She decided to try life as a pearl for awhile.

...And how we get caught up in so many entanglements and insecurities and worries and obsessions and trivial arguments while life races right by us shaking its head at how seriously we take ourselves.

Any given moment can change your life, you just have to be there.

Tired of being an oyster, she decided to try life as a pearl for awhile.

We all let people into our lives, but you will find that really good friends let you into your own.

"The bird a nest, the spider a web, the human friendship."

--William Blake

It was ice cream headaches and sweet avalanche.

“Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”

--John Wesley

It was ice cream headaches and sweet avalanche when the pearls in our shells got up to dance.

I don't think that people with OCD go to regular people's heaven when they die. I think they go to the Container Store and organize forever.

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.”

--Robert Orben

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at the stars because we are human?" Pointless really. Do the stars gaze back? Now that's a question.

"Now: I believe that you've had most of your important memories by the time you're thirty. After that, memory becomes water overflowing into an already full cup. New experiences just don't register in the same way or with the same impact. I could be shooting heroin with the Princess of Wales, naked in a crashing jet, and the experience still couldn't compare to the time the cops chased us after we threw the Taylors' patio furniture into their pool in the eleventh grade. You know what I mean."

--Douglas Coupland, 'Life After God'

"Nothing is impossible to a willing heart."

--John Heywood

I think that's what's wrong with the world; no one says what they feel, they always hold it inside. They're sad, but they don't cry. They're happy, but they don't sing or dance. They're angry, but they don't scream. Because if they do, they feel ashamed and that's the worst feeling in the world. So everyone walks with their heads down and no one sees how beautiful the sky really is.

"One of the hardest things to realize," she said "is that our 'someday' is right now."

She has had her cake, declared it delicious, and is enjoying every bite.

Sometimes 'right back where you started from' is right where you belong.

I love what you are.

Since things don't always go right, it's nice to have someone like you on my left.

It's simple. I prefer my eggs over easy, my coffee with cream, and my love with reckless abandon.

With hearts... the best thing you can do is invite someone in, make them some tea, and secretly hope they don't break anything.

"You can’t expect to find the right someone until you know who you are, what matters to you, and what makes your heart happy."

--Nicholas Jonas

"You can fall in love at first sight with a place as with a person."

--Alec Waugh

"Loving you is worth everything to me."

--'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'

You listen to me. I've been alive a bit longer than you. And dead a lot longer than that. I've seen things you couldn't imagine. And done things I prefer you didn't. Don't exactly have a reputation for being a thinker. I follow my blood, which doesn't exactly rush in the direction of my brain. So I make a lot of mistakes. A lot of wrong bloody calls. A hundred-plus years. And there's only one thing I've ever been sure of. You. Hey, look at me. I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, it's not because I want you. Or because I can't have you. It has nothin' to do with me. I love what you are. What you do. How you try. I've seen your kindness, and your strength. I've seen the best and the worst of you. And I understand, with perfect clarity, exactly what you are. You're a hell of a woman. You're the one.

I want an end result there's a recipe for.

All quotes by author Deb Caletti

"What they say is, life goes on, and that is mostly true. The mail is delivered and the Christmas lights go up and down from the houses and the ladders get put away and you open yet another box of cereal. In time, the volume of my feelings would be turned down in gentle increments to near quiet, and yet the record would still spin, always spin."

--'Honey, Baby, Sweetheart'

"Sometimes love is a surprise, an instant of recognition, a sudden gift at a sudden moment that makes everything different from then on. Some people will say that's not love, that you can't really love someone you don't know. But, I'm not so sure. Love doesn't seem to follow a plan; it's not a series of steps. It can hit with the force of nature--an earthquake, a tidal wave, a storm of wild relentless energy that is beyond your simple attempts at control."

"We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together."

--'Honey, Baby, Sweetheart'

"Or so we don't think about how we're just vulnerable specks trying to survive on a violent, tumultuous planet, at the mercy of hurricanes and volcanoes and asteroids and terrorists and disease and a million other things. We concentrate on having little thoughts so we don't have big thoughts. You've got to ignore the one big truth - life is fatal."

--'The Nature of Jade'

"If your life truths have to be protected like some people keep their couches in plastic, then ciao. Have a nice life. If we bump into each other at Target, I'm the one buying the sour gummy worms and that's all you need to know about me."

--'Wild Roses'

"I put the guitar back in the case. I can't even look at it anymore. Instead, I want to make brownies. I want an end result there's a recipe for. I want to combine eggs and water and oil and chocolate and flour and sugar and vanilla and get something fulfilling."

--'The Fortunes of Indigo Skye'

"I'll tell you one thing about me, and that is that I'm not too keen on being bossed around. If, say, my Mom tells me to empty the dishwasher, I like to wait a little bit, you know, not hop up and do it right away, because then it feels more like my own idea. That's a little problematic when you have an actual boss."

--'The Fortunes of Indigo Skye'

"Maybe love, too, is beautiful because it has a wildness that cannot be tamed. I don't know. All I know is that passion can take you up like a house of cards in a tornado, leaving destruction in its wake. Or it can let you alone because you've built a stone wall against it, set out the armed guards to keep it from touching you. The real trick is not to let it in, but to hold on. To understand that the heart is as wide and vast as the universe, but that we come to know it best from here, this place is gravity and stability, where our feet can still touch ground."

"Here is something that Peach, one of the Casserole Queens, says about men and women and love. You know that scene in Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo is standing on the ground looking longingly at Juliet on the balcony above him? One of the most romantic moments in all of literary history? Peach says there's no way that Romeo was standing down there to profess his undying devotion. The truth, Peach says, is that Romeo was just trying to look up Juliet's skirt."

--'Honey, Baby, Sweetheart'

"It was more work than it seemed, looking through a telescope, as the Earth was continually moving and you had to move along with it. You don't realize how fast this actually happens, and it's kind of both creepy and wonderful when you stop to think about it. And it makes you realize there's absolutely no way to avoid change. You can sit there and cross your arms and refuse it, but underneath you, things are still spinning away."

--'Wild Roses'

"'Are you getting your period?' She narrows her eyes. 'No! God. I hate that. I hate when every negative act is blamed on your period.' Sometimes bitchiness is just bitchiness, happily unattached to anything hormonal. It should get full credit."

"At night sometimes. You'd climb the fence. You'd watch the stars. You'd tilt back your head and look at the sky. You'd think it over, whatever it was."

Beauty comes from a life well lived.

"Beauty comes from a life well lived. If you've lived well, your smile lines are in the right places, and your frown lines aren't too bad, what more do you need?"

--Jennifer Garner

"When talking about one's beauty, I'd put it this way: Like a good hostess, you have to enjoy your own damn party, or else who will? I think taking it too seriously can ruin it."

--Diane Lane

There is no magic cure, no making it all go away forever. There are only small steps upward; an easier day, an unexpected laugh, a mirror that doesn't matter anymore.

Just do it.

"No one but a fool would measure their satisfaction by what the world thinks of it."

--Oliver Goldsmith

“It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

--Frederick Douglass

"I am thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning and gutters that need fixing because it means I have a home... I am thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby."

--Nancie J. Carmody

"You can have all the faith you want in spirits, the afterlife, and heaven and hell... but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. 'Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to get through the day, but when it comes time to cross the street, I know you look both ways."

--'House'

"I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything."

--Reese Witherspoon

I feel like a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece, and I'm not even sure what the picture should be.

"Yesterday you said tomorrow. Just do it."

--Nike

May your organs fail before your dreams do.

"Lately I've been struck with how I really love what you can't see in a photograph."

--Diane Arbus

“Maybe that’s what you got when you stood over your grief, facing it finally. A sense of it’s depths, its area, the distance across, and the way over around it, whichever you choose in the end.”

--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

"It is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops."

--Nikki Giovanni

"The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that, we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

--Maya Angelou

"Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward."

--Amy Tan, 'The Kitchen God's Wife'

"Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

"Too many good things all seem the same after a while."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

It seemed that the oven heated up all of her goodness and it came shining back in every scrumptious bite.

"I just don't like to see you waste your time on silly things," he said. "Well then," she said "Close your eyes."

“‘But if everything was always smooth and perfect,’ she continued, ‘you’d get too used to that, you know? You have to have a little bit of disorganization now and there. Otherwise, you’ll never really enjoy it when things go right.”

--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

"Okay, I thought. Here you are. You Are Here. And you move forward because that's the way it works; thats the only place you can go. You keep going until it stops hurting, or until you find new things to hurt you worse, I guess. And that is the human condition, all of us lurching along in our own private miseries, because that's the way it is. Because, I guess, God didn't give us any choice. You grow up. You learn."

--Jennifer Weiner, 'Good in Bed'

"Opening yourself up, even if it means your heart and soul are crushed. That's what makes you stronger. That's what gives you the power to move on, put the past behind you. To get out there, and get your heart stomped on all over again."

--'The Bedford Diaries'

"There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them."

--André Gide

"Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not."

--Virgil Thomson

I'm alone and yet I don't feel lonely.

"But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happened that day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innocence, trust, and restlessness; the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself. I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found."

--Amy Tan, 'The Joy Luck Club'

Now I'm running towards both finding myself and creating myself. I've never felt better. I'm alone and yet I don't feel lonely. I'm finally starting to realize, in this life, you have to save yourself.

We enter the world alone and we leave it alone and everything that happens in between we owe it to ourselves to find a little company. We need help, we need support, otherwise we are in it by ourselves. Strangers, cut off from each other, and we forget, just how connected we all are. So instead, we choose love, we choose life, and, for a moment, we feel just a little bit less alone.

This life was fleeting.

"There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those."

--Michael Nolan

"Isn't that how it is when you must decide with your heart? You are not just choosing one thing over another. You are choosing what you want. And you are also choosing what somebody else does not want, and all the consequences that follow. You can tell yourself, 'That's not my problem,' but those words do not wash the trouble away. Maybe it is no longer a problem in your life. But it is always a problem in your heart."

--Amy Tan, 'The Kitchen God's Wife

“I was never going to be perfect, and what had all my efforts gotten me, really in the end? A boyfriend who pushed me away the minute I cracked, making the mistake of being human. Great grades that would still never be good enough for girls who knew everything. A quiet, still life, free of any risks, and so many sleepless nights to spend within it, my heart heavy, keeping secrets my sister had empowered herself by telling. This life was fleeting, and I was still searching for the way I wanted to spend it that it was, not yet. But something told me I wouldn’t find it here.”

--Sarah Dessen, 'The Truth About Forever'

There is always some madness in love.

"Well, sometimes love seems easy. Like it's easy to love rain and hawks. And it's easy to love wild plums and the moon. But with people, seems like love's a hard thing to know. It gets all mixed up. I mean, you can love one person in one way and another person in another way. But how do you know you love the right one in every way?"

--'Where the Heart Is'

“And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.”

--Nicholas Sparks, 'The Notebook'

“True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.”

--Francesco Petrarch

Love is where you find it. Songs on the radio. Friends at the table. Smiles in the backyard. Stories passed around. Kids in the park. Brown leaves. Cool breeze. And finding that special someone.

Everybody in this world has to do a whole lot more than to love the one they spend a lifetime looking for. You just can't keep your love in a cosy little shell. Gotta love the one you love and the whole darn world as well.

The past is behind us, love is in front and all around us.

All quotes from Grey's Anatomy

"All you can do is be brave enough to get out there. You fought, you loved, you lost. Walk tall."

"I make no apologies for how I choose to repair what you broke."

"So chin up. Put your shoulders back, walk proud, strut a little. Don't lick your wounds; celebrate them. The scars you bear are the signs of a competitor. You're in a lion fight. Just because you didn't win doesn't mean you don't know how to roar."

"There comes a moment when it's more than just a game, and you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away. I could quit, but here's the thing: I love the playing field."

It's hardest to love the ordinary things.

All quotes from Story People

"I'm fastest," he said, "when I'm the one that gets to say go."

In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants & hold the world in arms grown strong with love & there may be many things we forget in the days to come, but this will not be one of them.

Whenever she stood in line at the bank, or while waiting for the bus, I noticed her feet. The right always in front & perpendicular to the left just so. Even after 2 children, she still dreamed of being a dancer.

"They only look small," she said, "if you're someone who's fond of being bigger than everyone else."

"I don't have many vices beyond caring what other people think," she said, "but that's a big one."

In her dream, she said she was a bird who fell asleep & dreamed she was a man who wore bright colors & treated women poorly & she asked all the other birds what it could mean & they all thought it was something in the air & everyone agreed how lucky they were to be birds & not men.

He told me that the night his mother died, there were storms & far away he saw purple lightning & someone left the window open & the room filled with a swirl of butterflies & she slipped out quietly without anyone noticing & I'm sure the grief was softer because of that.

"If we all jumped up & down at the same time," I said, "I'll bet we could move the world." She nodded. "I'd throw in five bucks toward it," she said, "just to see the old man get his butt off the couch."

"I still fly a lot in my dreams," she told us, "but I try to stay close to the ground. At my age, a fall can be pretty serious."

Whenever I go on a trip, I think about all the homes I've had & I remember how little has changed about what comforts me.

Can I count on you to be there, no matter what? she said & I said no & she said what kind of friend are you? & I said the kind who won't lie to you any time you want & I think she kept me around as a curiosity after that.

"I like people until they give me reason not to," she said. "Some days they just drop like flies, though," she added.

Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life.

I'm not that good at being a tourist because I'm always looking at the way the light shines in your hair or the way your dress opens to the wind & my favorite places in the world are places filled with you.

"My favorite thing is the wind," she said, "& my second favorite is chocolate but I just do that so I don't get too skinny & blow away."

"What do I get for this?" I said & the angel gave me a catalog filled with toasters & clock radios & a basketball signed by Michael Jordan & I said, "But this is just stuff" & the angel smiled at me & swallowed me in her arms. "I'm so glad you said that," she whispered to me. "I knew you still had a chance."

I'm a good jumper, he said, but I'm not so good at landing. Maybe you should stay closer to the ground then, I said & he shook his head & said the ground was the whole problem in the first place.

I have seen him in Hawaiian shirts, she said, so there is nothing hidden between us.

She said you know what heaven is like? & I said I wasn't sure & she laughed & said grown-ups didn't know much at all about important stuff & I said I had to agree with her even though I was one of them myself.

I was never good at hide & seek because I'd always make enough noise so my friends would be sure to find me. I don't have anyone to play those games with any more, but now & then I make enough noise just in case someone is still looking & hasn't found me yet.

There are 7 levels of hell, she said, & I think one of them is reserved for people who bring jello salads to every potluck they go to.

She left pieces of her life behind her everywhere she went. It's easier to feel the sunlight without them, she said.

They left me with your shadow, saying things like Life is not fair & I believed them for a long time. But today, I remembered the way you laughed & the heat of your hand in mine & I knew that life is more fair than we can ever imagine if we are there to live it.

She kept asking if the stories were true. I kept asking her if it mattered. We finally gave up. She was looking for a place to stand & I wanted a place to fly.

This is a wheelbarrow I filled with all my dreams & my favorite clothes & now all I need is someone to help me push it.

There came a moment in the middle of the song when she suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room & after that she never forgot she was part of something much bigger.

"It's hardest to love the ordinary things," she said, "but you get lots of opportunities to practice."