“'Long ago,' he said, 'long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone. Now that thing is gone, that thing is gone. I cannot cry. I cannot care. That thing will come back no more.'”

Winter Dreams, F. Scott Fitzgerald Recommended by Suzanne.

“Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of, I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.”

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

“You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you.”

A Room With A View, E.M. Forster

“He felt his clumsiness, his stiffness, her greater dignity than his; perhaps he still felt her lips.”

The French Lieutenant's Woman, John Fowles

“...the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.”

The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank

“My disbelief. My fake redemption.
My twentieth century.
My holy war. My self indulgence.
My twentieth century.
My human flesh. My sad dependence.
My twentieth century.”

My 20th Century, Gavin Friday Recommended by Shay.

“Two roads diverged into a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

“A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.”

Mahatma Gandhi

“If flesh could crawl
My skin would fall
From off my bones
And run away from here.”

As Heaven Is Wide, Garbage Recommended by Ami.

“I only smile in the dark.”

Only Happy When It Rains, Garbage

“She's pretty, but in her face you can see all the things she's given up on in life.”

I Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere, Anna Gavalda

“a life / our life / always together, forever /
drawing strength from one another / two beds, two heads, one mind / locked in / locked up / creating / stories / inventing life / you and me / you are me / I want to find a part of me / that doesn't belong to you / a poisoned mind / this is our game / virgins on the dole / tried a little witchcraft / trying to be invisible / someone is driving you insane. / it's me / stares and signals / my perception. your reception. clashing / you are me / you and me / you are me / a passing breeze across the sky / dreaming / separated / burning inside / this is our war / this is our life / who will give in / you or me / a division within and between / separated / only one should lose / I was missing from the world / you gave my life back to me / this is our life / this is our game / we once were two / we two made one / we no more two / through life be one.”

Jennifer and June Gibbons

“I am immune from sanity or insanity – I am an empty present box all unwrapped for someone else's disposal. I am a throw away egg-shell with no life inside me - for I am not touchable but a slave to nothingness.”

Jennifer and June Gibbons

“bruises on her knees from praying to forget
she's heard stories of vietnam vets
who can still feel the tingling of their amputated limbs
she's wondering how many women are walking around this world
feeling the tingling of their amputated wings
remembering what it was to fly to sing”

Blue Blanket, Andrea Gibson

“Can you understand being alone so long
you would go out into the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the well
so you could feel something down there
tug at the other end of the rope?”

The Abandoned Valley, Jack Gilbert

“Who am I? Who are you? That is to say, 'Who are you really?' Do you know? Does anyone know? The restraints of this society make us put up so many walls of bullshit and facades to hide who we are that it is almost impossible to tell who anyone really is. We dig ourselves into a comfortable hole to hide away from the eyes of our peers, and it's in this hole that we bury ourselves. Dig yourselves out. Claw your way back into the light of day. Let your true self breathe, and in doing that, live.”

Half Life, Patrick Goins

“The awful truth began to dawn on Deborah that Carla had become her friend, that she liked Carla, and that the scarred befriending part of her still had the power to feel.”

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Joanne Greenberg Recommended by drenchedinwine.

“As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way. ”

Sickened, Julie Gregory Recommended by Shay.

“I start to see that I surround myself with broken people; more broken than me. Ah, yes, let me count your cracks. Let's see, one hundred, two... yes, you'll do nicely. A cracked companion makes me look more whole, gives me something outside myself to care for. When I'm with whole, healed people I feel my own cracks, the shatters, the insanities of dislocation in myself. ”

Sickened, Julie Gregory Recommended by Shay.

“In reality, loneliness was more like a slow and constant drowning. I simply disappeared. The hall and classroom swallowed me up, and I became invisible, my quiet flailing unnoticed. ”

Amandine, Adele Griffin Recommended by Shay.

“I spit, I spit in the eye, I tear, I tear out my heart, and I scatter the bits.
I stay unseen by the light, I stay untold by the truth
I'm sold by a lie
By this I am able in all of my travels to make these memories quit
But tonight I clearly recall every little bit.”

Every Little Bit, Patty Griffin

“And it is in the realm of the imagination that the greatest agonies are suffered; if I imagine myself guilty, even though I am not, I suffer as if I were. ”

Susan Griffin Recommended by Shay.

“I will just play dumb
I won't hear a single word that's said
I will bite my tongue
Never sing another song again.”

Rainy Day, Guster Recommended by Shay.

“Try wearing your inside's out
I don't even try, I know I have seen the best I'll have.”

Rainy Day, Guster

“Please bleed
So I know that you are real
So I know that you can feel
The damage that you've done
Who have I become
To myself I am numb, I am numb, I am numb.”

Please Bleed, Ben Harper Recommended by Kate.