Julia's Book Haven

“I want you to love me.” I said softly. “But if not, then I want to be the closest thing to you loving me. I want your loyalty. I want your honesty. I want you by my side and no one else’s. I want your body. I want your mind. I want to know your hopes and dreams so I could one day make them reality.”
― J.J. McAvoy, Ruthless People

“Courage
It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.”
― Anne Sexton

“I don't get my tees at a mall, Tess. No decent tee can be bought at a fuckin' mall. A good tee is bought during an experience.”
― Kristen Ashley, Wild Man

“Good Bones"

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
― Maggie Smith