#on

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. ↗

— Amy Bloom

#body-image #imperfections #self-acceptance #beauty

I sat up and wiped my eyes, cursing the damned faeries and their eternal war. It seemed there was never enough time. Time to dance, or talk, or laugh, or even mourn the passing of a friend. Slipping off my corsage, I laid it on Ironhorse’s cold metal shoulder, wanting him to have something natural and beautiful in this lifeless place.Goodbye, Ironhorse. ↗

— Julie Kagawa

#sad #beauty

Jude,” she whispered as she touched his face. “I’m so frightened of this. This bind that links us. It whispers to me to take what you’re offering, but I fear the consequences. I have lived the consequences.” His fingertips traced the column of her throat down over the swells of her breasts where they lingered until her breath caught. “I am not your father, Isabella, and you are not your mother.” “I know, but—” “There are no certainties in life,” he murmured as he lowered his head and kissed the apex of her breast where her heart hammered so hard. “But I can give you this certainty. I love you. And I want you. I have wanted you for so long, and that feeling has only grown. There must be trust between us, Isabella. Passion is not enough for me. I want more from you.” “You ask for so much,” she said, then trailed off. “Not any more than I am offering you. ↗

— Charlotte Featherstone

#isabella #jude #seduction-and-scandal #life

I quickly, swiftly, reach in, pluck out, and peer into the mirror. 'I am still here.' I am in the glass, in this moment. After this moment, I may not be here; I may be a person who does not know where she is, or why. I leave the kitchen table to bathe, and to dress for church. If only my closet held on its shelves an array of faces I could wear rather than dresses, I would know which face to put on today. As for the dresses, I haven't a clue. ↗

— Tim Cummings

#afterlife #astrology #brothers #children-of-celebrities #class-struggle

I have loved and been loved, thoroughly and deeply by good and decent people who believed in me. Who let me dare to believe in myself. ↗

— Carolee Dean

#love

He forgave you though,' said Claire. 'He never held it against you, ever. All he cared about was that you lived, and that you got better. He would have given everything for that. Everything. Nothing else mattered. ↗

— S.J. Watson

#relationship #love

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling. ↗

— Ambrose Bierce

#austere #disfavor #gambling #known #looks

The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life. ↗

— Brian Tracy

#absolutely #accepting #every #feel #happiest

The assumption is that life doesn't need to be navigated with lessons. You can just do it intuitively. After all, you only need to achieve autonomy from your parents, find a moderately satisfying job, form a relationship, perhaps raise some children, watch the onset of mortality in your parents' generation and eventually in your own, until one day a fatal illness starts gnawing at your innards and you calmly go to the grave, shut the coffin and are done with the self-evident business of life. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#intuition #lessons #life #business

I would probably have to say that reading fiction — those stories fill the space that other people might use religious stories for. The bulk of what I know about human life I’ve gotten from novels. And I think the thing about novels that make them important to the people who love them is that there’s always another perspective. ↗

— Tom Perrotta

#life #reading #tom-perrotta #life