Charlie

“It is not Napoleon who prepares himself for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once represented as a great deed.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace

“Why not get what you want? Why pretend to make someone fit what she is not? It doesn’t mean you don’t love her. It means you make a choice and say yes or no, because you love yourself also. You make a choice, and you are responsible for your choices. Then if the choices are not working well, you do not blame yourself. You simply make another choice.”
― Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship

“I think,” Hoa says slowly, “that if you love someone, you don’t get to choose how they love you back.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“When we go into a relationship, we become selfish because we are needy. It’s all about me. We are so selfish that we want the person with whom we are sharing our life to be as needy as we are. We want “someone who needs me” in order to justify our existence, in order to feel that we have a reason to be alive. We think we are searching for love, but we are searching for “someone who needs me,” someone we can control and manipulate.”
― Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship