#end

When you look in the mirror, it's usually to fix your hair or put on makeup. To examine your body searching for problem areas. We look at ourselves to see the flaw, not beauty. And we look at predictable times, in the morning, after using the bathroom, before bed. We hardly ever see ourselves when we aren't prepared for inspection. But only when you're unprepared can you see your true self, your true beauty. ↗

— Valerie Frankel

#inspirational #the-girlfriend-curse #beauty

Love your enemies and hate your friends, your enemies remain the same your friends always change ↗

— 50 Cent

#friends #trust #change

She walked down the basement steps. She saw an imaginary framed photo seep into the wall - a quiet-smiled secret. No more than a few meters, it was a long walk to the drop sheets and the assortment of paint cans that shielded Max Vandenburg. She removed the sheets closest to the wall until there was a small corridor to look through. The first part of him she saw was his shoulder, and through the slender gap, she slowly, painfully, inched her hand in until it rested there. His clothing was cool. He did not wake. She could feel his breathing and his shoulder moving up and down ever so slightly. For a while, she watched him. Then she sat and leaned back. Sleepy air seemed to have followed her. The scrawled words of practice stood magnificently on the wall by the stairs, jagged and childlike and sweet. They looked on as both the hidden Jew and the girl slept, hand to shoulder. They breathed. German and Jewish lungs. ↗

— Markus Zusak

#friendship #german #jewish #sleep #the-book-thief

The best stories I have heard were pointless, the best books those whose plot I can never remember, the best individuals those whom I never get anywhere with. Though it has been practised on me time and again I never cease to marvel how it happens that with certain individuals whom I know, within a few minutes after greeting them we are embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the deep middle dream which the practised dreamer slips into like a bone slips into its sockets ↗

— Henry Miller

#beauty

World peace, true love, and happily-ever-afters amount to wasted wishes, failed endeavors, and most precious dreams. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#endeavors #happily-ever-after #love #richelle #richelle-goodrich

If ever you do go back, what is it you want of Evesham?" "Do I know? [...] The silence, it might be ... or the stillness. To have no more running to do ... to have arrived, and have no more need to run. The appetite changes. Now I think it would be a beautiful thing to be still. ↗

— Ellis Peters

#arrival #attachment #belonging #completion #fullfilment

You’re my best friend, Shmuel,’ he said. ‘My best friend for life. ↗

— John Boyne

#beauty

Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities--something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life. ↗

— E.M. Forster

#beauty

Love for the beauty of the soul. I shall love you always. When the flower of life has gone, ever I shall find you. When all is lost and winter comes, I shall be your spring time. And memory fades and wilts then, I shall always find you.... I shall always find you.... ↗

— Laurel A. Rockefeller

#elendir #find #flower #grief #hope

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#transcendentalists #men