Great Throughts Treasury

"I too tried to look at matter from a more generous perspective: I didn't succeed. But now I've gained courage; I've reached the depths and discovered that there is light at the bottom."

"I think that, with age, people come to realize that death is inevitable. And we need to learn to face it with serenity, wisdom and resignation. Death often frees us from a lot of senseless sufferings."

"I think that perhaps we always fall in love the very first instant we see the man of our dreams, even though, at the time, reason may be telling us otherwise, and we may fight against that instinct, hoping against hope that we won't win, until there comes a point when we allow ourselves to be vanquished by our feelings."

"I think, knowing full well that we always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want ant as they are."

"I understand something I didn?t see before: every blessing ignored becomes a curse."

"I wake up each morning wanting to die before the day is out, but I continue to live, suffering and fighting, fighting and suffering, clinging on to that certainty that it will all end one day."

"I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books."

"I understand that experiencing something completely unforgettable in my life - it was one of those magical moments in which we usually understand only when they are gone."

"I want to believe that it is wonderful to be free. Free again. Ready to find my one true love, who is waiting for me and who will never allow e to experience such humiliation again."

"I want to be someone capable of seeing the unseen faces, of seeing those who do not seek fame or glory, who silently fulfil the role life has given them. I want to be able to do this because the most important things, those that shape our existence, are precisely the ones that never show their faces."

"I wanted to... feel hatred and love, despair and tedium-- all those simple, yet foolish things that make up everyday life but that give pleasure to your existence. If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they are crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to."

"I want to think the world of magic is just a trick well done. Which people are superstitious? What things that science cannot explain have no right to exist."

"I was not I, I was nothing - and that seemed to me quite marvelous."

"I was standing beside a long kinked rail segment of a game, and found that most people were there to climb up the rails in search of fun, excitement, but when the game starts, they scared and wanted to stop the car. They want what? When you choose adventure, they probably did not prepare for the journey there? Or should they think that the smartest thing to do is avoid the ramp up and down on it and then take the time to play merry safe because it only runs on a circle around alone?"

"I want to continue being crazy; living my life the way I dream it, and not the way the other people want it to be."

"I was tired of playing the child and acting the way many of my friends did - the ones who are afraid that love is impossible without even knowing what love is. If I stayed like that, I would miss out on everything good that these few days with him might offer."

"I was very happy in both my marriages. I was unfaithful and so were they, just like any other normal couple."

"I was trying to come round to the idea that there might be an invisible reality capable of interfering in our lives, but the only reason I did so was because of a love I didn't want to believe I felt but which was continuing to grow in a subtle, devastating way. I was content in my universe and didn't want to change it at all, even though I was being propelled in that direction."

"I will always remember you, and you will remember me, just as we will remember the evening, the rain on the windows, and all the things we?ll always have because we cannot possess them."

"I wept because I was re-experiencing the enthusiasm of my childhood; I was once again a child, and nothing in the world could cause me harm."

"I will be able to love above all discontentment. To give even when I am stripped of everything. To dry tears even when I am still crying. To believe even when I am discredited."

"I will at least have gained one very happy day in my life. Considering the way the world is, one happy day is almost a miracle."

"I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return, Of giving, when I have nothing, Of working happily, even in the midst of difficulties, Of holding out my hand, even when utterly alone and abandoned, Of drying my tears, even while I weep, Of believing, even when no one believes in me."

"I will never be yours, and you will never be mine; nevertheless, I can honestly say: I love you, I love you, I love you."

"I will not come at all as long as people are willing to help me."

"I will not seek to find happiness anymore. From now on, I am independent; see life from the eyes and not the eyes of other people. I intend to search for cosmic adventure alive."

"I would like to stay on the current crazy, live my life as I imagine my way, not the other way. They think that they are natural because they are doing all the same things."

"I would rather throw myself out of the plane as it crosses the ocean. Since I cannot open the windows, I would die here. But before I die, I want to fight for life. If I can walk on my own, I can go wherever I like."

"I will not talk to my own darkness anymore, I promised myself, closing the door on the Other. A fall from the third floor hurts as much as a fall from the hundredth. If I have to fall, may it be from a high place."

"I will sit next to you as you will be in front of the river. And if you go to sleep, I sleep outside your door. And if you go you away, I will follow your steps. Until you tell me: Go away. Then I'll go. But I will not be able to stop loving you until the end of my days."

"I?m afraid of love, because it involves things that are beyond our understanding; it sheds such a brilliant light, but the shadow it casts frightens me."

"I?m afraid of committing myself, she thought to herself. When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way. Don?t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions. But how will I know who my Soulmate is? Brida felt that this was one of the most important questions she had ever asked in her life. By taking risks she said to Brida. ? By risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in you search for Love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end."

"I would cite Plato, as to be an intellectual. According to him, the beginning of creation, men and women were not as they are today; There was only one being who was low, with a body, but whose head had two faces, each looking in one direction. It was as if two children were stuck in the back, with two opposite sexes, four legs, four arms. The Greek gods, however, were jealous, and saw a creature that had four arms worked over two opposite faces were ever vigilant and could not be treacherously attacked four legs exigi¡an not much effort to remain standing or walking for long periods. And what was more dangerous: the creature had two different sexes, did not need anyone else to continue playing on Earth. Then, said Zeus, the supreme lord of Olympus. I've got a plan for making these mortals lose their strength and a lightning split the creature in two, and so created man and woman. That greatly increased the population of the world, while the disoriented and weakened that he lived, because now they had to find his missing hand, hug her again, and in that embrace regain former strength, the ability to avoid betrayal , the strength to walk long periods and withstand the grueling work. In the embrace where the two bodies merge back into one we call sex."

"I?ll just say that insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It?s as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that?s going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don?t understand the language they speak there. We?ve all felt that. And all of us, one way or another, are insane."

"I?m capable of taking my own decisions."

"I?m afraid that if my dream is realized, I?ll have no reason to go on living."

"I?m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you?ll be a happy man. You?ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we?re living right now."

"I?ve been through all this before,? he says to his heart. ?Yes, you have been through all this before,? replies his heart. ?But you have never been beyond it."

"I?ve met a man and fallen in love with him. I allowed myself to fall in love for one simple reason: I?m not expecting anything to come of it. I know that, in three months? time, I?ll be far away and he?ll be just a memory, but I couldn?t stand living without love any longer; I had reached my limit? Generally speaking, these meetings occur when we reach a limit, when we need to die and be reborn emotionally. These meeting are waiting for us, but more often than not, we avoid them happening. If we are desperate, though, if we have nothing to lose, or if we are full of enthusiasm for life, then the unknown reveals itself, and our universe changes directions."

"If a lot of people think that a thing is right, is right, then that thing happens to be good and be successful."

"I'd have stopped writing years ago if it were for the money."

"If a man we don't know phones us up one day and talks a little, makes no suggestions, says nothing special, but nevertheless pays us the kind of attention we rarely receive, we're quite capable of going to bed with him that night, feeling relatively in love. That's what we women are like, and there's nothing wrong with that - it's the nature of the female to open herself to love easily."

"I?ve learned that waiting is the most difficult bit, and I want to get used to the feeling, knowing that you?re with me, even when you?re not by my side."

"If a lie is repeated often enough, it ends up convincing everyone."

"If even God has a hell, which is his love for mankind, then any man has his hell within easy reach, and that's his love for his family."

"If everybody loves you, something is wrong. Find at least one enemy to keep you alert."

"If a person is living out his destiny, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."

"If Eve had not eaten the apple, that would be interesting happened during those millions of years?"

"If everyone played their part, no one else would have to suffer, because He had suffered for all those who'd had the courage to fight for their dreams."

"If everyone there?and outside Villete too?just lived their lives and let others do the same, God would be in every moment, in every grain of mustard, in the fragment of cloud that is there one moment and gone the next. God was there, and yet people believed they still had to go on looking, because it seemed too simple to accept that life was an act of faith."