Greta Compton > Greta's Quotes

“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”
― Frederick Douglass, Autobiographies: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass / My Bondage and My Freedom / Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

“Everything does not happen for a reason. Believing this does not ease the pain for anyone. It hides it.”
― RJ Blizzard

“Resentment is often a woman's inner signal that she has been ignoring an important God-given responsibility - that of making choices.”
― Brenda Waggoner

“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?”
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“This was a land of lost souls. Human beings who had weathered great storms in life, had suffered unspeakable loss, had been put to painful tests of existence, and still remained standing—but just barely.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early

“When there is suffering, we look for a reason. That reason is easiest found within oneself.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest

“Maybe the world wasn’t made of universals that could be summed up in neat little packages. Maybe there were just people. People who were tired and hurt and lonely and kind in their own way and their own time.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest:

“My mother was like sand. The kind that warms you on a beach when you come shivering out of the cold water. The kind that clings to your body, leaving its impression on your skin to remind you where you’ve been and where you’ve come from. The kind you keep finding in your shoes and your pockets long after you’ve left the beach. She was also like the sand that archaeologists dig through. Layers and layers of sand that have kept dinosaur bones together for millions of years. And as hot and dusty and plain as that sand might be, those archaeologists are grateful for it, because without it to keep the bones in place, everything would scatter. Everything would fall apart.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early

“You have to look for the things that connect us all. Find the ways our paths cross, our lives intersect, and our hearts collide.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early

“Memories were like sunshine. They warmed you up and left a pleasant glow, but you couldn't hold them.”
― Clare Vanderpool, Moon Over Manifest

“Miss Kelly, you know, when you wear my flower you make it beautiful.”
― Elwood P. Dowd

“I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whomever I'm with.”
― Elwood P. Dowd

“In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”
― Elwood P. Dowd

“Aren't we all waiting to be read by someone, praying that they'll tell us that we make sense?”
― Rudy Francisco

“She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.”
― Rudy Francisco, Helium

“I'm still learning to love the parts of me that no one claps for.”
― Rudy Francisco

“My hobbies include editing my life story, hiding behind metaphors

And trying to convince my shadow that I’m someone worth following”
― Rudy Francisco

“You want to know how I got these scars. I swallowed my pride and then it crawled its way out of my mouth.”
― Rudy Francisco

“perhaps we should love ourselves so fiercely,
that when others see us
they know exactly how it should be done.”
― Rudy Francisco

“Listening to other people's opinions about you is a pretty shitty way to determine how you feel about yourself.”
― Kianu Starr

“Tomorrow will be better.”
“But what if it’s not?” I asked.
“Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.”
― Morgan Matson, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
― Maya Angelou

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“Sorrow and joy, he thought, so inextricably entwined that he could scarcely tell where one left off and the other began.”
― Jan Karon, At Home in Mitford

“With my mother’s death,” Lewis wrote, “all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security.”
― Jan Karon, Out to Canaan

“Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Anais Nin

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
― Jim Morrison