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1e3bfd0 "Blame your body. The whole biological purpose of existence is to mate, so from the time we hit puberty, our hormones are demanding us to couple up. Maybe it's basic instinct to feel inadequate if you're single." "That's what sucks. There's so many more interesting things than guys, but guys are what we spend most of our time talking about." "I think that's just the way it is, though. No matter what we do, it's always more special if there's a boyfriend to share it with." "Or a best friend." relationships friendships Daria Snadowsky
0599ea4 He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric. relationships lifestyle humility George Eliot
0047eb4 "I lean against my sister's shoulder. "I thought lightning wasn't supposed to strike in the same place twice." "Sure it does," Izzy tells me. "But only if you're too dumb to move." -- metaphor relationships julia-romano lightning sisters Jodi Picoult
9b4d30d ...chovek nevinagi mozhe da v'zstanovi lichnite si granitsi, sled kato e dopusnal da b'dat razmiti i prekracheni ot drugo choveshko s'shchestvo v protsesa na romantichna vr'zka: kolkoto i da se opitvame ne mozhem da v'zv'rnem onazi avtonomnost na lichnostta, koiato sme si v'obraziavali che pritezhavame relationships Mohsin Hamid
0c0150c "Back at home, days later, feel cranky and tired. Sit on the couch and tell him he's stupid. That you bet he doesn't know who Coriolanus is. That since you moved in you've noticed he rarely reads. He will give you a hurt, hungry-to-learn look, with his James Cagney eyes. He will try to kiss you. Turn your head. Feel suffocated. (from "How")" relationships discontent Lorrie Moore
e13d591 ...and realizes how there are all these moments, moments like just this one, there are all these moments, and how everyone lives their lives in these short, all-too-short moments. There are all these moments and what's so interesting, what makes them beautiful, is the fact that none of them last. relationships moments Joe Meno
67b7dce Deep in our nature we are foragers, and life is a process of gathering the resources we need from a large connected planet. It's all out there -- every color, shade, flavor and mutation of life and experience. Whatever we are looking for, we will find... if it doesn't find us first. However, the result will not be what we're consciously looking for but what we're unconsciously seeking. And so, what we want, will never be anything like what we expect. It is the forager's law -- you can find the berry bush, but you can't control its yield. relationships polyamory Neil Strauss
acaefe0 He seems to be supporting her tenderly. But what holds them together is difficult to pin down. In her memoir, she wrote that he once dropped her on her hip very painfully, and she had the distinct impression he'd done it on purpose. What really goes on between two people is very difficult to say. dance relationships merce-cunningham Barbara Browning
d3d19f1 Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps us from having open relationships. wealth relationships honesty stewardship openness transparency communication Randy Alcorn
f447ad9 He ran his fingers over the moist ends of her hair and across her face. Her eyes were wet. How many nights had he heard Lily crying. As some parents sleep through fire, thunderstorms, and voices at the back door only to wake at a child's whisper, so Everett heard Lily crying at night. Her muffled sobs seemed to have broken his dreams for years. He had heard her even at Fort Lewis, even in Georgia, finally at Bliss. That was Lily crying in the wings whenever the priest came to tear up his mother's grave. Lily cried in the twilight field where he picked wild poppies with Martha; Lily's was the cry he heard those nights the kiln burned, the levee broke, the ranch went to nothing. relationships Joan Didion
85dab25 Pablo's many stories and reminiscences about Olga and Marie-Therese and Dora Maar, as well as their continuing presence just offstage in our own life together, gradually made me realize that he had a kind of Bluebeard complex that made him want to cut off the heads of all women he had collected in his private museum. But he didn't cut the heads entirely off. He preferred to have life go on and to have all those women who had shared his life at one moment or another still letting out little peeps and cries of joy or pain and making a few gestures like disjointed dolls, just to prove there was some life left in them, that it hung by a thread, and that he held the other end of the thread. From time to time they would provide a humorous or dramatic or sometimes tragic side to things, and that was all grist to his mill. relationships Francoise Gilot
d56e4b9 "They call this love, she said to herself. I know what it is now. I never thought I would know, but I do now. But she failed to add: if you can step back and identify it, is it really there? Shouldn't you be unable to know what the whole thing's about? Just blindly clutch and hold and fear that it will get away. But unable to stop, to think, to give it any name. Just two more people sharing a common human experience. Infinite in its complexity, tricky at times, but almost always successfully surmounted in one of two ways: either blandly content with the results as they are, or else vaguely discontent but chained by habit. Most women don't marry a man, they marry a habit. Even when a habit is good, it can become monotonous; most do. When it is bad in just the average degree it usually becomes no more than a nuisance and an irritant; and most do. But when it is darkly, starkly evil in the deepest sense of the word, then it can truly become a hell on earth. Theirs seemed to fall midway between the first two, for just a little while. Then it started veering over slowly toward the last. Very slowly, at the start, but very steadily... ("For The Rest Of Her Life")" relationships Cornell Woolrich
ab3d14b She called for her fiance and told him not to take on so, and that they would still be married, even if he was but a prince and she a queen, and she chucked him beneath his pretty chin and kissed him until he smiled. relationships Neil Gaiman
e266ed9 Involved is neither good nor bad. It is just a consequence of living, a consequence of occupation and immigration, of empires and expansion, of living in each other's pockets... one becomes involved and it is a long trek back to becoming uninvolved. relationships Zadie Smith
4fcacf7 Bean sighed inwardly. It never failed. Whenever he had any conversation with Ender, it turned into an argument. relationships family life bean Orson Scott Card
0cbc888 "You ought to take more chances," I said. "I took too many earlier," she said. "I'm sorry." relationships Larry McMurtry
294c2f9 You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman a masculine soul. relationships masculine masculinity femininity soul C.G. Jung
9d66501 It is possible to adore those newly come into your world, to envision, no matter how late in the day, a happily entwined future with those who have not been part of your past. relationships love connection Mohsin Hamid
8622871 ...it is not always possible to restore one's boundaries after they have been blurred and made permeable by a relationship: try as we might, we cannot reconstitute ourselves as the autonomous beings we previously imagined ourselves to be. Something of us is now outside, and something of the outside is now within us. relationships identity-crisis Mohsin Hamid
1eb9694 "My brother, Langston, said, "Lily, you don't understand because you've never been in love. If you had a boyfriend, you'd understand." Langston has a new boyfriend and all I understand from that is a sorry state of co-dependence." relationships Rachel Cohn
0978c6c What interests me in all these papers is not Susan Burling Ward, the novelist and illustrator, and not Oliver Ward the engineer, and not the West they spend their lives in. What really interests me is how two such unlike particles clung together, and under what strains, rolling downhill into their future until they reached the angle of repose where I knew them. That's where the interest is. That's where the meaning will be if I find any. relationships past research Wallace Stegner
f162388 I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold... These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier. Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do -- and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there--all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. That's how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war. equality relationships love lgbtq homosexual medicine gay epidemic Larry Kramer
ec007ef She is afraid of divorce, which will free her, as she was not enough afraid of marriage, which trapped her. marriage relationships love a.s. byatt
3427d85 "He'd wanted her. Out of all the women in the world, he'd wanted her. Wanted, hell, she thought grinning now. Pursued, demanded. Taken. And while she could admit all of that was exciting, he'd gone one step further. relationships self-esteem J.D. Robb
281b573 There is no trick of a magician or spell of a witch doctor, no drug or mesmerism or bribery or torture or coercion that can compare in power with the force for change unleashed in the human breast through the touch of love. marriage relationships Mike Mason
08839a7 "I turn my head a little. The radio's caroling "Tonight," velvety smooth and young and filled with plaintive desire. Maria's song from West Side Story. I remember one beautiful night long ago at the Winter Garden, with a beautiful someone beside me. I tilt my nose and breathe in, and I can still smell her perfume, the ghost of her perfume from long ago. But where is she now, where did she go, and what did I do with her? Our paths ran along so close together they were almost like one, the one they were eventually going to be. Thin fear came along, fear entered into it somehow, and split them wide apart. Fear bred anxiety to justify. Anxiety to justify bred anger. The phone calls that wouldn't be answered, the door rings that wouldn't be opened. Anger bred sudden calamity. Now there aren't two paths anymore; there's only one, only mine. Running downhill into the ground, running downhill into its doom. ("New York Blues")" relationships romance Cornell Woolrich
075a17d That's what a good wife does, keeps your dreams alive even when you don't believe anymore. marriage relationships dreams Michael J. Sullivan
0264fc6 One afternoon, I am complaining about the confusion of my age, what is expected of me versus what I want for myself. relationships life Mitch Albom
8db037c One could be forgiven for supposing that rationality (or, more softly, 'reasonableness') is irrelevant - and even possibly opposed - to being a good lover. This is perhaps because we tend to think of love as a feeling, rather than as an achievement of intelligence. A reasonable or rational person is not one who is only interested in logic, or someone who tries in a cold, robotic fashion to substitute calculation and analysis for kindness or yearning. We are reasonable when we are moved by accurate explanation. Thus a reasonable person is slow to anger; they do not jump to conclusions relationships rationality Alain de Botton
e5edbbf He wanted to argue like this forever. This was better than nothing. There was no exhausting his anger at his father, and every word, however well intentioned or intentionally barbed, was a pull at a scab on his bloody heart. It was too late for any of this. There could ultimately be no healing. Marty had terminal cancer, and so did the two men have a cancer between them. They were terminal together, as father and son. They remained, momentarily exhausted, but it was really only that quiet between lightning and thunder as sound lags behind speed. The lightning had cracked the ground already, you just hadn't heard it yet. relationships parents-and-adult-children families fathers-and-sons death-of-a-loved-one parents-and-children David Duchovny
9a876a6 "... Papa's always had the ability to remember the good things and let the bad ones go." "Not a bad ability." "... I'm not sure. I think we have to remember it all before we can forgive it." relationships Madeleine L'Engle
1d0d322 I don't care how happily married you are or how deeply enmeshed you are with your children and family and career -- every woman needs a couple of chicks who'll break out the sangria just because you need to vent. relationships women friendship life girl-life Jen Lancaster
4f36747 All I know is that the closer I get to God, the deeper I get into the Bible, and the heavier the burden seems on my shoulders. relationships faith strength god love burdens Tim LaHaye
85b8708 "Sara," I ask finally, "what do you want from me?" "I want to look at you and remember what it used to be like," she says thickly. "I want to go back, Brian. I want you to take me back." But she is not the woman I used to know, the woman who traveled a countryside counting prairie dog holes, who read aloud the classifieds of lonely cowboys seeking women and told me, in the darkest crease of the night, that she would love me until the moon lost its footing in the sky. To be fair, I am not the same man. The one who listened. The one who believed her." marriage relationships change falling-apart nostalgia Jodi Picoult
1a5f4c1 What is the nature of life? Life is lines of dominoes falling. One thing leads to another, and then another, just like you'd planned. But suddenly a Domino gets skewed, events change direction, people dig in their heels, and you're faced with a situation that you didn't see coming, you who thought you were so clever. relationships fiction love women-s-books indian-american divakaruni immigrant-fiction mothers-and-daughters novel Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
54e7056 "Finally, Carol said in a tone of hopelessness, "Darling, can I ask you to forgive me?" The tone hurt Therese more than the question. "I love you, Carol." "But do you see what it means?" relationships Patricia Highsmith
4accc50 In the beginning, I wanted his heart. Then I shifted focus to his body. I was never interested in only friendship. sex relationships love Daria Snadowsky
6935f31 It sucks enough when girlfriends break plans with each other for a boy, but at least that's not against the natural order of things, like when a boy blows off his girlfriend for friends. . . . Or maybe I've had it wrong all along. Since friendships usually outlast relationships, why shouldn't friends receive preferential treatment? Because you don't sleep with your friends! sex relationships Daria Snadowsky
3d8f566 It's sick how you can be intimate with someone one minute and then be furious with that same person the next. relationships Daria Snadowsky
3b85341 "That part of the press release about me asking your father's permission to marry you was true--well, partly true, anyway. I didn't ask permission--I knew you wouldn't like that, it's sexist. You're not your father's property. But I did see him before we left, to tell him I was going to propose to you this weekend, and ask for his blessing." I was stunned. "Wait . . . is this what you meant when you said before we left that you'd talked to my parents?" "Yes. I spoke to your mother, too, because she played an even bigger role in raising you. I thought it was the right thing to do. How do you think you got out of doing all those events--and birthday Cirque du Soleil with your grandmother--so easily?" -- relationships princess-diaries Meg Cabot
63f5b03 What I'm trying to say is that it will be okay between you and Nate. Because you both want that. Because you both want that more than anything. It sounds simple, but I'm learning that the problems start when you want different things marriage relationships motivation Laura Dave
1293b85 I'm ready to commit to her at any time. But for god's sake, I'm not even sure she's heterosexual. It'd be madness to put a lesbian in charge of my ejaculatory functions. relationships love homosexuality Neal Stephenson
f280aae Sometimes love tries to do too much. relationships friendship love Charles Todd
d7a05f3 "No longer married, suddenly I was . From Latin, the name means "emptied." Far worse; it felt like being torn in half, ripped apart from the single functioning organism that had been our family, our lives. Shattered, the word kept recurring; the whole pattern shattered, just as the mountain rocks had shattered his body." mourning grief loss relationships widows families Elaine Pagels
7a47660 He hadn't wooed her, but had simply claimed her. A gold mine ready to dig. There should have been a period of quiet dinners together, of flowers rather than diamonds, of kisses given after permission to kiss, of a slow awakening that predisposed her to greater intimacies. But no, not the great Alexander Kinross! He had met her, he had married her the next day, and climbed into her bed after one kiss in the church. There to prove himself an animal in her eyes. One mistake after another, that was the story of his relationship with Elizabeth. And Ruby had always meant more. relationships men-and-women Colleen McCullough
55adefa we would not reliably assent to reproduce unless we first had lost our minds. relationships philosophy schopenhauer Alain de Botton
8252682 No matter. There is such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it, or if you had not the sense to understand it. relationships Anne Brontë
17b2c2d They brought their whole intellectual energy to bear on their relationships; they wanted to know not only that they loved people but how and why they loved them, to understand the mechanism of their likings, the springs that prompted thought and emotion; to come to terms with themselves and with one another; to know where they were going and why. relationships Wade Davis
102d698 Just bear a passing resemblance to a fictional romantic trope I like and I will love you forever. We're all just trying to find the Mark Darcy of our workplace, aren't we? relationships love soulmates Mindy Kaling
319bb2e An Odonian undertook monogamy just as he might undertake a joint enterprise in production, a ballet or a soap-works. Partnership was a voluntarily constituted federation like any other. So long as it worked, it worked, and if it didn't work it stopped being. It was not an institution but a function. It had no sanction but that of private conscience. relationships women politics love moraily property sci-fi Ursula K. Le Guin
3ed32d8 Sometimes your gaze alone scares me. Sometimes I've never seen you before. I no longer know what you're doing here, in this popular seaside resort, in this dull, crowded season, where you are even more alone than in your regional capital. The better to kill you, perhaps, or to drive you away, I don't know. I sometimes manage to feel I've never seen you before. That I don't know you, to the point of horror. That I have no idea why you're here, what you want from me, or what will become of you. Becoming is the only subject we never, ever broach. You must not know what you're doing here either, with this woman who is already old, mad with writing. Maybe this is just normal, maybe it's the same all over; it's nothing, you came simply because you were desperate, as you are every day of your life. And also during certain summers at certain times of day or night when the sun quits the sky and slips into the sea, every evening, always, you cannot help wanting to die. This I know. I see the two of us lost in similar natures. I can sometimes be overwhelmed by tenderness for the kind of people we are. Unstable, they say, a bit nutty. 'People who never go to the movies, or the theater, or parties.' Leftists are like that, you know, they have no clue how to enjoy life. Cannes makes them sick and so do the grand hotels of Morocco. Movies and theaters, it's all the same. relationships knowing-others uncertainty Marguerite Duras
3bbceed For Proust, an injection of jealousy is the only thing capable of rescuing a relationship ruined by habit. relationships marcel-proust long-term-relationships Alain de Botton
90322de The lover readily imagines that he and his mistress are one. He feels he has love enough for both and that his loving will can swathe the two of them together like twin nuts in a shell. But what one loves is, after all, another human being, a person with other interests, other pains, in whose world one is oneself an object among others. relationships Iris Murdoch
01cf655 "Men's loyalty to their women dies hard - and almost always too late. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")" relationships love Cornell Woolrich
1424fd6 So it's all right for him to rule out a serious relationship, but it's wrong if I'm not ready to settle for less? relationships Daria Snadowsky
de61940 I was always moved when mean people were suddenly nice to me. It was a weakness that would lead me into some bad relationships later in life. relationships life love montréal pg-76 thirteen canada bad weakness Heather O'Neill
787e230 "It goes back to keeping things equal. Friendship feels really demeaning if one person still likes the other more, which is probably what caused the breakup in the first place. It's such a misnomer that 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' have the word 'friend' in them." "I don't know, Dom. It's screwed up that people who dug each other enough to go out can't at least stay friends afterward. "Spoken by a true love virgin." sex relationships love Daria Snadowsky
6dc8194 the gravity of wound to fist abuse-survivors rape pain relationships Karen Russell
00c8124 One reads for oneself and for strangers. influence relationships education goodreads Harold Bloom
659a54f Significantly, romantic friendships can coexist with the fact of partners' marrying because their reason for being is not to replace marriage but to open the possibility of sustained, committed true love existing among friends, and not just same-sex friends. No matter that our chosen relationship commitments change. Those of us who have long-term romantic friendships, some that have lasted longer than any of our marriages or partnerships, do not fear that these commitments will falter if we create primary bonds. feminism relationships friendship communion bell hooks
f37131c Most folks believe we are hardwired biologically to long for sex but they do not believe we are hardwired to long for love. Almost everyone believes that we can have sex without love; mosr folks do not believe that a couple can have love in a relationship if there is no sex. sex relationships love Bell Hooks
b9b7c82 Revolting' was the last word I ever spoke as someone who'd never kissed a girl. relationships David Mitchell
b02ecd8 Our relationship could now thrive only in my head, and to discuss it with a mother intent--admittedly in my own best interest--on challenging it with reality might do it irreparable harm. thoughts relationships memories Mohsin Hamid
e014cf6 When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, 'Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me.' But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no mature human relationship can develop. Clinging to one another in loneliness is suffocating and eventually becomes destructive. For love to be possible we need the courage to create space between us and to trust that this space allows us to dance together. loneliness relationships Henri J.M. Nouwen
dc77a97 I believe his lies, so he believes mine.' She turns and looks at me straight on. 'That's how it goes at the end of love. lies relationships love Paul Murray
da63284 A relationship is like a garden. To create a condition that will cause your plants to thrive and produce abundantly, you must weed, water, fertilize, and care for the plants in your garden. You must also know about the special needs of the plants you're caring for. Some need more or less light than others, some need more or less water than others, and some need special fertilizers. relationships inspiration life love the-laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
5915692 The way you remember or dream about your loved ones - the ones who are gone - you can't stop their endings from jumping ahead of the rest of their stories. You don't get to choose the chronology of what you dream, or the order of events in which you remember someone. In your mind - in your dreams, in your memories - sometimes the story begins with the epilogue. thoughts relationships memories friends inspiration family death life love end memory nostalgia John Irving
37e8add We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies and all the sorrows of familial and passional life. words literature loss reading relationships Harold Bloom
bf00a33 That was the problem these days--everything was considered disposable--clothes, cell phones, relationships. relationships life-changing Melissa de la Cruz
c80899e "Let me guess," Seven said last night. "The first was a rebound. The second was married." How'd you know?" He laughed. "Because you're a cliche." relationships rebound julia-romano seven Jodi Picoult
28d7d53 She moved in for a better look.It was a portrait of Bob Marley,a pretty good one,actually.No Woman, No Cry...that's right.No teenage girls either.All right,ten points if you'Re a poet,minus twenty-five if you're in a band and minus fifty if you're into the ganja. relationships funny Sheri Meshal
da40904 He was a story at least, even if he never became anything else. relationships love Nick Hornby
8a5b186 Mostly, it is lies that will destroy a relationship. Deceit is a barrier to intimacy. Andre Chevalier lies relationships pretending intimacy Nikki Sex
787145f "Good sex requires further exposure than simply removing one's clothes. And as for a good relationship? Ah! For this one must be prepared to reveal even more." -- Andre Chevalier" sex relationships secrets Nikki Sex
e37c5a5 I would tell my 14 year old self to never ever, ever put all of your money in one bank account. And love the ones who love you back. You're going to want to quit...DON'T! Oh, and get everything in writing. marriage wealth relationships success love truth financial-wisdom lessons-of-life soledad-francis greatness Brandi L. Bates
7356b05 "It's not so easy." "What isn't?" "To establish relationships, you can't just elect people, it can't be done by thinking and willing." relationships the-sea-the-sea iris-murdoch dialogue Iris Murdoch
6772018 I do not know what to do with the emotions inside me. I do not know how to be this close to someone and still hold on to myself. relationships love Lisa Renee Jones
64580d5 The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing 'Yellow Submarine' at the top of my voice in the back row of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they'll make me feel something, they won't make me feel anything bad. relationships music the-beatles Nick Hornby
18d98fe One thing I do know about intimacy is that there are certain natural laws which govern the sexual experience of two people, and that these laws cannot be budged any more than gravity can be negotiated with. To feel physically comfortable with someone else's body is not a decision you can make. It has very little to do with how two people think or act or talk or even look. The mysterious magnet is either there, buried somewhere deep behind the sternum, or it is not. relationships love sexuality Elizabeth Gilbert
487190e In my land, in the event of a divorce, the mother has the right to retain her children if they are still suckling. But in most cases, a mother maintains custody of daughters until a girl child reaches puberty. In the case of male children, the boy should be allowed to remain with his mother until he is seven. When he reaches his seventh birthday, he is supposed to have the option to choose between his mother or father. Generally it is accepted that the father have his sons at age seven. A son must go with his father at the age of puberty, regardless of the child's wishes. Often, in the case of male children, many fathers will not allow the mother to retain custody of a son, no matter what the age of the child. girl-child marriage-laws marriage relationships islamic saudi-arabia quran muslim inequality Jean Sasson
0befb8d "Once he traveled to a village to purchase a large rice harvest, but when he arrived the rice had already been sold to another tradesman. Nevertheless, Siddhartha remained in this village for several days; he arranged a feast for the peasants, distributed copper coins among their children, helped celebrate a marriage, and returned from his trip in the best of spirits. Kamaswami reproached him for not having returned home at once, saying he had wasted money and time. Siddhartha answered, "Do not scold me, dear friend! Never has anything been achieved by scolding. If there are losses, let me bear them. I am very pleased with this journey I made the acquaintance of many different people, a Brahmin befriended me, children rode on my knees, peasants showed me their fields, and no one took me for a tradesman." "How very lovely!" Kamaswami cried out indignantly. "But in fact a tradesman is just what you are! Or did you undertake this journey solely for your own pleasure?" "Certainly." Siddhartha laughed. "Certainly I undertook the journey for my pleasure. Why else? I got to know new people and regions, enjoyed kindness and trust, found friendship. You see, dear friend, had I been Kamaswami, I'd have hurried home in bad spirits the moment I saw my purchase foiled, and indeed money and time would have been lost. But by staying on as I did, I had some agreeable days, learned things, and enjoyed pleasures, harming neither myself nor others with haste and bad spirits. And if ever I should return to this place, perhaps to buy some future harvest or for whatever other purpose, I shall be greeted happily and in friendship by friendly people and I shall praise myself for not having displayed haste and displeasure on my first visit. So be content, friend, and do not harm yourself by scolding! When the day arrives when you see that this Siddhartha is bringing you harm, just say the word and Siddhartha will be on his way. But until that day, let us be satisfied with each other." relationships commerce Hermann Hesse
bbc4cae As well as we know our grown children and relatives, we don't know how much energy they have to put into simply keeping their lives together at all. relationships family Anne Lamott
d58de60 A Course in Miracles says we think we're going to understand people in order to figure out whether or not they're worthy of our love, but that actually, until we love them, we can never understand them. What is not loved is not understood. We hold ourselves separate from people and wait for them to earn our love, but people deserve our love because of what God created them to be. As long as we're waiting for them to be anything better, we will constantly be disappointed. When we choose to join with them through approval and unconditional love, the miracle kicks in for both parties. This is the primary key, the ultimate miracle, in relationships. understanding relationships Marianne Williamson
89a161c "Has it ever occurred to you that Max feels the same basic contempt for you as you do for him?" "He feels contempt for me?" "It is something he feels very readily." "No, I hadn't thought that." "Well, the whole world isn't driven by your appetites, and people who are not feel themselves your superior, naturally. He struggles very hard to make allowances for you. He is not tolerant, but he is charitable. Or perhaps it is the other way around." "One becomes tired of analyzing his character," Danton said. "As if one's life depended on it." relationships Hilary Mantel
bb8700d Ariadne made an impression on you, and that's great. But life is not literature. Sooner or later, the spell wears off, the romantic feelings disappear, and you're left watching somebody's body disintegrate. You start with a love story, you end up manacled to an hourglass, watching the sands run out. marriage relationships love Paul Murray
7e861a4 The girl, Gary's girl....would keep bowls of Hershey's Kisses on the coffee table, and she'd decorate the house for all the big holidays and most of the small ones. Probably she'd be class mother, and PTA president, and she'd deliver meals to the elderly once a month. In bed, she'd be exuberant, and would take it as an endorsement when Gary sweated all over her. relationships ideal Jennifer Weiner
b579504 I would have seen flaws in this, later in my life. I would have felt the impatience, even suspicion, a woman can feel towards a man who lacks a motive. Who has only friendship to offer and offers that so easily and bountifully that even if it is rejected he can move along as buoyantly as ever. Here was no solitary fellow hoping to hook up with a girl. Even I could see that, inexperienced as I was. Just a person who took comfort in the moment and in a sort of reasonable facade of life. men relationships love Alice Munro
d3d6599 When the madness came, he would be like a man staggering along the rim of the abyss - which was his rage - and when the edge gave way or he missed his step, he might clutch at anyone within reach and drag that person with him over the precipice. relationships emotions mental-illness Geraldine Brooks
f79e3d0 Most friendships are a sort of frozen and undeveloping semi-hostility. relationships friendship hostility the-black-prince iris-murdoch stagnant resentment Iris Murdoch
ada090c No low-trust society will ever produce sustained innovation. risk relationships Thomas L. Friedman
0537619 She was the kind of person who never gave you enough time to miss her. relationships people Zadie Smith
c7c0705 Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi, kogda uznaesh' ego poluchshe, budet takim zhe, kakim kazhetsia, kogda vy tol'ko poznakomilis'. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi zvonit, esli poobeshchal pozvonit' i prikhodit domoi, esli poobeshchal, chto pridet. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotorogo ustraivaet to, kakoi on est'. Ia khochu vstretit' takogo muzhchinu, kotoryi khochet vstretit' takuiu zhenshchinu, kak ia. Ved' eto ne slishkom mnogo? Khotia, kak utverzhdaet moia podruga Marsel', eto vse ravno, chto khotet' lunu s neba i zvezdy vpridachu. men relationships Julian Barnes
2a11413 "Psychological patriarchy is a "dance of contempt," a perverse form of connection that replaces true intimacy with complex, covert layers of dominance and submission, collusion and manipulation. It is the unacknowledged paradigm of relationships that has suffused Western civilization generation after generation, deforming both sexes, and destroying the passionate bond between them." relationships bell hooks
929dfe7 YOU'RE IN MY MOUTH, I said. GET OUT OF MY MOUTH. relationships change parents Aimee Bender
9b55083 The only real security is not in owning or possessing, no in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. relationships love Anne Morrow Lindbergh
9a43d2a You have to believe me without proof. That's what faith is -- believing without proof.' They got up from the bank of stones. It was getting late, the shadows lay cool and lengthened on the grass and the tops of the trees had the stillness around them that means the end of the day and its liquidation in the setting sun. They retraced their steps back to the house where his car was parked, and when they passed through the blighted orchard, he picked up an apple for her and she ate it. She didn't even have to look; she knew it would be whole, without worms or decay. relationships fiction literary-fiction short-story short-stories Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
bc484ef You see why I married her, Mycroft? The exquisite juxtaposition of ladylike threads and backhanded compliments proved irresistible. relationships sarcasm Laurie R. King
4de4d3c Aucun couple, meme le meilleur, ne peut encourager a l'amour, ce n'est pas vrai. relationships love Marguerite Duras
6cd2f30 Weddings, I began to understand, were vile, filthy things when they ran amuck. marriage relationships humor weddings Laurie Notaro
c260ac9 The challenges and changes you meet are, in effect, hand delivered to you by a generous, loving Universe for the purpose of making you stronger and wiser. relationships inspiration life the-laws-of-love self-help Chris Prentiss
65a7ce8 "Built around 1780... a two-hour train ride from Paris... the neighbor keeps his horses in my backyard... pies made with apples from my own trees..." I caught the highlights of Hugh's broadcast and understood that my first goal was to make him my boyfriend, to trick or blackmail him into making some sort of commitment. I know it sounds calculating, but if you're not cute, you might as well be clever." relationships humor David Sedaris
e85788f She had never been able to tolerate dishonesty, which she thought threatened the very heart of relationships between people. If you could not count on other people to mean what they said, or to do what they said they would do, then life could become utterly unpredictable. The fact that we could trust one another made it possible to undertake the simple tasks of life. relationships trust Alexander McCall Smith
c60fcbd But I want to see Clara, Charlie's friend, who's right up my street. I want to see her because I don't know where my street is; I don't even know which part of town it's in, which city, which country, so maybe she'll enable me to get my bearings. relationships Nick Hornby
4205ebb If you allow disagreements and arguments to escalate, you are making the bone of contention of whatever you are heatedly arguing about more important than your relationship. relationships inspiration life love the-laws-of-love self-help Chris Prentiss
c96dac2 Being married cuts on your freedom. Having a husband or a relationship at all puts constraints on you. by Michael. relationships relationship Emily Giffin
376853a However, one certainty floated in the air: that night, at the end of a conversation that should have brought them closer, something had been broken between them, definitively and forever. He did not know what, but there was the unmistakable noise of pieces shattering to the ground about him. The young woman would never forgive him for his cowardice -- or for his resignation. relationships Arturo Pérez-Reverte
9e07415 We coexisted in a state of mutual detachment. relationships Patrick McGrath
41e411b "Soulmates" is what you aim for, but soup snakes is what you get sometimes." relationships humor love the-office Mindy Kaling
064a972 Eve still marveled on a daily basis at the speed with which her own life had changed. A year ago, she'd been lost and flailing, and now she was found. She wanted to call it a miracle, but it was simpler than that, and a lot more ordinary; she'd met a kind and decent man who loved her. relationships love life-changing-events middle-age Tom Perrotta
fafcec5 Somehow, later, exhausted and dismayed by these sapping, abrasive, attriting episodes, they came to a sort of truce; but it was at the expense of any closeness. relationships Iain M. Banks
f9646d5 Night eyes had risen and stretched stiffly. Now he came to lie down beside me. He set his head on my knee. 'I don't understand. You are ill?' 'No. Just stupid.' 'Ah. Nothing new there. Well, you haven't died from that so far. relationships life Robin Hobb
b18ead5 The way to heal your relationship is to look for the underlying conditions in yourself and in your partner that have caused your relationship to go off track and then to seek out the guidance you need to heal yourself. The Laws of Love will give you that guidance. relationships the-laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
06ee3ac She felt as if she had somehow failed him and herself by allowing his mother's behavior to upset her. She should be above it; she should shrug it off as the ranting of a village woman; she should not keep thinking of all the retorts she could have made instead of just standing mutely in that kitchen. But she was upset, and made even more so by Odenigbo's expression, as if he could not believe she was not quite as high-minded as he had thought. relationships emotions failure Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2447f1e We are all potentially demons to each other, but some close relationships are saved from this fate. metaphor relationships the-sea-the-sea toxic-relationships iris-murdoch demons Iris Murdoch
e8adfbd But love is strange, as they used to say at the Chameleon Club. Even those of us who value intelligence over appearance have discovered, to our chagrin, that a high IQ doesn't necessarily translate into kindness or even conscience. lovers relationships love Francine Prose
c3fe30e Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God -- a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bam-boozle myself into belief, but I am a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers. understanding relationships Graham Greene
a986d57 It was more than love at first sight. For Mallory it was as if a dam had burst and the impounded emotions of a young lifetime had found immediate release. relationships Wade Davis
1911bb7 Just as mind rises up and rebels at un unskillful attempt to subdue it in meditation, a relationship will fall apart if the partners are not respectful of each other's differences. <...> Separateness and connection make each other possible; they are not mutually exclusive. relationships love couples separateness romantic-love differences connection desire Mark Epstein
53c05f7 First coming aboard, a new arrival makes a cautious survey of the crew, trying to winnow the affable and good-natured from the surly and truculent. Some of the crewmen will seem easygoing, happy-go-lucky, good-fellows-all; others may appear to be reserved or even aloof. Yet I found that at the end of a voyage these aloof ones were often the persons whom I grew to like and respect the most, while those who seemed so agreeable turned out to be rascals. relationships friendship new-friends wariness Jack Vance
190ef27 Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love. Where this active concern is lacking, there is no love. relationships Erich Fromm
7881cdf It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first. opportunities relationships family generations parents children James Baldwin
2eb33b1 I want to be cut off from people like Marloe. Being a real person oneself is a matter of setting up limits and drawing lines and saying no. I don't want to be a nebulous bit of ectoplasm straying around in other people's lives. That sort of vague sympathy with everybody precludes any real understanding of anybody . . . And it precludes any real loyalty to anybody. understanding relationships discerning setting-limits the-black-prince iris-murdoch loner loyalty Iris Murdoch
d510c11 I shall not attempt here to describe my marriage. Some impression of it will doubtless emerge. For the present story, its general nature rather than its detail is important. It was not a success. At first I saw her as a life-bringer. Then I saw her as a death-bringer. Some women are like that. There is a sort of energy which seems to reveal the world: then one day you find you are being devoured. Fellow victims will know what I mean. Possibly I am a natural bachelor. marriage relationships humor the-black-prince iris-murdoch omission Iris Murdoch
e4ad8e8 There's a reason prophets perform miracles: language lacks the power to describe faith. And you have to land on faith before you can even begin to hike around to its flip side, betrayal. relationships faith trust trustworthiness prophets Mohsin Hamid
fa0a8bb I shut my eyes, turned away for a moment, and it came: a shiver of finality like the one when you decide, in your own mind, that you're going to have to tell someone who loves you that you don't want to be with them anymore. Terror, and relief; relief and terror, so intermingled that they feel like the same thought. pain relationships Michael Marshall Smith
a00007b The more a family can be splintered apart, the weaker and more ineffectual they become, and the more the enemy has control of their lives. One way to avoid this is through prayer. When you cover your family relationships in prayer, whether it be with your children, parents, stepparents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, husband, or wife, there will be far fewer instances of strained or severed relationships. relationships prayer truth parenting Stormie Omartian
5e2fc04 Do you believe in chaos- in random, uncontrolled events, in the idea that anything can happen at any time without fixed laws governing it? If you believe that, you will always be in a state of fear, not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The fear might be small, but it is there. That fear results in a lack of security and a feeling of mistrust. relationships the-laws-of-love self-help Chris Prentiss
dd2b6fd Life's tempering and altering process often takes the form of adversity, and, as far as outward appearances are concerned, seems to be working against us when it is actually working for us. relationships inspiration life love the-laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
e80fc52 Each of us is different and has different needs. In addition, our needs change over the course of our relationship. When you are committed to an enduring relationship with someone, you aren't simply concerned about having your needs met. You also go out of your way to care for your loved one, being aware of and adaptable to their changing needs. relationships inspiration life love the-laws-of-love chris-prentiss self-help Chris Prentiss
c35279a You create your future moment by moment. relationships laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
aee4b7d When you imagine yourself as a failure or as having insurmountable problems in your relationships or any part of your life, you think failure, act failure, and produce failure. relationships laws-of-love failure Chris Prentiss
6595042 To have the beautiful relationship you want, you and your partner must share your life stories with each other, holding nothing back. That sharing includes any past experiences of brutality, traumas, rape, incest, and emotional or mental torture of any kind that either of you has experienced as well as the wonderful memories you each cherish. relationships self-help Chris Prentiss
dda79f0 Once an event has taken place, since you cannot alter the past, all that is left to you is your response. relationships laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
4f244c4 A diminished self-image will cause you to slouch, to avoid meeting others, to avoid looking others in the eye, to be unassertive, and to be indecisive. relationships self-improvement self-image Chris Prentiss
73b84cd Change starts with awareness. relationships self-improvement Chris Prentiss
e1ed2a4 ... all decisions and actions that will affect your relationship must be made by answering this single question: Will the action I am considering have a negative impact on my relationship? If the answer is yes, don't do it. relationships laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
0d3585d The relationship must come first or it will not last. relationships laws-of-love Chris Prentiss
646a614 To preserve what you have, to keep your relationships alive and glowing, give generously- give of your time, you assets, your attention, your help, and your love. Give of yourself. relationships laws-of-love self-improvement Chris Prentiss
6b2175c Trustworthy partners always think first before they do anything that may affect either the reputation or well-being of each other. relationships trustworthy self-improvement Chris Prentiss
01ec55c First-class relationships are possible only in an atmosphere of total trust. relationships self-help Chris Prentiss
a26c5bd "The purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you'd like to see "show up", not what part of another you can capture and hold. There can be only one purpose for relationships - and for all of life: to be and to decide Who You Really Are. [...] The test of your relationships has had to do with how well the other lived up to your ideas, and how well you saw yourselves living up to his or hers. Yet the only true test has to do with how well you live up to yours. Relationships are sacred because they provide life's grandest opportunity - indeed, its only opportunity - to create and produce the experience of your highest conceptualization of Self." relationships people-relations relationship-advice relationship-quotes friendships people-skills Neale Donald Walsch
b8ff7e2 I have known both of you all your lives, have carried your Daddy in my arms and on my shoulders, kissed and spanked him and watched him learn to walk. I don't know if you've known anybody from that far back; if you've loved anybody that long, first as an infant, then as a child, then as a man, you gain a strange perspective on time and human pain and effort. Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his. Let him laugh and I see a cellar your father does not remember and a house he does not remember and I hear in his present laughter his laughter as a child. Let him curse and I remember him falling down the cellar steps, and howling, and I remember, with pain, his tears, which my hand or your grandmother's so easily wiped away. But no one's hand can wipe away those tears he sheds invisibly today, which one hears in his laughter and in his speech and in his songs. relationships inspirational parenting James Baldwin
0e9b3c5 We shape each other to be human. relationships humanity Ursula K. Le Guin
305a888 She gives me meals that stick to my ribs. She don't forget to put salt in the porridge. She never slams doors, and when she has nothing to say, she don't talk. That's uncanny in a woman, you know, Mister. relationships women-s-roles L.M. Montgomery
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