Moonlight Dance

Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It's like the tide going out, revealing whatever's been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fish bodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future. The ruin you've made. 

– Margaret Atwood  

Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be. 

– Arthur Golden

She knew it the way people say they know they are about to be hit by lightning, yet remain powerless to run, unable to avoid their fate. She panicked, as anyone might have when disparate parts of her life were about to crash into each other, certain to leave a path of anguish and debris. 

It was true that devotion could be lost as quickly as it was found, which was why some people insisted that love letters be written in ink. How easy it was for even the sweetest words to evaporate, only to be rewritten as impulse and infatuation might dictate. How unfortunate that love could not be taught or trained, like a seal or a dog. Instead it was a wolf on the prowl, with a mind of its own, and it made its own way, undeterred by the damage done. 

-Alice Hoffman

Quotes by Alice Hoffman

Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

Never look back, that's what she's told herself. Don't think about swans or being alone in the dark. Don't think of storms, or lightning and thunder, or the true love you won't ever have. Life is brushing your teeth and making breakfast for your children and not thinking about things. 

What do they know about love? You make bargains you’d never imagine you’d agreed to, and you do it over and over again.

At first it seemed that he believed Sara would return, but as the years went by I understood that his loyalty asked for no reward, and that love comes in unexpected forms. 

Margaret thought of all she knew for certain, that day would always follow night, that love was never wasted nor was it lost.

Anyway, the sort of love that will not wait is probably best to pass by.

You could tell she didn't want to, she was trying with all her might to hold it back, but sometimes it's impossible to do that. I know from personal experience. You have to turn yourself cold as ice in order to stop yourself, and then if anything falls from your eyes it will only be blue ice crystals, hard and unbreakable as stone.

- Quotes by Alice Hoffman

Shivering Hope

Grandmother looked at an old photograph of her dear friend, Annabelle. She put it down and said “Annabelle was a sad girl. People in town called her the girl who fell in love with a shooting star. We all knew once a shooting star had passed us by, that was it. It would never return. She was in love with something that would never be hers and was never really hers to begin with. She was a foolish woman, that Annabelle.” Grandmother smiled a sad smile and looked out the windows. The snow had melted and spring was knocking on the door. What that was had gone and things will never be the same again.

I looked at grandmother’s eyes and I saw traces of sorrow. It was true that no matter how hard one tried to hide and wipe away pain, it would creep up on you and drop by for a quiet visit once in a while. Even grandmother, with so many practices over the years, couldn't hide the pain that still lingered in her eyes when she thought nobody was looking. I wondered if she was really talking about Annabelle or the story she had just told me was actually hers.

“I think she was luckier than the girl who fell in love with the moon,” I said.
“The moon? Luckier?” grandmother asks.

“Oh yes, she was. At least Annabelle knew that the shooting star she loved so deeply was not returning to her embrace. At least she had the chance to move on. But the girl who was in love with the moon was always hoping and waiting. Every night, when the moon appeared and casted its soft amber light on her bedroom windows, she couldn't help herself but to think that she could finally reach the moon, her one true love. Of course, she couldn't and the moon would always disappears into the horizon when daybreak came. Soon enough, disappointment became her closest friend - along with heartache and despair. They stayed friends for life."

Grandmother said nothing and continued to stare at the clear blue sky, as if a shooting star might suddenly pass us by, although it was only noon. Looking at my grandmother, I suddenly realised that I was not alone. Maybe the girl who was in love with the moon lived in every woman who's heart was taken. No matter what people said, no matter what fate and logic told us, a part of us would always be waiting and hoping – hoping with a fragile hope.

Quotes by Haruki Murakami

She waited for the train to pass. Then she said, "I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is imagine by what comes floating to the surface every once in a while."

Saul Leiter

"What is it?"
"It's not something you can get across in words. The real response is something words can't express."
"There you go," Sada replies. "Exactly. If you can't get it across in words then it's better not to try."
"Even to yourself?" I ask. "Yeah, even to yourself," Sada says. "Better not to try to explain it, even to yourself. 

Saul Leiter

 
Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back. That's part of what it means to be alive. 

But inside our heads - at least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library.

That’s how stories happen — with a turning point, an unexpected twist. There’s only one kind of happiness, but misfortune comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story. 

Saul Leiter

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about .

Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.

Saul Leiter

In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive. 

Saul Leiter

No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.

- Quotes by Haruki Murakami

Quotes by John Mayer

If you never stop when you wave goodbye you just might find, if you give it time, you will wave hello again.

My dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room.

 

When you're dreaming with a broken heart, the waking up is the hardest part.
You roll outta bed and down on your knees, and for the moment you can hardly breathe. 

She's just like a maze where all of the walls all continually change. And I've done all I can to stand on her steps, with my heart in my hands. Now I'm starting to see, maybe it's got nothing to do with me.

Lightning strikes inside my chest to keep me up at night
Dream of ways to make you understand my pain 

Push it in and twist the knife again. Watch my face as I pretend to feel no pain.

Disappointment has a name, it's heartbreak warfare.

I love you more than songs can say,
But i can't keep running after yesterday.

Anything other than yes is no,
Anything other than stay is go,
Anything less than I love you is lying. 

- Quotes by John Mayer

Gone With The Wind

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.
- Jacqueline Carey

But grief is a walk alone. Others can be there, and listen. But you will walk alone down your own path, at your own pace, with your sheared-off pain, your raw wounds, you denial, anger, and bitter loss. You'll come to your own peace, hopefully, but it will be on your own, in your own time.
- Cathy Lamb

Stand at the crossroads if you will, but if you'll not choose, I'll move on without you.
- Jacqueline Carey

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
- Søren Kierkegaard

The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.
- Søren Kierkegaard

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
- Plato