Sage > Sage's Quotes

“And the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Oh, the things we invent when we are scared
and want to be rescued.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.”
― Richard Siken

“She believed in angels, and, because she believed, they existed”
― Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

“And no one can ever figure out what you want,
and you won't tell them,
and you realize the person who loves you isn't the one you thought it would be,
and you don't trust him to love you in a way
you would enjoy.

And the boy who loves you the wrong way is filthy.
And the boy who loves you in the wrong way keeps weakening.
You thought if you handed over your body
he'd do something interesting.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be.”
― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

“But the most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are. The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients, and so keeping it alive. Only some stumps are thus nourished. Perhaps they are the parents of the trees that make up the forest of today. A tree’s most important means of staying connected to other trees is a “wood wide web” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate network that allows the sharing of an enormous amount of information and goods. Scientific research aimed at understanding the astonishing abilities of this partnership between fungi and plant has only just begun. The reason trees share food and communicate is that they need each other. It takes a forest to create a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests. Perhaps the saddest plants of all are those we have enslaved in our agricultural systems. They seem to have lost the ability to communicate, and, as Wohlleben says, are thus rendered deaf and dumb. “Perhaps farmers can learn from the forests and breed a little more wildness back into their grain and potatoes,” he advocates, “so that they’ll be more talkative in the future.” Opening”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries from a Secret World

“This is because a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”
― Elie Wiesel

“Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“I have decided to stick to love...Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Do you think I'm pretty?
I think you're beautiful
Beautiful?
You are so beautiful, it hurts sometimes.”
― Richelle Mead, Vampire Academy

“I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with someone even if they could have. I need to know these people exist.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“there's nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood. And understanding someone else.”
― Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle

“The bravest are the most tender; the loving are the daring.”
― Bayard Taylor

“Does the sun ask itself, “Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?” No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?” No it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “Am I as big as other suns in other galaxies?” No, it burns, it shines.”
― Andrea Dworkin

“Even when my days appeared uneventful, I was in my head all the time but rarely thinking about myself in that bigger, deeper way that used to make my life feel meaningful. What consumed most of my mental effort had minimal emotional rewards. It simply left me feeling drained. I finally understood why so many women said they lost themselves after becoming mothers. I no longer had the mental and emotional capacity to tend to my interior life, my creative life, my meaning-driven life. At the end of the day, I had nothing left in my mind to give.”
― Gemma Hartley, Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women, and the Way Forward