You make your own happiness.

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.

"But I have learned that you make your own happiness, that part of going for what you want means losing something else. And when the stakes are high, the losses can be that much greater."
--Emily Giffin, 'Something Borrowed'

I'm a stranger wherever I go because I'm strange to myself. My mind just goes off doing it's own thing, never consulting me at all about whether it's alright to feel this way or that. I am constantly standing several feet away from myself, watching as I do or say or feel something that I don't want or don't like at all, and I still can't stop it.

An english professor wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed her students to punctuate it correctly. The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing." However, the women wrote: "Woman! Without her, man is nothing."

People are always worried about what's happening next. They often find it difficult to stand still, to occupy the now without worrying about the future. People are not generally satisfied with what they have; they are very concerned with what they are going to have.

"It's not so much that we're afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it's that place in between that we fear. It's like being between trapezes. It's Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There's nothing to hold on to."
--Marilyn Ferguson

Sometimes there's nothing to say. Sometimes silence expresses more than words. Picking up the phone, dialing a number, it can do more damage than good. But humans are afflicted with this obsessive desire to talk things to death. So we make things worse by trying to make things better.

We talked about old times and it made me smile because you didn't forget.

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" responded the cheshire cat. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
--Lewis Carroll, 'Alice In Wonderland'

Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.

I did not say my prayers that night; here, I felt, what would be, would be.

"You do anything in the world to gain reputation. As soon as you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
--Oscar Wilde, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'

"Heroes are there to be loved, but not to love you back. How can anyone respect you when you put them up on a pedestal? They'll always be looking down at you. I'm not saying that heroes are a bad idea, even if they do disappoint you in the end. Maybe that's what they're there for in the first place. Maybe that's the whole point. As your heroes fall away and you're left standing, you realize you can do whatever you want. You realize the only person you have to live up to is yourself."
--Brian Strause, 'Maybe A Miracle'

It will always come.

"I wouldn't want a boy to think I was pretty unless he was the kind of boy who I thought was pretty."
--Jonathan Safran, 'Everything is Illuminated'

She remembered once hearing a song that said the first person you fell in love with stole your heart. The first person you made love with stole your soul. And if these were one and the same, you were damned.

There is one thing in life that you can't be cynical about, and that is love, because one day it will come. It will always come.

I was thinking about how it drives me crazy just to feel your hand in mine, and how simple that is.

Why is it that so many things, so many words, are wasted on love? Are we really that pathetic that our entire lives can revolve around just one person? Around one fleeting feeling? Maybe I’m just jealous. Or maybe I’m above it all. Maybe I’m just lonely.

“I didn’t want to be in a relationship with someone unless they were absolutely right, and, let’s face it, how often do you meet someone who you really fancy and really like? Exactly."
--Jane Green, 'Mr. Maybe'

"I like him. I'm not crazy about him yet, I'll be ready to say good-bye later, but I like him. And that's enough for me right now."
--Nicholas Sparks, 'The Guardian'

If there’s one thing those boys were good for it was making our hearts sing beautiful words.

Being a friend means mastering the art of timing.

Being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny, and a time to pick up the pieces when it’s all over.

I think best friends are the ones who’ve been through what you’ve been through. They understand where you’re coming from and where you’re going. It’s always a challenge to stick by a friend who’s making choices we don’t agree with and are sometimes even dangerous, but it’s at these times that our best friends need us the most.

Life isn't about what happens to you.

These things happen. What other people say doesn't change the way you are. Remember what we always say? It's just part of the journey. Life isn't about what happens to you, it's about how you handle what happens.

"Sometimes when they all talk I feel like shouting, 'So your life went wrong—why assume mine will? Maybe it’ll work for me!' But this would only invite a pitying smile, and a 'she’ll learn' comment. You can’t win with them. You can’t even compete."
--Kate Cann, 'Diving In'

Things are going to be bad, I mean, really bad, and then one day, something will click. It will click so much that it makes you laugh with happiness because you will be so alive and know that what you did was so right.

"Some people love to lead. Some refuse to dance. Some play it safely, while others take a chance. Still, it's a mystery, this place we call the world. Where most live as oysters, while some become pearls."
--Jimmy Buffet

"In the beginning of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, right? And at the end of life, when you get like me, you need others to survive, right?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "But here's the secret: in between, we need others as well."
--Mitch Albom, 'Tuesdays With Morrie'

"If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask... with nothing beneath it?"
--Jodi Picoult, 'Nineteen Minutes'

Life is made up of little things.

The biggest challenge in life you'll find almost impossible to defeat, is the fact that you gave up on something you could have had. You quit before something could take place. You say you're going to change, but really you're still the same. And no matter how much the truth may scare you, at one point in your life, you're going to have to overcome your fears.

Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it?

After living in the dark for so long, a glimpse of light can make you giddy. Strange thoughts come into your head and you better think them. Has a special fate been calling you and you're not listening? Is there a secret message right in front of you and you're not reading it? Is this your last chance? Are you gonna take it? Or are you going to the grave with unlived lives in your veins?

Everyone is trying to accomplish something big, not realizing that life is made up of little things.

...

"I like being alone. I always have. But it's not the present that worries me. What worries me is that I'll have to spend the next fifty years on my own, and that's something I really don't want to have to think about. But in the meantime I'm used to my own company, and I haven't had to think about anyone else for months. Years."
--Jane Green, 'Bookends'

It's not worth it.

There's a story about the greek gods: they were bored so they invented human beings, but they were still bored so they invented love. Then they weren't bored any longer so they decided to try love for themselves. And finally, they invented laughter so they could stand it.

"The real lover is a man who can thrill you just by kissing your forehead, or looking into your eyes, or staring into space."
--Marilyn Monroe

For as long as I can remember, my mother has always been telling me to never get married and to just adopt children. Out of 43 years of marriage, that's the advice she gives me about love. She tells me to never fall in love with a boy, that it's not worth it. I'm not blaming her for my failed relationships, but I do think the words she speaks to me played a part.

Someday someone might come into your life and love you the way you've always wanted. If your someday was yesterday, learn. If your someday is tomorrow, hope. If your someday is today, cherish.

Your life is not your own.

"There are as many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world, and each one deserves a closer look."
--'Harriet The Spy'

"You gotta grow up. You can't keep having all these adolescent views on how great your life will be."
--'Sleepless In Seattle'

"There's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begins."
--Mitch Albom, 'For One More Day'

"Life is totally meaningless, we live out our lives for nothing, and the sole source of meaning in life is in feeling some sensation from time to time. That's all there is."
--Mian Mian, 'Candy'

"'Because you just have to go with the flow. Your life is not your own, with people coming in and out all the time. You get mellow because you have to. I mean, you know exactly what I'm saying, I bet."
--Sarah Dessen, 'This Lullaby'

You know where you are with an ending.

"That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening."
--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."
--Albert Einstein

Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending any time. You know where you are with an ending.

Once you get the beginning right, the ending almost writes itself.

<3

You love the arch of the foot, it's bones, rake splayed. Wide, blunt, clean fingernails. Michelangelo wrists. Cleanliness. The nape of your neck nuzzled. Your eyelids kissed. Burrowing deep under the blankets. Clothes to be drawn off slowly, in exquisite anticipation. Cold, smooth walls you are rammed against. The sound of a lover's breath close to your ear. Your hair pulled back. Seduction that's slow, intriguing, unique, by flattery. Extravagant gestures, poems on scraps of napkins, filthy e-mails that should never be sent, love letters scrawled on passes, a line composed in lipstick on your back as you sleep, written backwards, to be read in the mirror."

Maybe I don't know what I'm looking for.

"We could only wonder how she would be able to dust herself off and start over again. Yet we know we couldn't bear for her not to, and felt most optimistic that even after all her struggles, she would someday meet her man, her equal. A man with the same charisma, love of life, & humanity that she possessed. In the meantime, she'd have her friends & the knowledge that she deserved the world."
--'Sex And The City'

"Ask two people to tell you anything, you’ll get two versions. Even easy things like directions,
let alone important or semi-controversial topics, like why a fight started or what a person was generally like. If you don’t know something for yourself, you just can’t be sure."
--Gabrielle Zevin, 'Memoirs Of A Teenage Amnesiac'

"Maybe it's not a mirror at all, she thinks. Maybe it's a window. That's an old thought, one that she's never even told Deacon about, that mirrors might really be windows, that there might be some other world with some other her, and every now and then the two of them just happen to pass by the same windows and see each other and play this mocking game."
--Caitlyn R. Kiernan, 'Daughter Of The Hounds'

"No matter what Mr. Philosopher next door thought, there were things I knew for sure: That I had been loved, once, and had loved back. That a person could find hope in the way a weed grew. That the sum of a man's life was not where he would end up, but in the details that brought him there. That we make mistakes."
--Jodi Picoult

Once the world has hurt you enough, you reach a quote for pain and you stop feeling it. And then you can scream at the sky because there's nothing left for it to throw at you.

"Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste."
--Lucille Ball

Well something funny might be nice but not necessarily big "ha ha ha," laugh out loud funny. And certainly not make fun of other people funny, but rather something human funny. And if it could sneak up on you, surprise you and at the same time make you think that what you thought was only right in a wrong kind of way, but when you're wrong there's a certain rightness to your wrongs.. maybe.. well what I mean is, more importantly, I want to be swept up and at the same time not. I want to feel a deep connection to something. Or maybe I don't know what I'm looking for.

"That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can."
--J.D. Salinger, 'The Catcher In The Rye'

"Some girls you practically never find out what's the matter."
--J.D. Salinger, 'The Catcher In The Rye'

Sweet Sweet Summer

As the breeze sweeps across the cold sand, the moon casts off a glitter where the waves meet the shore. The air smells of dried coconut oil, tan skin, and sweet sweet summer.

Summer is for breaking. Pack nothing. Leave without a note. Follow your internal compass. Wear what you slept in. Sleep in what you're wearing. Use SPF. Fisten to the ocean but don't take it's advice word for word. Insist on karaoke. Display skin. Attract a following. Steal a heart. Lose track of time. Live your life.

We sat on rooftops that summer night, listening to the wind. Something about it just made you wanna run. It made you wanna scream and laugh and cry and thank god that you were even alive. To me, that was life. To me, that was living.

There's something about waking up when the sun's halfway across the sky, only to fall asleep moments later to a soundtrack of splashing in the warm sun. There's something about washing away salt and sand to get ready for a night out. There's something about the lack of need for makeup, cause the sun's taken care of that. There's something about summer that beats through our veins and defines our lives.

"Tans fade, highlights go dark, and we all get sick of sand in our shoes. But the end of summer is the beginning of a new season, so we find ourselves looking to the future."
--'Gossip Girl'

You look like you've seen a ghost

The faces always stay the same
So I face the fact that I'm just fine
I said that I'm just fine
--Manchester Orchestra, 'I Can Feel A Hot One'

Hard to chase but good to catch
--Adele, 'Daydreamer'

He is a real lover of making up the past
and feeling up his girl like he's never felt her figure before
--Adele, 'Daydreamer'

It will feel like he's been there for hours
And you can tell that he'll be there for life
--Adele, 'Daydreamer'

Because he's there for you when he shouldn't be
But he stays all the same
Waits for you then sees you through
--Adele, 'Daydreamer'

A jaw dropper
Looks good when he when he walks
He's the subject of their talk
--Adele, 'Daydreamer'

She stands with a well-intentioned man
But she can't relax with his hand on the small of her back
--Death Cab For Cutie, 'Cath...'

Treat her like a lady &she'll never get enough
--Josh Kelley, 'Home To Me'

She's a Saturday out on the town and a church girl on Sunday
She's a cross around her neck and a cuss word cause its Monday
She's a bubble bath and candles
Baby, come and kiss me
She's a one glass of wine and she's feeling kinda tipsy
--Brad Paisley, 'She's Everything'

She leaves with someone you don't know
But she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door
Your blood boiling, your stomach in ropes
And when your friends say what is it
You look like you've seen a ghost
You just have to see her
And you know that she'll break you in two
--The Airborne Toxic Event, 'Sometime Around Midnight'

No one says I have to marry the guy, for God's sake.

All quotes from 'Mr. Maybe' by Jane Green

"I'm sick and tired of being on my own. Most of the time I'm fine. Some of the time I even quite enjoy it. But at this precise moment in time I'm fed up with it. I've had enough."

"And suddenly I realize that although I've never thought about being in love with him before, all the right ingredients are there. I fancy him. I like him. He's my friend. He makes me laugh. I love being with him. And I start to feel all sort of warm and glowy, and screw the other stuff. Screw the stuff about him having no money, and living in a bedsit, and not being what I thought I wanted. I'm just going to go with this and see where it ends up. I mean, no one says I have to marry the guy, for God's sake."

"Jules says there are three things that make you a grown-up: an eight-piece set of matching dishes; gin, vodka and whiskey in the house; and making your bed every morning. I disagree with her. I think you're officially a grown-up when you've got another half. When you don't have to live in fear of other couples. When you don't have to feel you're not good enough."

"Jules has always been one of those women that men go crazy about because she has enough self-confidence to say this is me, take it or leave it. And, invariably, they take it. Or at least try to. They love the fact that she doesn’t wear makeup. That her clothes, on her tiny, petite frame, are a mishmash of whatever she happens to pull out of the wardrobe that morning. That her laugh is huge and infectious, and, most of all, that she listens. She loves life, and people, and makes time for them, and even before Jamie came along men were forever falling in love with her."

Dreams were like soap bubbles.

Dating is just acting like somebody you're not until the person you're dating likes you enough that you can be yourself again.

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells. And then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too. A slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower, both strange and familiar."
--Cornelia Funke, 'Inkspell'

"And she's courageous but scared to death. But that's what courage means."

"The big reason why folks leave a small town," Rant use to say, "is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason they stay put is so they can moon about getting out." Rant meant that no one is happy, anywhere.

"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell. I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days."
--Sylvia Plath, 'The Bell Jar'

"The fears that live inside of us, whatever they are, and however they manifest, prevent us from living our highest potential, as individuals, and as contributors to the human race. If we consciously and vigilantly transmute those fears through compassion for others, and for ourselves, we will know what it is to live a peaceful existence on this planet."
--Gillian Anderson

Dreams, she thought, were like soap bubbles. You could look at them from a distance, and they were lovely. It's when you've stuck your face too close that your eyes wound up stinging.

The sight of the huge world put mad ideas into me, as if I could wander away, wander forever, see strange and beautiful things, one after the other to the world's end. The freshness and wetness all about me made me feel that I had misjudged the world; it seemed kind, and laughing, as if its heart also danced. Who can feel ugly when the heart meets delight?

"A man is a good thing to come home to, but an even better thing to come home with."
--Gossip Girl

It's always nice when someone's in love with you.

"Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky."

--Hafiz

"I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don’t expect to be happy. I don’t imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don’t think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature—as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving. And when it burns out the world dies."
--Jeanette Winterson, 'Light Housekeeping'

"By about 4 A.M. he had decided he was in love with me. Which, though a little strange, since I'd barely spoken, was fine with me. It's always nice when someone's in love with you. Gives you leverage."
--Marya Hornbacher, 'Wasted'

You are what you love, not what loves you.

"Sometimes I feel there's a hole inside of me. An emptiness that at times seems to burn. I have this dream of being whole. Not going to bed each night wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing, I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me and I want to be seen."
--'Practical Magic'

"Three words, eight letters. Say it, and I'm yours."
--Blair Waldorf, 'Gossip Girl'

So much candy!

Did you ever wake up, and go through that process of pulling yourself together, remembering who you are and where you are, and then where you were. What you did last night, what you've done wrong. And then you remember that you've got a bag of candy in your bag. It's in the big pocket. You meant to eat it last night while you were watching TV but you forgot and now it is there waiting for you! It is a reason to get up. To start your day! So much candy! Life is gold gold gold gold gold gold gold gold gold."

We make messes of our lives.

All quotes from 'Vanishing Acts' by Jodi Picoult

"It is also a terrifying prospect that the relationships we use as the cornerstones of our personalities are not given by default but are a choice; that it’s all right to feel closer to a friend than we do a parent; that someone who’s betrayed us in the past might be the same person with whom we build a future."

"That’s the crazy thing about lies. You start to fall for them, yourself."

"I don’t think anyone has ever died of unrequited love. I wonder if I’ll be the first."

"Suddenly this is all too hard. I am tired of putting up walls. I want someone with the strength and the honesty to break them down."

"I want to keep that moment to myself: a silver dollar tucked into the hem of my mind to take out in an emergency."

"There are two worlds rubbing right up against each other, and not a single person in this room seems to have trouble straddling them."

"I suddenly remember being very little & being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father’s waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; although I’d squeeze hard, he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, & all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way."

"He lets me keep all my words to myself."

"Who I am, & what I am capable of doing, has always managed to surprise me."

"We make messes of our lives, but every now & then, we manage to do something that’s exactly right. The challenge is figuring out which is which."

"I learned a lot that night. For example, that part of being the magician’s assistant
means coming face to face with illusions. That invisibility is really just knotting your body in a certain way & letting the black curtain fall over you. That people don’t vanish into thin air; that when you can’t find someone, it’s because you’ve been misdirected to look elsewhere."

"That’s the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don’t even realize how much you were missing one."

"He used to say that life was all about a boy finding the perfect girl; he was lucky enough to have been handed his in a labor & delivery room."

"You can fool yourself, you know. You’d think it’s impossible, but it turns out it’s the easiest thing of all."

"It is strange, suddenly having a memory come back out of nowhere. You think you’re going crazy; you wonder where this recollection has been hiding all your life. You try to push it away, because you think you’ve hammered out the whole timeline of your life, but then you see that one extra moment, & suddenly you are breaking apart what you thought was a solid segment, & seeing it for what it is: just a string of events, shoulder to shoulder, & a gap where there is room for one more."

"Just because you keep something a secret doesn’t mean it never happened, no matter how much you want that to be true."

"It takes two people to make a lie work: the person who tells it, & the one who believes it."

"The sky seems wider here, stretched like cellophane, & the stars are starting to coming out. I am convinced they are a puzzle. If I stare at them hard enough, they’ll move of their own accord; they will link their sharp arms & spell out all the answers."

"We say it all the time, how we’d give up anything for someone we love. But I wonder, when push comes to shove, who’d truly step up to the link."

"Now I wonder if this was some scent recollection, some unconscious understanding that a person who smelled of alcohol was bound to disappoint me."

"You live in the past, because the present stretches out so far it hurts to glimpse it."

"What if memories get stored in the brain, & they aren’t even necessarily ones we’ve had? What if we’re hardwired with a whole iceberg of experiences, & our minds use only a tip of them?"

"The desperate usually succeed because they have nothing to lose."

"Memories aren’t stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, if you ask me, but in the spaces between any given two people."

"There isn’t one truth, there are dozens. The challenge is getting everyone to agree on one version."

One word can change the entire world.

All quotes from 'This Lullaby' by Sarah Dessen

"I had no illusions about love anymore. It came, it went, it left casualties or it didn't. People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say."

"Later, it would take a minute to remember how exactly it happened. If I turned around and moved forward first, or he did. I just know we didn't meet half way. It was just a short distance really, no worth squabbling over. And maybe it didn't matter so much whether he took the step or I did. All I knew is that he was there."

"It seemed like this day could go in so many directions, like a spiderweb shooting out toward endless possibilities. Whenever you made a choice, especially one you'd been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening."

"What did it feel like, I wondered, to love someone that much? So much that you couldn't even control yourself when they came close, as if you might just break free of whatever was holding you and throw yourself at them with enough force to easily overwhelm you both."

"Holding people away from you, and denying yourself love, that doesn't make you strong. If anything, it makes you weaker. Because you're doing it out of fear."

"And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot."

"It's true that I've been hurt in my life, quite a bit. But it's also true that I have loved, and been a lover. And that carries a weight of its own. A greater weight, in my opinion. It's like that pie chart we talked about earlier. In the end, I'll look back on my life and see that the greatest piece of it was love. The problems, the divorces, the sadness, those will be there too, but just smaller slivers--tiny pieces."

"Some things don't last forever, but some things do. Like a good song, or a good book, or a good memory you can take out and unfold in your darkest times, pressing down the corners and peering in close, hoping you still recognize the person you see there."

"It was just like my mother said. Everything, in the end, comes down to timing. One second, one minute, one hour, could make all the difference. So much hanging on just these things. Time increments that together build a life, like words build a story. One word can change the entire world."

"Something, somehow, had made all these paths converge. You couldn't find it on a checklist or work it into the equation. It just happened."

"Maybe, you misplaced it, you know? It's been there. But you just haven't been looking in the right spot. Because lost means forever, it's gone. But misplaced...that means it's still around, somewhere. Just not where you thought."

"Loving you 'till the stars are gone and the heart I have just turns to stone."

That smile of his makes me weak.

All quotes from A Softer World

We heard that rice expands, exploding pigeons
so we mixed them some rice and glitter
and held hands in the park

I read bowling pins like tea leaves
every pin I knock down is a boy who'll break my heart
and I always bowl a perfect game

There's a whole world down in the ocean
filled with talking shrimp, and boys who call you back
but my breath won't hold long enough

I was going to figure out the postage
and send you my heart
for Christmas.
But my friends talked me out of it.
They said "Why would you send her something broken?"

Second best isn't so bad

He said "You make all my organs slosh around loose,"
and I blushed, flattered

Thinking about the infinity of space makes me insane
I never want my kids to feel this small
So yeah, I let them eat whatever

I've always known I'd be a bank robber.
So judge all you want, ladies and gentlemen,
because you never did become an astronaut

The future is so awesome.
Oh man! Remember the internet?

I like to get all tied up and rescue myself
then it's off to the park, and a scoop of ice cream
for my hero

Halfway down she remembered
that Golden Girls was out on DVD
which could have gone in the CONS column

He never meant for it to end.
He wanted to give her everything. So when she said "higher," he pushed her higher.
But she said "No. Higher."

On the paper she had written "you"
and she told me "that's a list of the people
who are standing too close."

The world isn't going to end just because we've done everything wrong.
Though, that would be easier.

I like falling off my skateboard the way I like loving you
broken hearts, like broken bones
hurt well

We write up a list of expenses and the computer tells us what we can live without.
Name brand cereal,
fresh vegetables,
new clothing for the children,
the children.

Gandhi said "be the change you wish to see in the world,"
fuck that
be the trouble you want to see in the world

She sits outside every morning and cries
and where each tear lands a flower grows

"I can make you happier than he did," he says.
He laughs
and flutters a bit.

My husband turns the hose on homeless kids out back
which is a bit cruel, maybe, but it makes him happy.
And that smile of his makes me weak.

I have no use for "before and after" pictures.
I can't remember starting, and
I'm never done.

As near as I can tell he wished for this moment to last forever.
So we sit and hold hands and I am always
just about to leave.

I'd like to read a story in the newspaper that ends with
"but she was just having a bad dream,"
"really she's okay."

Yes, I believe in love. Yes, I'm a dreamer.
But I'm not alone, there are more of us than you suspect
And we've got bombs, truth and beauty bombs.

I woke up this morning and I could fly.
Just spread my wings and go.

I think you are beautiful and I would like to kiss you.
I can think up some clever lines, if you'd prefer.
But I wanted to say that, first.

We need more good crazy,
It'd be nice to watch the news and think, "That's fucking insane,"
but feel a little jealous instead of just alone.

Satellite images, maps and blueprints of the whole world, of every city
We could go look it up and know what's there in someone else's words,
or we could get wicked drunk and just go.

I'm gonna close my eyes and spin
and the first person I see is my soulmate.

There are nights when I bump into strangers on empty streets
where I need you to take my hair in your fist
or a car to hit me. Anything.

I used to think that if I killed myself I'd make it awesome,
with balloons and cake and a hired clown, but really
it'd be awesome enough just stopping.

A friend will help you move
A best friend will help you move bodies
But if you have to move your best friends body, you're on your own

We are terrible for each other, and, yes, we are a disaster.
But tell me your heart doesn't race for a hurricane or a burning building.
I'd rather die terrified than live forever.

Who is the real hero?

All quotes by Mitch Hedberg

"Mr. Pibb is a poor imitation of Dr. Pepper. Dude didn't even get his degree."

"I think that Pringles' initial intention was to make tennis balls. But on the day that the rubber was supposed to show up, a big truckload of potatoes arrived. But Pringles is a laid back company. They said, 'Fuck it, cut 'em up.'"

"My lucky number is four billion. That doesn't come in real handy when you're gambling. 'Come on, four billion! Fuck. Seven. I need more dice.'"

"This shirt is dry clean only. Which means it's dirty."

"I like swiss cheese. It's the only cheese you can draw with a pencil and identify. You can draw American cheese, but someone will think it's cheddar. Swiss cheese is the only cheese you can bite and miss. 'Hey Mitch - does that sandwich have cheese on it?' 'Every now and then!' I got some swiss-air on that bite."

"I have a cheese-shredder at home, which is its positive name. They don't call it by its negative name, which is sponge-ruiner. Because I wanted to clean it, and now I have little bits of sponge that would melt easily over tortilla chips."

"My friend said to me, 'You know what I like? Mashed potatoes.' I was like, 'Dude, you have to give me time to guess. If you're going to quiz me you have to insert a pause.'"

"That would be cool if you could eat a good food with a bad food and the good food would cover for the bad food when it got to your stomach. Like you could eat a carrot with an onion ring and they would travel down to your stomach, then they would get there, and the carrot would say, 'It's cool, he's with me.'"

"If you had a friend who was a tightrope walker, and you were walking down a sidewalk, and he fell, that would be completely unacceptable."

"My sister wanted to be an actress, but she never made it. She does live in a trailer. She got half way. She's an actress, she just never gets called to the set."

"You know how they call corn-on-the-cob, 'corn-on-the-cob,' but that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it corn, and every other type of corn, corn-off-the-cob. It's not like if someone cut off my arm they would call it 'Mitch,' and then re-attached it, and call it 'Mitch-all-together.'"

"I had a box of Ritz crackers and on the back of the box of Ritz crackers it had all these suggestions as to what to put on top of the Ritz. It said, 'Try it with turkey and cheese.' 'Try it with peanut butter.' Oh, c'mon man, they're crackers. That's why I got 'em - I like crackers. There ain't no suggestion: 'Put a Ritz on top of a Ritz.' I didn't buy 'em 'cuz they're little edible plates.'"

"When it comes to racism, some people say, 'I don't care if they are black, white, purple or green.' Ah, hold on now... purple or green? You gotta draw the line somewhere. To hell with purple people! Unless they're suffocating... then, help them!"

"I had an apartment and I had a neighbor, and whenever he would knock on my wall I knew he wanted me to turn my music down and that made me angry 'cause I like loud music... so when he knocked on the wall, I'd mess with his head. I'd say 'Go around! I cannot open the wall! I don't know if you have a door on your side but over here there's nothing. It's just flat.'"

"You know that Pepperidge Farm bread, that stuff is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it, and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it, I don't need another step between me and toast."

"My belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. I don't really know what's happening down there. Who is the real hero?"

"Xylophone is spelled with an X. It's like X didn't have enough to do so they had to promise it more. 'Okay, you won't start a lot of words, but you will have a co-staring role in Tic-Tac-Toe. And you will be equated with hugs and kisses. And you will make writing Christmas easier. And you will mark the spot. And you will incidentally start xylophone. Are you happy now?'"

"I was at a club and they had blacklights everywhere. A blacklight is a light that makes everyone look cool... except me, 'cause I was under the impression that the mustard stain came out."

"I like refried beans. I wanna try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good, and we're just wasting time."

"Someone handed me a picture and said, 'This is a picture of me when I was younger.' Every picture of you is when you were younger. 'Here's a picture of me when I'm older.' Where'd you get that camera man?"

"I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, 'You're gonna have to move, you're blocking a fire exit.' As though if there was a fire, I wasn't gonna run. If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit."

I just want to be wonderful.

All quotes from Marilyn Monroe

"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything."

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul."

"It's not true that I had nothing on. I had the radio on."

"A career is wonderful thing, but you can't snuggle up to it on a cold night."

"No girl should ever forget that she doesn't need anyone who doesn't need her."

"I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful."

"I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it."

"I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night, 'There must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest.'"

"We are all of us stars, and we all deserve to twinkle."

"If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere."

"I'm very definitely a woman and I enjoy it."

"I don't know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot."

"It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone."

"She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that's important, you know?"

My body type is my body type.

"Being happy as a female does not require big boobs, a tiny waist, and makeup to cover her flaws. The only flaw we will ever have is believing that anything on the outside matters."
--Shannon McLinden, 'The Me Nobody Knew'

I believe that every human has a finite amount of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

"My responsibility is to keep myself in a certain level of shape and health. But my body type is my body type, and I am not going to starve myself. Everyone calls you on it if you start doing that. So, people should focus on what they are. Nobody has it all. We all have our attributes, and you have to be grateful for those."
--Drew Barrymore

I am yours and you are mine.

It's what is inside of us that's such a mystery, because after all this time we still haven't shown people who we are, even though we want to.

An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

It's hard to get to know her because she keeps her world at arms length. But in those fleeting moments that she has let me in, I have seen in her such an enormous courage and heart that anybody would be lucky to call her theirs.

If you reach out and nobody takes your hand, you stop reaching out, and reach inside instead.

She thought about how happy she was and how sad she was and all the things she wanted to do but never did and all of the things she did but didn't want to.

But it was okay not to fit in everywhere, as long as you did somewhere.

Outwardly, I was everything a well brought up girl should be. Inside, I was screaming.

I want to be able to comfort my friends in tragedy, and I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph. And for all the times in between, I want to be able to look them in the eye.

You can't start a fire without a spark.

She doesn't know any better. He's the only one who's ever told her she was beautiful, and she's afraid she'll never hear it from anyone else.

You're cold, but your beautiful. You're a mess, but I like it that way. If you're always looking for reasons not to be with someone, then you find them. But at some point you just have to let go, and give your heart what it deserves.

We can't expect everybody to be there for us, all at once. So it's a lucky thing that really, all you need is someone.

If she's amazing, she won't be easy. If she's easy, she wont be amazing. If she's worth it, you won't give up. If you give up, you're not worthy.

You’re better than gorgeous. Gorgeous is just lucky DNA. You’re...vivid. Compelling. That’s the sort of thing that comes from inside spaces, so it’s better than gorgeous.

"Stay loose. Stay liquid. Laugh a lot. But be ready."
--'You, Me, and Dupree'

I use mouthwash & sometimes I floss. I've got a family and I drink cups of tea. I've got nostalgic pavements, I've got familiar faces, I've got mixed up memories & I've got favorite places.

I think I wished for you all my life.

There's a lump in my throat, but I don't know why. There are so many things to cry for.

"If you're good at something, never do it for free."
--The Joker, 'The Dark Knight'

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.

It's good for your soul. If you have a desire to write, that means there's stuff in you that wants out. And if you don't write things down, you just forget them.

And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling, but there's no recognition in their eyes.

Everywhere and every time, I am yours and you are mine.

You say "tom-ay-to", we say "tom-ah-to".

“I went out with a guy who once told me I didn’t need to drink to make myself more fun to be around. I told him, I’m drinking so that you’re more fun to be around.”
--Chelsea Handler

"You don't call retarded people retards. It's bad taste. You call your friends retards when they're acting retarded."
--Michael, 'The Office'

Boys are rotten, made out of cotton
Girls are dandy, made out of candy

The evolution of my feelings towards The Jonas Brothers
1) Who the fuck are The Jonas Brothers?
2) Who are these fruits? They're not even cute.
3) Ok, Nick is kind of cute.
4) Ok, they're all kind of cute.
5) Omg, I love this song!
6) Omg, I love them!

Eliza is learning a lot this summer, like the Atkins diet isn`t worth it.

Booty calls totally don`t count.

There's never a dress code if you're cute enough!

She's about my age, and her name is Cheryl, "spelled with a C-h." She actually told me that. Maybe she thinks I can't spell. She's from Oklahoma. I know how to spell that, too: h-i-c-k.

You say "or-eh-gano", we say "ore-gah-no". You say "tom-ay-to", we say "tom-ah-to". You say "erb", and we say "herb" because there's a fucking "h" at the beginning.

I have a girlfriend named Lynn. She spells her name L-Y-N-N. And my old girlfriend's name was Lyn, too. She spells her name L-Y-N. Every now and then I fuck up and call my new girlfriend by my old girlfriend's name. And she can tell because I don't say "n" as long.

I just remembered, last night, Summer and I went to Wings and well, I have to admit we know how to use them boys. We had like $33 put together and we got the bill and it was $32 and we were like, shit! So we left the waitress like 50 cents and I wrote her a little poem:
Sorry about the tip
We may look like we're the shit,
but usually we have boys for this!