#eli

You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwillingly giving you for a portrait - a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with ever modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candlelight, when all the house is still. ↗

— Hope Mirrlees

#faces #friendship #portraiture #when-all-the-house-is-still #friendship

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#faith #feelings #gentleness #impostor #prayer

every healthy marriage is composed of walls and windows. The windows are the aspects of your relationship that are open to the world—that is, the necessary gaps through which you interact with family and friends; the walls are the barriers of trust behind which you guard the most intimatesecrets of your marriage. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#fidelity #marriage #family

You know how the bonds of family are, my lady... They cling as tightly as vines. And sometimes, like vines, they cling tightly enough to kill. ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#seelie-court #family

On our earth, before writing was invented, before the printing press was invented, poetry flourished. That is why we know that poetry is like bread; it should be shared by all, by scholars and by peasants, by all our vast, incredible, extraordinary family of humanity. ↗

— Pablo Neruda

#family

I hope somebody cares because I sure don't. I sure don't. Not anymore. I'm ashamed to go around my family. I'm too embarrassed to confide in my friends. Outside of work I don't have a life. ↗

— Mary B. Morrison

#family

Stepparenting is like working at a late-night convenience store — all of the responsibility and none of the authority. ↗

— Valerie J. Lewis Coleman

#stepfamily #stepmother #family

If invisible people eat invisible food does invisible wind blow invisible trees? ↗

— Cecelia Ahern

#cecelia-ahernt #if-you-could-see-me-now #invisible #food

It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up. ↗

— Holly Black

#hopeless #loneliness #sad #trapped #food

She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130) ↗

— Ron Rash

#interraction #loneliness #speach #starvation #words