Powerless To Change Things Quotes

“Eight o'clock, no later,
You light the lamps,

The big one by the large window,
The small one on your desk,

They are not to see by--
It is still twilight out over the sand,

The scrub oaks and cranberries.
Even the small birds have not settled

For sleep yet, out of the reach
Of prowling foxes. No,

You light the lamps because
You are alone in your small house

And the wicks sputtering gold
Are like two visitors with good stories

They will tell slowly, in soft voices,
While the air outside turns quietly

A grainy and luminous blue.
You wish it would never change--

But of course the darkness keeps
Its appointment. Each evening,

An inscrutable presence, it has the final word
Outside every door.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

“That goddamn restaurant had claimed her from the day she was born and now she understood that she would never outrun it.
/June rested against the hood of the car, crossed her arms, and continued smoking, taking stock of the new shape of her life.
She was overworked and overtired and lonely. She missed the parents who had never truly understood her, missed the man who had never truly loved her, missed the future she thought she had been building for herself, missed the young girl she used to be.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Malibu Rising