear, And Quite A Few Piercings Glinting In Sunlight. They Had Invited Her To Sit With Them While They All Finished Up Their Lunches Before Film Seminar. Tibby Knew That They Had Invited Her Largely Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose. This Bugged Her Almost As Much As When People Excluded Her Because She Had A Ring In Her Nose.

A Loving Soul Was Always More Beautiful Over The Long Haul, But Actual Prettiness Was Fleeting.

I Dont Really Write With The Idea Of Trying To Teach Any Lessons. I Want To Tell A Story As Truthfully And Engagingly As I Can, And Then Let The Chips Fall Where They May.

Love Is Like War; Easy To Begin, Hard To End.

I Knew Her Hair And Her Coloring And Her Shapes Would Be Different Next Time, But The Way She Wore Her Body Would Keep On.

Luck Never Gives; It Lends.

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight—at Least As The Normally Experienced Them.

Marnie Loved Her Better And More Honestly Than Anyone Else In The World, With The Possible Exception Of Her Mother, Who Loved Her Intensely If Not Honestly.

She Never Showed Girly Weaknesses Like Cellulite Or Crushes. She Never Lingered On Injustices Committed Against Her.

Maybe, Sometimes, It's Easier To Be Mad At The People You Trust Because You Know They'll Always Love You, No Matter What.

She Wasn’t Sure If He Wanted More From Her Or If He Wanted Less. Maybe It Was Both. Maybe It Was Always Both.

All The Things She Planned To Feel, The Way She Planned To Look And Seem, The Appropriate Things She Planned To Say. None Of Them Came To Pass.

At The Worst Possible Moment, The Most Painful, Darkest Moment When You Can't Take It Anymore And You Are Afraid, That Is When A Feeling Of Peace And Comfort Will Come Over You, And It's Like Nothing You've Ever Felt.

I Was Supposed To Write A Romantic Comedy, But My Characters Broke Up.

She Hadn't Chosen The Brave Life. She'd Chosen The Small, Fearful One.

Hey," He Said. "it's Someday." He Said The Last Word In Greek.

Don't Talk To Me. I'm Tired And Grumpy And I'll Probably Make Fun Of You.

Sometimes You Couldn’t Face The Sadness Of Being Forgotten Until You Felt The Comfort Of Being Remembered Again.

But Then She Hadn’t Just Learned To Love This Summer – She Had Also Learned How To Need.

I Love You, I'll Never Stop.

Carmen Was Bad At Loving. She Loved Too Hard.

It Was Like A Dream You Might Have After Death In Which Lost People Came Back To Life, Your Friends Loved You Again No Matter What You Had Done, And Your Failures Were Unaccountably Forgiven.

He Was The Strangest Of Strangers In That He Was Also Her Oldest Friend.

She Realized All At Once The Deeper Thing That Bothered Her, The Thing That Made Him Not Just Irritating But Intolerable: How He Kept Loving Her Blindly When She Deserved It So Little.

Her Vision Of The World Under The Water Represented A Beautiful Stillness, A Version Of Heaven. It Was The Lost City Of Lena, Her Alternate Universe, The Life She Yearned For But Didn't Get To Have.

How Many Times Could You Give Up On Someone You Loved?

You Forget Your Victories, But You Remember The Losses.

You Thought You Had The Choice To Stay Still Or Move Forward, But Your Didn't. As Long As Your Heart Kept Pumping An Your Blood Kept Blowing And Your Lungs Kept Filling, You Didn't. The Pang She Felt For Tibby Carried Something Like Envy. You Couldn't Stand Still For Anything Short Of Death, And God Knew She Had Tried.

She Spilled Rice On My Knee, And She Smiled. I Wanted Her To Spill A Thousand Things On Me, Lava, Acid, Bricks, Anything, And Smile Each Time

Some People Fall In Love Over And Over Again While Some People Can Only Do It Once.

Falling In Love

Lena Was An Introvert. She Knew She Had Trouble Connecting With People. She Always Felt Like Her Looks Were Fake Bait, Seeming To Offer A Bridge To People, Which She Couldn't Easily Cross.

I Did The Searching And Remembering, She Did The Disappearing And The Forgetting.

Looking Back, It Was The Thing In His Life That Shamed Him The Most: The Times He Was Purposefully, Calculatingly Mean To Alice. It Was Those Moments, And There Had Been Many Of Them, That Indicated To Him That He Was Not A Good Person. He Got Mad At Her For Many Things, But It Was Always Really For The Same Thing: That She Possessed His Love And He Couldn't Seem To Get It Back. She Didn't Deserve It, Which Was To Say She Deserved Better

If You Didn't Have A Choice, You Had To Make A Choice. If You Didn't Have Options, You Made Some. You Couldn't Just Let This World Happen To You... He Didn't See Eternity. He Saw This Girl And This Moment And This One Slim Chance.

When You Remembered To Forget, You Were Remembering. It Was When You Forgot To Forget That You Forgot.

He Tricked Himself Into Thinking That She Would Look Into His Eyes And Remember, That Love Would Conquer All.

There Was Nothing New In Sitting On This Dock, On This Or That Wooden Bench, Watching For His Boat To Come. In Some Ways, She Was Always Waiting For Him.

I Don't Have The Life Of A Famous Person. But I Do Feel Like I've Been Able To Connect With A Lot Of People.

She Existed In Her Friends; There She Was. All The Parts Of Herself She'd Forgotten. She Knew Herself Best When She Was With Them.

It Was Frustrating When People Loved You And Took An Interest In You And Sometimes Worried About You And Personally Cared What You Did With Yourself. Lena Wished That Love Were Something You Could Flip On And Off. You Could Turn It On When You Felt Good Bout Yourself And Worthy Of It And Generous Enough To Return It. You Could Clip It Off When You Needed To Hide Or Self-destruct And Had Nothing At All To Give." (lena, 194)

She Got Under The Covers And Put Her Arms Around The Bag. She Could Smell Tibby. It Used To Be She Couldn't Smell Tibby's Smell In The Way You Couldn't Smell Your Own; It Was Too Familiar. But Tonight She Could. This Was Some Living Part Of Tibby Still Here And She Held On To It. There Was More Of Tibby With Her Here And Now Than In What She Had Seen In The Cold Basement Room That Day.

Carmen Didn't Like Change, And She Certainly Didn't Like Endings.

But Will He Come I Just Want To Know What You Think The Odds Are. Tell Me What You Really Think." "i Think Tibby Was A Wise Girl. I Think She Loved You.

She Had Never Had A Boy Talk To Her Like That. There Was No Cover Of Bullshit, No Flirtation, No Added Charm, But His Look Was Searing. He Was Different From Anyone She Had Known.

You Carry Your Past With You Even If You Don't Remember Any Of It.

The Weather Turned. Her Skin Seemed To Grow A Million Extra Pores, And All Of Them Opened To Take In The Warmth And Tenderness Of The Air. The Sun On Her Face Made Her Want To Cry. Into All Those Millions Of Open Pores Came The Sunshine, And Other Feelings As Well. In And Out. She Was Porous.

Show Me A Girl With Her Feet Planted Firmly On The Ground And I'll Show You A Girl Who Can't Put Her Pants On. -annik Marchand

I Always Interpret Coincidences As Little Clues To Our Destiny

She Wanted Him To See All Of Her And Also None Of Her. She Wanted Him To Be Dazzled By The Bits And Blinded By The Whole. She Wanted Him To See Her Whole And Not In Pieces. She Had Hopes That Were Hard To Satisfy.

Everything I Ever Said To You Was True And Is True.

Love Demands Everything, They Say, But My Love Demands Only This: That No Matter What Happens Or How Long It Takes, You`ll Keep Faith In Me, You`ll Remember Who We Are, And You`ll Never Feel Despair.

She Was Sad About What Happened To Kostos. And Someplace Under That, She Was Sad That People Like Bee And Kostos, Who Had Lost Everything, Were Still Open To Love, And She, Who'd Lost Nothing, Was Not.

Lost Everything

You Are Not Going To Die, I Know I Said I'd Let You, But I Can't.

There Were Certain Qualities You Possessed Carelessly. And You Couldn't Retrieve Them When They Were Gone. The Very Act Of Caring Made Them Impossible To Regain.

Something About Giving In Without A Fight Felt Wrong.

She Loved Her Mother And Depended On Her Mother, And Yet Every Single Word Her Mother Said Annoyed Her.

She Had To Have Faith Not Just In Trying But In Failing. Was She Strong Enough To Fail Was She Strong Enough Not To

There Was A Moment In Between, A Moment Flung Free In The Midst Of The Transition, When He Made Contact. That Was The Moment She Would Dwell On.

She Wanted Him To Notice Her So Much.

She Was Supposed To Be Putting Her Life Together Right Now, And All She Could Seem To Do Was Throw Grenades At It.

How Terrible Would It Be To Just Wait There Pathetically Alone For Him Never To Show Up?" Eudoxia's Expression Grew More Serious. "that's What You're Doing Anyway, My Dear.

What You Leave Behind Is The People You Loved. You Leave Yourself In Them.

But Certain Souls Cohere. It's Rare But Possible. But It Takes Two Powerful Wills To Make It So.

You Just Have To Let People Love You In The Way They Can

Parents Were The Only Ones Obligated To Love You; From The Rest Of The World You Had To Earn It.

You Could Feel Things Or You Could Find A Way To Shut Down. But Once You Were Feeling Things, You Couldn’t Decide Exactly What To Feel. That Was The Trouble With Letting Them In At All. They Made A Mess Of The Place.

Can You Make Yourself Love? Can You Make Yourself Loved? -lena Kaligaris

He's Had A Lot Of Chances To Care, And He Hasn't.

You Have Been With Me From The Very First Life. You Are My First Memory Every Time, The Single Thread In All Of My Lives. It`s You Who Makes Me A Person.

It's Always Nervewracking To Put Yourself Out There. But It's The Root Of Joy.

Putting Yourself Out There

She Used To Cry Roughly Three Times A Year. Now She Seemed To Cry Three Times Before Breakfast. Could That Be Considered Progress?

I Killed Her Once And Died For Her Many Times And I Still Have Nothing To Show For It. I Always Search For Her ; I Always Remember Her. I Carry The Hope That Someday She Will Remember Me.

But It Was Smell That Carried Memory.

You'll Turn Out Ordinary If You're Not Careful.

It Was A Blessing And Also A Curse Of Handwritten Letters That Unlike Email You Couldn’t Obsessively Reread What You’d Written After You’d Sent It. You Couldn’t Attempt To Un-send It. Once You’d Sent It It Was Gone. It Was An Object That No Longer Belonged To You But Belonged To Your Recipient To Do With What He Would. You Tended To Remember The Feeling Of What You’d Said More Than The Words. You Gave To Object Away And Left Yourself With The Memory. That Was What It Was To Give.

What Can I Say? I'm Obsessed. And As We All Know Obsessed Girls Can't Be Held Responsible For Our Actions.

Blood May Be Thicker Than Water, But Friendship Is Thicker Than Both.

She'd Loved Him As Much As He'd Let Her. More Than He'd Let Her.

Marnie Hated To See Her Spend So Much Of Herself On Someone Who Didn't Care.

This Body Is Breaking Down, But I Am Not.

She Closed Her Eyes. "i Didn't Know That. I Didn't Know Anything. It Scares Me The Things I Told Myself. But I Would Have Told Myself Almost Anything, Because I Wanted To Believe Him." "why?" "because I Wanted To Be With You.

She Knew Whose Love She Doubted. It Wasn't Her Parents' And It Wasn't Her Friends: It Was Her Own.

Their Friendship Was Only One Aspect Of Their Lives But It Seemed To Give Meaning To All The Others.

Don't Ask Me Any Questions Right Now. I'm Grumpy And I'll Probablly Make Fun Of You. -effie Kaligaris

Love Didn't Necessarily Look The Way You Expected It To.

She Glared At Him, Feeling The Old Frustration. Sometimes In His Presence She Felt The Deepest Connection To Him, And Other Times She Felt Completely Alone-as Though Any Bond To Him Was Her Own Bitter Imagination.

She'd Cried Over A Broken Heart Before. She Knew What That Felt Like, And It Didn't Feel Like This. Her Heart Felt Not So Much Broken As Just ... Empty. It Felt Like She Was An Outline Empty In The Middle. The Outline Cried Senselessly For The Absent Middle. The Past Cried For The Present That Was Nothing.

It Wasn't Just That Lucy Wanted To Help Him. She Wasn't As Selfless As That. She Was Madly Attracted To Him. She Was Attracted To All Of The Normal Things And The Weird Things, Too, Like The Back Of His Neck And His Thumbs On The Edge Of His Desk And The Way His Hair Stuck Out On One Side Like A Little Wing Over His Ear. She Caught His Smell Once, And It Made Her Dizzy. She Couldn't Fall Asleep That Night.

But Like Everything Else, Love Changed.

Tibby Cried Into Her Soup When It Finally Came. "i'm Scared... ," She Told It. The Carrots And Peas Made No Reply, But She Felt Better For Having Told Them.

Women Always Seemed To Bring The Size They Wished They Were To The Fitting Room, Rather Than The Size That Would Actually Fit.

I Love That Blurry Place Where Life’s Transitions Are Made Without You Even Knowing It.

You Hold On To Old Experiences: Injuries, Injustices, And Great Love Affairs, Too. And You Hold Them In Your Joints And Your Organs, And Wear Them On Your Skin.

Sometimes He Felt Sure That The Key To Happiness Was A Poor Memory.

You Remember What Is Lost, And You Forget What's Right In Front Of You.

What Daniel Taketh Away, Daniel Giveth.

Particularly Beautiful People Were Like Particularly Funny-looking People, Though. Once You Know Them You Mostly Forgot About It.

Beautiful People

Knowing Where She Was In The World, Even If He Never Touched Her, Gave Him A Deep Satisfaction, And He Half Despised Himself For Being Satisfied With So Little.

The Rules Took A While To Sort Out. Lena And Carmen Wanted To Focus On Friendship-type Rules, Stuff About Keeping In Touch With One Another Over The Summer, And Making Sure The Pants Kept Moving From One Girl To The Next. Tibby Preferred To Focus On Random Things You Could And Couldn't Do In The Pants --- Like Picking Your Nose.

Bridget's Anger Evaporated And The Sadness Came Back. The Anger Was Easier. She Owned And Contolled It, Whereas The Sadness Owned Her.

Different People Were Good At Different Things, Lena Mused. Lena Was Good At Writing Thank-you Notes, For Instance, And Effie Was Good At Being Happy.

Honesty Was A Tough Customer... Once You Started Allowing Yourself Some Honesty, It Couldn't Easily Be Contained Or Limited To One Part Of Your Life. It Was Like Poison Ivy Or A Bossy Houseguest. Once It Was There, You Couldn't Tell It What To Do. You Had To Really Fight To Keep It From Taking Over.

Trending Author

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Category