#erin

Our rocky ledge overlooking the valley. Perhaps a little less green than usual, but the blackberry bushes hang heavy with fruit. Here began countless days of hunting and snaring, fishing and gathering, roaming together through the woods, unloading our thoughts while we filled our game bags. This was the doorway to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key. ↗

— Suzanne Collins

#gathering-place #katniss #sanity #sanity

And the moral of the story is that you don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. And the second moral of the story, if a story can have multiple morals, is that Dumpers are not inherently worse than Dumpees - breaking up isn't something that gets done to you; it's something that happens with you. ↗

— John Green

#colin-singleton #john-green #breaking-up

When he finally broke off the kiss and moved his lips to her neck, then her breast again, sucking her nipples back to hard peaks, Catherine broke from her trance. “No. I really must go. We haven’t time to do this again.” She pushed against his restraining hands and wiggled beneath his body. “Let me up now.” He pulled away from her neck and looked up, his eyes as poignant as a spoken plea. Her heart wrenched and she wished she could spend the rest of the day with him, making love in their secret nest in the loft. She sighed. “Don’t give me puppy dog eyes. I’ve got to go. ↗

— Bonnie Dee

#bonnie-dee #catherine #jim #love

And you thought: they're used to it. But that was how those who suffered less always thought about those who suffered more, that they were used to it, that they no longer felt it as you did. Nobody ever got used to it. All they learned to do was to stop letting it show. ↗

— James Meek

#love

To you I speak with much hesitation about suffering. . . . But there is an introduction to suffering which comes with the birthpains of Love. And in such suffering one finds for the first time how deep and profound is the nature and meaning of life. And in such suffering one sees, as if one’s eye were newly opened upon a blinding light, . . . And there too is suffering, but there, above all, is peace and victory. ↗

— Thomas Kelly

#life

Why are you kissing me?” she squeaked out breathlessly. “God, how can I not?” He ran his hands up and down her arms. “I think you’re made for me to kiss. I need to kiss you. You need to be kissed,” he said firmly, as if he’d reached some decision that brooked no debate. This did not sound like the smooth-talking and self-possessed charmer of his reputation. ↗

— Catherine LaRoche

#catherine-laroche #dom #master-of-love #love

...you can't rationalize suffering - it's indeterminate - the real unknowable variable God substitutes in... ↗

— John Geddes

#love #suffering #love

What stirs lyrical poets to their finest flights is neither the delight of the senses nor the fruitful contentment of the settled couple; not the satisfaction of love, but its passion. And passion means suffering. ↗

— Denis de Rougemont

#passion #poets #suffering #love

The sting of her abandonment had not lessened through the years, and I suspected it would never go away. Occasionally, I could see agony in her eyes, the shadows that flickered in the background. If I could, I'd take her pain and make it my own. I'd swallow it like a bitter pill and live with the consequences. ↗

— T.J. Forrester

#relationship #suffering #love

Love is the reason why, even in suffering, we smile. ↗

— David Paul Kirkpatrick

#smile #suffering #love