[quotes]
Quotes from the short story "About Love" by Anton Chekhov:
"We began talking about love.
'How love is born,' said Alehin, 'how far questions of personal happiness are
of consequence in love—all that is unknown; one can take what view ones likes
of it. So far only one incontestable truth has been uttered about love: "This
is a great mystery." Everything else that has been written or said about love
is not a conclusion, but only a statement of questions which have remained
unanswered. The explanation which would seem to fit one case does not apply
in a dozen others, and the very best thing, to my mind, would be to explain
every case individually without attempting to generalize. We ought, as the
doctors say, to individualize each case.'"
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"In the same way, when we are in love we are never tired of asking ourselves
questions: whether it is honourable or dishonourable, sensible or stupid,
what this love is leading up to, and so on. Whether it is a good thing or not
I don’t know, but that it is in the way, unsatisfactory, and irritating, I do
know.”
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"People who lead a solitary existence always have something in their hearts
which they are eager to talk about."
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"The memory of the graceful fair-haired woman remained in my mind all those
days; I did not think of her, but it was as though her light shadow were
lying on my heart."
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“Her eyes, the elegant refined hand she gave me, her indoor dress, the way
she did her hair, her voice, her step, always produced the same impression on
me something new and extraordinary in my life, and very important. We talked
together for hours, were silent, thinking each our own thoughts, or she
played for hours to me on the piano."
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“And when I went to the town I saw every time from her eyes that she was
expecting me, and she would confess to me herself that she had had a peculiar
feeling all that day guessed that I should come. We talked a long time, and
were silent, yet we did not confess our love to each other, but timidly and
jealously concealed it. We were afraid of everything that might reveal our
secret to ourselves. I loved her tenderly, deeply, but I reflected and kept
asking myself what our love could lead to if we had not the strength to fight
against it."
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"If she abandoned herself to her feelings she would have to lie, or else to
tell the truth, and in her position either would have been equally terrible
and inconvenient."
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"They did not understand what was passing in my soul, and thought that I, too,
was happy."
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“Luckily or unluckily, there is nothing in our lives that does not end sooner
or later.....When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude
deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast,
and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands
wet with tears—oh, how unhappy were!—I confessed my love for her, and with a
burning pain in my heart I realized how unnecessary, how petty, and how
deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when
you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what
is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or
virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.
“I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand, and parted for ever. The
train had already started. I went into the next compartment—it was empty—and
until I reached the next station I sat there crying. Then I walked home to
Sofino….”
Passage from the novel The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel:
"The kind of alignment I'm talking about consists of getting oneself in
syntony with the loving energy circulating throughout the Cosmos. This is
achieved by relaxing and letting life flow among all the cells of the body.
Then Love, the cosmic DNA, will remember its genetic message, its origins,
the mission assigned it. That mission is unique and personal-not collective,
as is avowed in one kind of earthly alignment. The moment Azucena can do
that, her entire being will breathe cosmic energy, and will remember it is
not alone, much less, without Love.
It isn't so easy to understand Love. Usually people think they find it
through a partner. But the love we experience while making love with another
is only a pale reflection of what is truly Love. One's partner is only the
intermediary through whom we receive Divine Love. Through the kiss, the
embrace, the soul receives all the peace necessary to align itself and make
the connection with Divine Love. But be warned: that does not mean that our
partner possesses that Love, nor is he or she the only one who can bestow it.
Nor is it true that if that person leaves, he will take Love with him,
leaving us unprotected. Divine Love is infinite. It is everywhere and
entirely within reach at every moment. It is foolish of Azucena to limit it
to the small space of Rodrigo's arms. If she only realized that all she has
to do is learn to open her consciousness to energy on other planes to receive
the Love she needs in full store. If she only realized that at this very
moment she is surrounded by Love, that it is circulating about her, despite
the fact no one is kissing or caressing or embracing her. If only she
realized that she is a beloved daughter of the Universe, she would no longer
feel lost.
Azucena blames me for everything that is happening to her; she fails to
realize that losing Rodrigo is something she had to go through, because the
moment she throws herself into the search she will find, in the process, the
solution to a problem that has been plaguing humanity for thousands of years.
That is the real reason behind all the doubts she is experiencing.
There is a problem of cosmic origin affecting all inhabitants of the
planet, and she is the one charged with resolving it. Although it is a
mission that actually involved every one of us, Azucena's ego has minimized
and converted it into a question of a personal nature. Her bruised and
battered self-esteem makes her believe that the whole world is against her,
and that everything that is happening affects her alone. But she is a part
of this world, and anything that affects her also affects the world. And the
world has much more important things to think about than destroying Azucena.
That would be absurd, anyway, because in destroying a human being it would be
destroying itself, and the Universe has no inclination toward
self-destruction.
On Earth, truth always exists amid confusion and lies. Confusion comes
from our taking as truth things that are not. Truth never is found outside
oneself. Each of us has the capacity, if we communicate with ourselves, to
find truth. It is only logical that Azucena is confused at this moment, for
externally she has encountered nothing but chaos, lies, murder, fear, and
indecision. She believes that truth is solid as a rock, but that is not the
case. In the face of the general despair that characterizes the outside
world, she should be able to say: I don't have to participate in this chaos,
even though I realize it is all around me because I AM NOT CHAOS. At the
moment she denies as truth the reality surrounding her, she will find her own
truth, and with it, peace. Since what is internal becomes external,
individual peace will lead to universal peace. But since Azucena is in no
condition to recognize this at the moment, I must arrange for her to be able
to help someone else. By helping another, she will be helping herself."
"Why do women have such low self-esteem? There are many complex psychological and societal reasons, by which I mean Barbie." -Dave Barry
"I do not wish to expiate, but to live." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What I must do, is all that concerns me, not what the people think...It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Time and space are but physiological colors which the eyes makes, but the soul is light; where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury, if it be anything more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming." -Emerson
"Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact." -Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters
"It is time to explain myself....let us stand up.
What is known I strip away... I launch all men and women
forward with me into the unknown.
The clock indicates the moment... but what does eternity indicate?"
-Walt Whitman
"There is that in me..I do not know what it is....but I know it is in me.
Wrenched and sweaty....calm and cool then my body becomes; I sleep...I sleep long.
I do not know it....it is without name....it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary or utterance or symbol." -Walt Whitman
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then....I contradict myself;
I am large....I contain multitudes." -Walt Whitman
"You furnish your parts toward eternity,
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul." -Walt Whitman
"Blind loving wrestling touch, sheath'd hooded sharp-tooth'd touch!
Did it make you ache so, leaving me?"
-Walt Whitman
"To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand."
-Walt Whitman
"But what if I'm a mermaid in these jeans of his with her name still on it hey but I don't care cause sometimes I said sometimes I hear my voice and it's been HERE silent all these years." -Tori Amos
"Have I been blind have I been lost inside myself and my own mind...have I been wrong have I been wise have I been strong." -Natalie Merchant
"Tiresome heart, forever living and dying." -Edna St. Vincent Millay
"People were just like that. We couldn't even see each other, just the shadows moving, pushed by unseen winds." -Janet Fitch, White Oleander
"But to live outside the law, you must be honest." -Bob Dylan
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"She renders herself up, is blotted out; enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries." -Margaret Atwood,The Blind Assassin
"At times she wished she could shed herself down to her spine, to her bones, expose the essence of herself the way she could know the essence of those trees, know them and see them and be known."-Ursula Hegi, Stones from the River
Buffy related quotes:
"Lots of people get lost on love...You can't stay lost. Sooner or later, you have to get back to yourself." -Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Buffy: I could wrestle naked in grease for a living and still be cleaner than after a shift at the Doublemeat.
Willow: Plus, I'd visit you at work every single day.
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Eat lots of applesauce, preferably fed to you by attractive young lesbians." -Amber Benson
"Say, you all didn't happen to do a bunch of drugs, did ya?" -Willow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Why couldn't you have been dealing drugs like normal kids?" -Principal Snyder, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
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