Quote #2500 from Sexus by Henry Miller
Fri, 2010-03-05 08:24 — GabrielleTo be joyous is to be a madman in a world of sad ghosts.
Quote #2494 from The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Fri, 2010-03-05 07:29 — GabrielleThe photo has been cut; a third of it has been cut off. In the lower left corner there's a hand, scissored off at the wrist, resting on the grass. It's the hand of the other one, the one who is always in the picture whether seen or not. The hand that will set things down.
How could I have been so ignorant? she thinks. So stupid, so unseeing, so given over to carelessness. But without such ignorance, such carelessness, how could we live? If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next--if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions--you'd be doomed. You'd be as ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.
Drowned now--the tree as well, the sky, the wind, the clouds. All she has left is the picture. Also the story of it. Read more »
Quote #2269 from The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
Thu, 2009-06-11 19:20 — GabrielleI was happy but happy is an adult word. You don't have to ask a child about happy, you see it. They are or they are not. Adults talk about being happy because largely they are not. Talking about it is the same as trying to catch the wind. Much easier to let it blow all over you. This is where I disagree with the philosophers. They talk about passionate things but there is no passion in them. Never talk happiness with a philosopher.
Quote #2238 from Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Fri, 2009-04-24 08:55 — GabrielleIt's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
Quote #1910 from The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleIt's like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means that you're happy too.
Quote #1839 from Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleHannah was about ready to burst with excitement, which would have been disgusting because she would have sprayed blood, guts, and glitter in every direction. She was an innocent, a freshman, one of the sad believers who thought high school was where they would be popular and smart and happy - above all happy.
Quote #1800 from Dispatches From The Edge by Anderson Cooper
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleIt's impossible to maintain, impossible to sustain. You can't stay like this forever. blissed out. Bugged out. High, but not stoned. I'm in this moment. This second. nowhere else. the work is done. On the highway a few red embers glow on the horizon. I press down on the gas pedal and imagine myself dissolving into the dark, exploding like molecules transmitted through the air, floating forever in silent space -- surrounded by potential, never having to slow down, never having to land.
Quote #1748 from A Happy Death by Albert Camus
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleI'm sorry, Zagreus, but it's been a long time since I talked about certain things. So I don't know any more---or I'm not sure. When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears. Like that sky. It's rain and sun both, noon and midnight. You know, Zagreus, I think of the lips I've kissed, and the wretched child I was, and of the madness of life and the ambition that sometimes carries me away. I'm all these things at once. I'm sure there are times you wouldn't even recognize me. Extreme in misery, excessive in happiness---I can't say it.
Quote #1698 from This Boy's Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleKnowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.
Quote #1455 from Not Inside My Head by Liveonrelease
Thu, 2009-03-19 14:30 — GabrielleI don't care about happiness if it makes you feel alright
Close your eyes and bite your tongue
And you'll get through the night.