James > James's Quotes

“But a God that did everything we thought was right and good wouldn’t be the creator of the universe. He would be our puppet. He wouldn’t be God. There’s more to everything than we can know.”
― Min Jin Lee

“If a man can’t protect and provide it’ll make him mean or it’ll drive him crazy.”
― Amy Harmon, The Songbook of Benny Lament

“continuously horrific hell permeated by a constantly perfect heaven.”
― Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit: A Love Story

“Why should the injured, the still bleeding, bear the onus of forgiveness?”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“It takes a special kind of person to make someone else great,” Mother said to me in the early days with Richard. “To lift them up and help them achieve their dreams.”
― Sally Hepworth, The Things We Keep

“We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“I hope you defy the odds of most dreams and actually accomplish yours.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.”
― Colleen Hoover, It Ends with Us

“Love cleanses, beloved. It doesn’t beat you down. It doesn’t cast blame.” He kissed her again, wishing he had the right words to say what he felt. Words would never be enough to show her what he meant. “My love isn’t a weapon. It’s a lifeline. Reach out and take hold, and don’t let go.”
― Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love

“tardiness was allowable only in babies born past their due date.”
― Lisa Scottoline, Eternal

“I know, as a mother, that she would want you to live the life that God gave you. Your survival will be her triumph.”
― Lisa Scottoline, Eternal

“I’ve wanted to quit living it so many times, but then moments like these remind me that happiness isn’t some permanent thing we’re all trying to achieve in life, it’s merely a thing that shows up every now and then, sometimes in tiny doses that are just substantial enough to keep us going.”
― Colleen Hoover, Reminders of Him

“IN THE DARKNESS, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“To allow yourself to play with another person is no small risk. It means allowing yourself to be open, to be exposed, to be hurt. It is the human equivalent of the dog rolling on its back—I know you won’t hurt me, even though you can. It is the dog putting its mouth around your hand and never biting down. To play requires trust and love.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“he had learned to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Everything at this moment is so sublime that Jake thinks, Freeze! I want to stay right here forever. But of course, life doesn’t work that way. The waves fold over themselves again and again and again, and nothing can stop them.”
― Elin Hilderbrand, 28 Summers

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.”
― Khalil Gibran

“All this time.

This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I'd always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Try it again," I said. "Kiss me."
"No," he said.
"Kiss me."
"No," And then he smiled. "You kiss me."
I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And he kept kissing me back.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Who am I? Who am I?”
“You’re Jude St. Francis. You are my oldest, dearest friend. You’re the son of Harold Stein and Julia Altman. You’re the friend of Malcolm Irvine, of Jean-Baptiste Marion, of Richard Goldfarb, of Andy Contractor, of Lucien Voigt, of Citizen van Straaten, of Rhodes Arrowsmith, of Elijah Kozma, of Phaedra de los Santos, of the Henry Youngs. You’re a New Yorker. You live in SoHo. You volunteer for an arts organization; you volunteer for a food kitchen. You’re a swimmer. You’re a baker. You’re a cook. You’re a reader. You have a beautiful voice, though you never sing anymore. You’re an excellent pianist. You’re an art collector. You write me lovely messages when I’m away. You’re patient. You’re generous. You’re the best listener I know. You’re the smartest person I know, in every way. You’re the bravest person I know, in every way. You’re a lawyer. You’re the chair of the litigation department at Rosen Pritchard and Klein. You love your job; you work hard at it. You’re a mathematician. You’re a logician. You’ve tried to teach me, again and again. You were treated horribly. You came out on the other end. You were always you.”

"And who are you?"
"I'm Willem Ragnarsson. And I will never let you go.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life