"I used to call people, then I got into e-mailing, then texting, and now I just ignore everyone." written by The New Yorker

"I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few."

"Sometimes, when you’re sad you don’t know what to do, it helps to be angry. But then the tears come back again all the same, and you fall asleep with the salty taste of them on your lips." written by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

"She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface." written by Diane Chamberlain, The Lost Daughter

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst, and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid, little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry. You will. Some day." written by Lester Burnham, American Beauty

"Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward―that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have." written by Kevin Brockmeier, The View from the Seventh Layer

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."