#harm

She went out in the city with its lights like a radioactive phosphorescence, wandered through galleries where the high-priced art on the walls was the same as the graffiti scrawled outside by taggers who were arrested or killed for it, went to parties in hotel rooms where white-skinned, lingerie-clad rock stars had been staying the night their husbands shot themselves in the head, listened to music in nightclubs where stunning boyish actors had OD'd on the pavement. ↗

— Francesca Lia Block

#art

I don’t need a steak knife to cut my meat. That’s why karate chops were created. I’m like a butter knife, only slightly less deadly. But I’m great with bagels—and disobedient old people.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#bagels #butter #butter-knife #creation #deadly

And in what fairy tale would John ever be any sane person's idea of Prince Charming anyway? He was the opposite of charming. More like Prince Terrifying. ↗

— Meg Cabot

#fairy-tales #humor #prince-charming #terror #death

I used to think that finding the right one was about the man having a list of certain qualities. If he has them, we'd be compatible and happy. Sort of a checkmark system that was a complete failure. But I found out that a healthy relationship isn't so much about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive. It's about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types. And then it's about being with a good person. A good person on his own, and a good person with you. Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy. A good relationship is where things just work. They work because, whatever the list of qualities, whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together. ↗

— Deb Caletti

#checkmark #compatible #good #happy #harmful

You know, life fractures us all into little pieces. It harms us, but it's how we glue those fractures back together that make us stronger. ↗

— Carrie Jones

#entice #fix #fractures #glue #harm

If you look up "charming" in the dictionary, you'll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians? ↗

— Deb Caletti

#charming #dictionary #liars #magic #magicians

The inner life is bruised by a running against the laws of the Kingdom. The bruises are guilt complexes, a sense of inferiority, of missing the mark, of being out of harmony with God and with oneself, a sense of wrongness. Divine forgiveness wipes out all that sense of inner hurt and condemnation. Brings a sense of at-homeness- at home with God and oneself and with life. The universe opens its arms and takes one in. You are accepted- by God, by yourself, and by life. All self-loathing, self-rejection, all inferiorities drop away. You are a child of God; born from above, you walk the earth, a conqueror, afraid of nothing. Healed at the heart, you can say to life: "Come on, I'm ready for anything. ↗

— E. Stanley Jones

#forgiveness

Well, in pharmacology, if the effect is local, it's of course absolutely awkward to use it in any other way than as a local treatment. ↗

— Arvid Carlsson

#any #awkward #course #effect #local

He put his hand on my waist, and my heart began to pound, a rougher rhythm than the music. I held my skirt. Our free hands met. His felt warm and comforting and unsettling and bewildering--all at once. ↗

— Gail Carson Levine

#romance #music

There’s no magical healing in this. I won’t wake up tomorrow fixed and joyful. I’ll still hurt and grieve. But moments like this, with Colton? They make it all bearable. He doesn't fix me, doesn't heal me. He just makes life worthwhile. He helps me remember to breathe, shows me how to smile again. He kisses me, and I can forget pain, forget the urges I still have to cut for the pain that erases the emotions. ↗

— Jasinda Wilder

#colton #cutter #cutting #escape #falling