A Prey Once Again

 

I was reading City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare earlier and came upon a line from Pablo Neruda’s poem. It was one of my favorite poems and I cannot resist the pull of posting it here since it is far too intimate for FB. Here’s the poem…

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. "
— Pablo Neruda

 

I don’t know if it was a coincidence or some stupid concoction of my overly assuming mind, but I have fallen prey to infatuation again. I’m afraid to be infatuated for the things I do only add to the things I was ashamed of. I am tired of looking like a fool in front of the person I like. And I am tired of gnawing ache that I could not seem to shake off every time I think of that person.

Because of you, the heady perfumes of
Summer pain me; because of you, I again
Seek out the signs that precipitate desires:
Shooting stars, falling objects."
— Pablo Neruda

Thus, I should have a job soon. Something to preoccupy my mind.

Quotes (random)

October 8, 2011

“We read to know that we are not alone.” 
― C.S. Lewis




“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” 
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman: The Kindly Ones




“It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” 
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets




“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” 
― C.S. Lewis







“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.” 
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey







“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves




“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.” 
― J.K. Rowling




“You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.” 
― Nicholas Sparks, The Rescue



“You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.” 
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook







“I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours. ” 
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook







“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” 
― Roald Dahl

quotes (random)

September 22,2011



“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
― Helen Keller


“God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons that we could learn in no other way.”
― C.S. Lewis



“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
― L.M. Montgomery


“Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess


“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow. Do you know what you’re doing when you spend a moment wondering how things are going to turn out with Perry?

You’re cheating yourself out of today. Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you , but now you’ll never know.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl


“If you're reading this...
Congratulations, you're alive.
If that's not something to smile about,
then I don't know what is.”
― Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head


“A person's a person, no matter how small.”
― Dr. Seuss

The Hunger Games quotes

August 22,2011




"Deep in the meadow, under the willow
a bed of grass, a soft green pillow
lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes
and when again they open, the sun will rise.
Hear it's safe, here it's warm
hear the daisies guard you from every harm
hear your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true hear is the place where i love you.


Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
a clock of leaves, a moonbeam ray
forget your woes and let your troubles lay
and when again it's morning, they'll wash away.
Hear it's safe, hears its' warm
hear the daises guard you from every harm
Hear your dreams are sweet and tomorrow bring them true
hear is the place where i love you."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)










"In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early. You see an elderly person, you want to congratulate them on their longevity, ask the secret of survival. A plump person is envied because they aren't scraping by like the majority of us. But here is different. Wrinkles aren't desirable. A round belly isn't a sign of success."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"He became my confidante, someone with whom I could share thoughts I could never voice...In exchange, he trusted me with his."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"But the words are easy and soothing, promising tomorrow will be more hopeful than this awful piece o time we call today."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"In our world, I rank music somewhere between hair ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness. At least a rainbow gives you a tip about the weather."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"You have a... remarkable memory."
"I remember everything about you. You're the one who wasn't paying attention."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"She has no idea. The effect she can have."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)




"Betrayal. That’s the first thing I feel, which is ludicrous. For there to be betrayal, there would have had to been trust first."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"I also want to tell him how much I already miss him. But that wouldn't be fair on my part."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"Then something unexpected happens. AT least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)







"My nightmares are usually about losing you. I'm okay once I realize you're here."
— Peeta Mellark (The Hunger Games)

Compiled August quotes (random)

August 10, 2011

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
— Marcus Tullius Cicero


"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!"
— Audrey Hepburn


"Nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. Remember that."
— Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle)


"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for."
— Bob Marley


"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson


"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)


"Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are."
— Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)


"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them."
— Mark Twain


"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."
— Charles William Elliot


"The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."
— C.S. Lewis


"Who are you to judge the life I live?
I know I'm not perfect
-and I don't live to be-
but before you start pointing fingers...
make sure you hands are clean!"
— Bob Marley


"When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)


"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll miss them when they're gone from your life. I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a "life." I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one. I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I've learned that I still have a lot to learn. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
— Maya Angelou


"Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car."
— G.K. Chesterton


"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
— Oscar Wilde


"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
— Maya Angelou


"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
— Mark Twain


"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
— C.S. Lewis


"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
— Maya Angelou


"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel


"I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."
— Friedrich Nietzsche


"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be."
— Shel Silverstein


"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."
— William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)


"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
— Mark Twain


"It takes much bravery to stand up to our enemies but we need as much bravery to stand up to our friends."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)


"I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be."
— Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)


"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)


"Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read."
— Mark Twain


"So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me... everyday."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)


"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."
— Paul Sweeney

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)


August 8, 2011

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?" — Ernest Hemingway


"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
— Ernest Hemingway


They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."
— Ernest Hemingway


"Sometimes when someone tells a ridiculous lie, it is best to ignore it entirely."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"I am sorry too," said Lupin. "Sorry I will never know [my son]... but he will know why I died and I hope he will understand I was trying to make a world in which he could live a happier life."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"There are those who say that life is like a book, with chapters for each event in your life and a limited number of pages on which you can spend your time. But I prefer to think that a book is like a life, particularly a good one, which is well to worth staying up all night to finish."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"But there are times in this harum-scarum world when figuring out the right thing to do is quite simple, but doing the right thing is simply impossible...."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)


"Friends.
They aren’t any such thing as good friend or bad friend.
Maybe there are just friend.
People who stand by you when you're hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely.
Maybe there are worth being scared for and hoping for and living for.
Maybe worth dying for too.
If that what has to be.
No bad friends.
Only people you want.
Need to be with.
People who build their houses in your heart."
— Stephen King

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

August 5,2011

"If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't to bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed" but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm,!"
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)


"Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next."
— Dean Koontz (Fear Nothing (Moonlight Bay, #1))


"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."
— Maya Angelou

"You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it's better to listen to what it has to say. That way, you'll never have to fear an unanticipated blow."
— Paulo Coelho


"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."
— Paulo Coelho (Brida)

"Love is like a narcotic. At first it brings the euphoria of complete surrender. The next day, you want more. You’re not addicted yet, but you like the sensation, and you think you can still control things. You think about the person you love for two minutes, and forget them for three hours. But then you get used to that person, and you begin to be completely dependent on them. Now you think about him for three hours and forget him for two minutes. If he’s not there, you feel like an addict who can’t get a fix. And just as addicts steal and humiliate themselves to get what they need, you’re willing to do anything for love."
— Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)


"But love is much like a dam; if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current."
— Paulo Coelho (By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept)


"Ever since time began, people have recognized their true Love by the light in their eyes."
— Paulo Coelho


"Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily."
— Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events))


"Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.

No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded.

Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything.

Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive?

I don't know."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)

"I'd love to, she finally said,"on one condition."
I steadied myself, hoping it wasn't something too awful.
"Yes?"
"You have to promise that you won't fall in love with me."
I knew she was kidding me by the way she laughed, and I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Sometimes, I had to admit, Jamie had a pretty good sense of humor.
I smiled and gave her my word."
— Nicholas Sparks

"It is often in the darkest
skies that we see the
brightest stars."
— Richard Evans

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)


"The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed."
— Charlotte Brontë

"All of sudden, this shooting star went by, and all I could think was that they were listening to us somehow. "
— Nicholas Sparks

"if pain must come, may it come quickly. because i have a life to live, and i need to live it in the best possible. if he has to make a choice, may he make it now. then i will either wait for him or forget him. waiting is painful. forgetting is painful. but not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."
— Paulo Coelho

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)


"Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?"
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)


"Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused."
— Paulo Coelho


"We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path."
— Paulo Coelho


"Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."
— Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)


"When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)


"People never learn anything by being told, they have to findout for themselves."
— Paulo Coelho (Veronika Decides to Die)


"Stay mad, but behave like normal people. Run the risk of being different, but learn to do so without attracting attention."
— Paulo Coelho

"Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye."
— Dorothy Parker


"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing into the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall! "
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3))



"My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes."
— Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))


"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming." — Pablo Neruda


"You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))


"People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes."
— Neil Gaiman


"
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. And intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way."
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

July Quotes

July 31,2011


The dreams I dream
the song I sing for you
they're coming from my heart
is my message getting through?
You know it hurts so bad
just like i knew that it would
but I'd do it again
do it again if I could
do it again if I could.

I don't think you know what it's like
you should be careful what you're wishing for
and try to set your ego aside
you will find
a false piece of mind
you fall behind
and everybody's getting tired of you
standing in the shadows i hear
people say




~No one sleeps when I'm awake, The Sounds

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

July 29,2011


"Time is very slow for those who wait
Very fast for those who are scared
very long for those who lament
Very short for those who celebrate
But for those who love time is eternal"
— William Shakespeare

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that's what you've given me. That's what I'd hoped to give you forever"
— Nicholas Sparks


"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it."
— Mitch Albom

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

July 27,2011


"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
— Maya Angelou


"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
— Maya Angelou



"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain."
— Maya Angelou


"Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."
— Maya Angelou


"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent"
— Victor Hugo


"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody."
— Maya Angelou


"I do not trust people who don't love themselves and yet tell me, 'I love you.' There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt."
— Maya Angelou




"You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise!"
— Maya Angelou

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. "

— Maya Angelou


"Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope."


— Maya Angelou