Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love.

You’re going to have to go beyond yourself to keep him. That’s a tiring thing.

Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

Just because you don’t say much doesn’t mean people don’t notice you. It’s actually the quiet ones who often draw the most attention. There’s this constant whirlwind of motion and sound all around, and then there’s the quiet one, the eye of the storm.

Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.

The stupid thing about anger is how people hurt you and then you let them keep hurting you by being angry about how they originally hurt you. It’s a vicious cycle.

- - Susane Colasanti, So Much Closer - - 

The wicked thing is, that when we’re really upset, we always take it out on the people who are closest and whom we love the most.

- - Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice - -

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.

- - Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber - -

That was what I feared most: that he just wasn’t excited about us anymore—that something between us had altered irreversibly. And afterward, I started seeing the evidence everywhere: in the way he didn’t sleep facing me anymore, or the way he’d stopped asking me the questions he used to need to know the answers to, the way he stopped needing to tell me things in order for them to count.

 - - Laura Dave, London Is the Best City in America - 

“The thing about loving someone, is that yelling at them only feels good while you’re doing it — as soon as they’re gone, all you want to do is take it all back.”

- - Lauren Barnholdt, Getting Close - - 

That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.

- - F. Scott Fitzgerald - -

I was satisfied with haiku until I met you,

but now I want a Russian novel,

a 50-page description of you sleeping,

another 75 of what you think staring out

a window. 

 - - Dean Young, excerpt from “Changing Genres”  - - 

People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,” thought Francie, “something complicated and hard to get. Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains — a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue; for a man, a cigarette for contentment; a book to read when you’re alone — just to be with someone you love. Those things make happiness.

 - - Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - - 

Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.

 - - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth - - 

Grief, a type of sadness that most often occurs when you have lost someone you love, is a sneaky thing, because it can disappear for a long time, and then pop back up when you least expect it.

- - Lemony Snicket - - 

"It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace." by Chuck Palahniuk

"When things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again. It’s because a little piece gets lost — the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted to. The whole shape has changed." by John Green

"I think these difficult times have helped me understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes around worrying about are of no importance whatsoever." by Isak Dinesen

"I love you,” he whispered, and that was the moment he knew what he was going to do. When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces." by Jodi Picoult

"Missing someone isn’t about how long it’s been since you have last seen them or the amount of time it has been since you last talked. It’s about that very moment when you are doing something and you wish that they were right there with you."

"No; I did not hate him. The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings. I can say only that I knew the gnawing of a desire for vengeance on him that was a pain in itself and that exceeded all the bounds of language." by Jack London

"For a moment there, I saw an ounce of promise in you. But you weren’t strong enough to follow through on that. I just hope, for your sake, that you one day find it again. That you manage to brush away the rubble in your head and find a way to love, and be loved. It’s something you’ve been without for far too long."

I felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. I think you know it. I think everybody knows it now and then, but I think I have known it pretty often, too often.

I love it when you are with someone, and sitting there with them and they just grab your hand, and hold it. Slipping their fingers between yours and you are instantly aware that this is someone that cares about me. You don’t even have to speak words it is just known by the way they touch you.

I’ve lost so many people. Some I left on purpose and never looked back. Some were taken from me, and I never said goodbye.

"Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away."