Barbara > Barbara's Quotes

“We're each other's questions, aren't we? The question that never gets an answer.”
― Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”
― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
― Émile Zola

“You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.”
― Rick Riordan

“Creativity takes courage. ”
― Henri Matisse

“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.”
― Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

“Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Reality continues to ruin my life.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“Entire lives aren't lessons, but there are lessons in lives.”
― Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. —John A. Shedd”
― Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End

“I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with.
Tell me why you loved them,
then tell me why they loved you.

Tell me about a day in your life you didn’t think you’d live through.
Tell me what the word home means to you
and tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name
just by the way you describe your bedroom
when you were eight.

See, I want to know the first time you felt the weight of hate,
and if that day still trembles beneath your bones.

Do you prefer to play in puddles of rain
or bounce in the bellies of snow?
And if you were to build a snowman,
would you rip two branches from a tree to build your snowman arms
or would leave your snowman armless
for the sake of being harmless to the tree?
And if you would,
would you notice how that tree weeps for you
because your snowman has no arms to hug you
every time you kiss him on the cheek?

Do you kiss your friends on the cheek?
Do you sleep beside them when they’re sad
even if it makes your lover mad?
Do you think that anger is a sincere emotion
or just the timid motion of a fragile heart trying to beat away its pain?

See, I wanna know what you think of your first name,
and if you often lie awake at night and imagine your mother’s joy
when she spoke it for the very first time.

I want you to tell me all the ways you’ve been unkind.
Tell me all the ways you’ve been cruel.
Tell me, knowing I often picture Gandhi at ten years old
beating up little boys at school.

If you were walking by a chemical plant
where smokestacks were filling the sky with dark black clouds
would you holler “Poison! Poison! Poison!” really loud
or would you whisper
“That cloud looks like a fish,
and that cloud looks like a fairy!”

Do you believe that Mary was really a virgin?
Do you believe that Moses really parted the sea?
And if you don’t believe in miracles, tell me —
how would you explain the miracle of my life to me?

See, I wanna know if you believe in any god
or if you believe in many gods
or better yet
what gods believe in you.
And for all the times that you’ve knelt before the temple of yourself,
have the prayers you asked come true?
And if they didn’t, did you feel denied?
And if you felt denied,
denied by who?

I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day you’re feeling good.
I wanna know what you see when you look in the mirror
on a day you’re feeling bad.
I wanna know the first person who taught you your beauty
could ever be reflected on a lousy piece of glass.

If you ever reach enlightenment
will you remember how to laugh?

Have you ever been a song?
Would you think less of me
if I told you I’ve lived my entire life a little off-key?
And I’m not nearly as smart as my poetry
I just plagiarize the thoughts of the people around me
who have learned the wisdom of silence.

Do you believe that concrete perpetuates violence?
And if you do —
I want you to tell me of a meadow
where my skateboard will soar.

See, I wanna know more than what you do for a living.
I wanna know how much of your life you spend just giving,
and if you love yourself enough to also receive sometimes.
I wanna know if you bleed sometimes
from other people’s wounds,
and if you dream sometimes
that this life is just a balloon —
that if you wanted to, you could pop,
but you never would
‘cause you’d never want it to stop.

If a tree fell in the forest
and you were the only one there to hear —
if its fall to the ground didn’t make a sound,
would you panic in fear that you didn’t exist,
or would you bask in the bliss of your nothingness?

And lastly, let me ask you this:

If you and I went for a walk
and the entire walk, we didn’t talk —
do you think eventually, we’d… kiss?

No, wait.
That’s asking too much —
after all,
this is only our first date.”
― Andrea Gibson

“I would love to say
that you
make me
weak in the knees
but
to be quite upfront
and completely
truthful
you
make my body
forget
it has knees
at all.”
― Tyler Knott Gregson, Love Language

“Sometimes I sit alone under the stars and think of the galaxies inside my heart and truly wonder if anyone will ever want to make sense of all that I am”
― Christopher Poindexter

“A truth should exist,
it should not be used
like this. If I love you

is that a fact or a weapon?”
― Margaret Atwood

“I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so.”
― John Donne, The Complete English Poems

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“And the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you.”
― Nazım Hikmet

“If I lived a million lives, I would've felt a million feelings and I still would've fallen a million times for you.”
― robert m drake

“love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one”
― E.E. Cummings, Selected Poems

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
― Fitzgerald F. Scott, The Great Gatsby

“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald

“By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
together in their sleep will defeat the darkness”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“We are made of all those who have built and broken us.”
― Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild

“there isn't enough of anything
as long as we live. But at intervals
a sweetness appears and, given a chance
prevails.”
― Raymond Carver, Ultramarine: Poems

“The human heart has a way of making itself large again even after it's been broken into a million pieces.”
― Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County

“You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.”
― Aberjhani, Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black

“And so I wait. I wait for time to heal the pain and raise me to me feet once again - so that I can start a new path, my own path, the one that will make me whole again.”
― Jack Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II

“Every broken heart has screamed at one time or another: Why can't you see who I truly am?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.”
― Sarah Cross, Kill Me Softly