#of

Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy--which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances...If the sun is shining, stand in it---yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass--they have to because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centered. What you are pursuing is meaning--- a meaningful life. There's the hap-- the fate, the draw that is yours, and it isn't fixed, but changing the course of the stream, or dealing new cards, whatever metaphor you want to use---that's going to take a lot of energy. There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. The pursuit isn't all or nothing--- it's all AND nothing. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#pursuit-of-happiness #change

Do you think it's possible to do something so bad, even if you didn't mean to do it, that you can never come back from it? That no one can forgive you?" Luke looked at him for a long, silent moment. Then he said, "Think of someone you love, Simon. Really love. Is there anything they could ever do that would mean you would stop loving them? ↗

— Cassandra Clare

#luke-garroway #simon-lewis #forgiveness

The picture of love and truth together is in Jesus. The challenge is to resist the temptation to think in terms of a mixture or recipe: 50% love and 50% truth. The historic creeds affirm Jesus as fully God AND fully human, and likewise with love and truth – Jesus is fully truth and fully love; any less and He ceases to be fully God, and for this reason love and truth must not be separated... ↗

— Michael M. Rose

#jesus-christ #love #truth #love

Love. It seemed impossible that she could love him, but she was so deep in him there was really nowhere to go but further in. So this is what love was. Uncontrollable. Consuming. But so irresistible you wanted to be consumed. ↗

— Dianna Hardy

#control #love #mary-and-gwain #meaning-of-love #uncontrollable

I love you," she said wretchedly. “And if I were well, no power on earth could keep me away from you. If I were well, I would take you to my bed, and I would show you as much passion as any woman could. ↗

— Lisa Kleypas

#kev #win #love

If it were sufficent to love, things would be too easy. ↗

— Albert Camus

#love

He found Podrick Payne asleep in a chair outside the door of the solar, and shook him by the shoulder. "Summon Bronn, and then tun down to the stables and have two horses saddled." (Tyrion). The squire's eyes were cloudy with sleep. "Horses". (squire) "Those big brown animals that love apples, I'm sure you've seen them. Four legs and a tail. But Bronn first." (Tyrion) ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#george #humor #tyrion-lannister #love

That's what I told myself five hundred times: impossibility. I can tell you this much: the world is a great big log on the fires of love. ↗

— Sue Monk Kidd

#love

Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. ↗

— Aristophanes

#cities #foes #friends #high #learn

Balsa seemed invincible, endowed with powers no other warrior could match, but in her profile he could glimpse the shadow of a young girl, hurt and buffeted by a cruel and hopeless fate. If he had never experienced what it was like to be at the mercy of fate himself, he would not have noticed, but now he could see it with unbearable, heartrending clarity. ↗

— Nahoko Uehashi

#girl-warrior #love-hurts #mercy-of-fate #strong-women #women-s-strength