Manylak > Manylak's Quotes

“Old things have strange hungers.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

“I'd three times sooner go to war than suffer childbirth once.”
― Euripides, Medea

“It is not wise to find symbols in everything that one sees. It makes life too full of terrors.”
― Oscar Wilde, Salome: A Tragedy in One Act

“I was born with a knife in one hand and a wound in the other.”
― Gregory Orr, The Caged Owl: New & Selected Poems

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,
O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.
Or else misgraffed in respect of years,
O spite! too old to be engag’d to young.
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,
O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Actually, you said Love, for you,
is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’s
terrifying. No one
will ever want to sleep with you.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“She was beautiful, in the quiet way that lonely, unnoticed people are beautiful to those who notice them.”
― Jedediah Berry

“Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“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 of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“We were like gods at the dawning of the world, & our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I feel like I could eat the world raw.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“The thought was this: that all my life had been murk and depths, but I was not a part of that dark water. I was a creature within it.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Who you are is limited only by who you think you are.”
― Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

“My body is but wax and wick for flame. When the candle burns out, the light shines elsewhere.”
― Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

“Not a perfect soul, I am perfecting. Not a human being, I am a human becoming.”
― Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

“Name yourself in your heart and know who you are.”
― Normandi Ellis, Awakening Osiris: A New Translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend...”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“What is dark within me, illumine.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“Real devotion is an unbroken receptivity to the truth. Real devotion is rooted in an awed and reverent gratitude, but one that is lucid, grounded, and intelligent.”
― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“BEFRIENDING THE BODY

Trauma victims cannot recover until they become familiar with and befriend the sensations in their bodies. Being frightened means that you live in a body that is always on guard. Angry people live in angry bodies. The bodies of child-abuse victims are tense and defensive until they find a way to relax and feel safe. In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.

In my practice I begin the process by helping my patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies—not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements.

All too often, however, drugs such as Abilify, Zyprexa, and Seroquel, are prescribed instead of teaching people the skills to deal with such distressing physical reactions. Of course, medications only blunt sensations and do nothing to resolve them or transform them from toxic agents into allies.

The mind needs to be reeducated to feel physical sensations, and the body needs to be helped to tolerate and enjoy the comforts of touch. Individuals who lack emotional awareness are able, with practice, to connect their physical sensations to psychological events. Then they can slowly reconnect with themselves.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

“I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on pavement.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.”
― Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita