Vanessa > Vanessa's Quotes

“If you only focus on the things you leave behind, you'll never go anywhere.”
― Katie Kacvinsky, First Comes Love

“Loving relationships, though necessary for life, health, and growth, are among the most complicated skills. Before we can be successful at achieving relationships, it is necessary that we broaden our understanding of how they work, what they mean and how what we do and believe can enhance or destroy them. We can accomplish this only if we are willing to put in the energy and take the time to study failed relationships as well as examine successful ones. Loving relationships cannot be taken lightly. Unless we are looking for pain, they must not be forever approached in a trial and error fashion. Too many of us have experienced the cost of these lackadaisical approaches in terms of tears, confusion and guilt.”
― Leo Buscaglia, Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships

“When we give ourselves in love we become our most vulnerable. We are never safe. We become open to disappointment and hurt.”
― Leo Buscaglia, Loving Each Other: The Challenge of Human Relationships

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott

“Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.”
― Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.”
― Bob Marley

“If I look back I am lost.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“If you aren't on Goodreads, you should be. I've said it before, it's like Facebook for readers on crack.”
― Colleen Hoover

“Sometimes life gets in your way.
it gets all up in your damn way.
But it doesn't get all up in your damn way
because it wants you to just give up and let it take control.
Life doesn't get all up in your damn way because it just wants you to hand it all over and be carried along.

Life wants you to fight it
Learn how to make it your own.
it wants you to grab and axe and hack through the wood.
It wants you to get a sledgehammer and break through concrete.
It wants you to grab a torch and burn through the metal and steel until you can reach through and grab it.

Life wants you to grab all the organized, the alphabetized, the chronological, the sequenced. It wants you to mix it all together,
stir it up,
blend it.”
― Colleen Hoover, Slammed

“My lack of access to the real world has been replaced completely by books, and it can’t be healthy to live in a land of happily ever afters.”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

“Sometimes things happen in life that you didn’t plan for. All you can do is suck it up and start mapping out a new plan.”
― Colleen Hoover, Point of Retreat

“Not everyone gets a happily every after. Life is real and sometimes it's ugly and you just have to learn how to cope.”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

“And once again in my new world full of heartache and lies, this hopeless boy somehow finds a way to make me smile.”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

“I'm pretty sure my addiction to reading has just reached a whole new level.”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless

“Life wants you to fight it.
Learn how to make it your own. ”
― Colleen Hoover, Slammed

“We try so hard to hide everything we're really feeling from those who probably need to know our true feelings the most.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“You can obsess and obsess over how things ended—what you did wrong or could have done differently—but there's not much of a point. It's not like it'll change anything. So really, why worry?”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“The trouble is, sometimes words are like arrows. Once you shoot them, there's no going back.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“No matter how much you think you know a person—no matter how pretty they act, or how popular they seem, you can never know what their lives are really like.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“My heart didn't fail, someone failed my heart.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“There’s always that one guy who gets a hold on you. Not like your best friend’s brother who gets you in a headlock kind of hold. Or the little kid you’re babysitting who attaches himself to your leg kind of hold.
I’m talking epic. Life changing. The “can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t do your homework, can’t stop giggling, can’t remember anything but his smile” kind of hold. Like, Wesley and Buttercup proportions. Harry and Sally. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. The kind of hold in all your favorite ’80s songs, like the “Must Have Been Love”s, the “Take My Breath Away”s, the “Eternal Flame”s—the ones you sing into a hairbrush-microphone at the top of your lungs with your best friends on a Saturday night.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“Sometimes, remembering hurts too much.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“All of a sudden I felt invisible. Forgotten. Like the universe had played a really mean practical joke on me, even though I've never done anything to deserve it.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“In the midst of happiness or despair
in sorrow or in joy
in pleasure or in pain:
Do what is right and you will be at peace.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“And yes, when he kisses you, the rest of the world disappears and your brain shuts off and all you can feel are his lips and nothing else matters.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“Every single part of me ached, sort of like the universe was exploding inside my skull, or like my body was tearing itself apart in order to rebuild everything from the inside out. To re-create some twisted semblance of me.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“Because love is worth it after all.”
― Jess Rothenberg, The Catastrophic History of You and Me

“There was no point in waiting for someone who hadn't asked, and there was no point in wishing for something that would never happen.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, The Geography of You and Me

“But there's no such thing as a completely fresh start. Everything new arrives on the heels of something old, and every beginning comes at the cost of an ending.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, The Geography of You and Me

“There was a lump in her throat as she watched him fidget with the buttons on his vest, and it struck her as the truest form of kindness, the most basic sort of love: to be worried about the one who was worrying about you.”
― Jennifer E. Smith, The Geography of You and Me