Nobody Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July

"Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person's face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It's okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise."

Let me start off by saying that people who don't appreciate life upset me.
Now let me state that I often don't appreciate life.

This is one of the most beautiful, simplistic passages I've ever read. When I live my day-to-day, monotonous life; it is ideas like this that give me strength to push through all the trials and tribulations. On any plain and ordinary day, a quote like this should bring you to tears. If it doesn't (and this just may be my own overexaggerated opinion), you surely don't have a soul. The truth is that this world is made for you, just as much as it's made for me. When you think you have nothing, you actually have so much of something that it's almost impossible to comprehend. Even the least fortunate of us are fortunate somehow. Just look at the sky and the trees and the birds and the chemistry and science of the world and how perfectly and magically and miraculously well its tiny puzzle pieces fit together. I'm not religious by any means, but we are blessed. If anything, the world should be our religion. After all, what is more real than that?

The Collected Stories - Amy Hempel

"When you kiss me like that, my heart is so stolen."

Okay, who hasn't felt this way? What is it about that person, the one who seems to steal your breath away with just a kiss? Something so magical, so passionate, so necessarily right in that kiss, that you just can't stop thinking about it for months afterward?
I'm going to get a little personal here. I've been stuck on a kiss like this for months, and even though I know the emotions behind that kiss were all built on a lie from an unworthy bastard of a man... I can't help but miss that kiss. Are we so wrong for wanting that lustful romance sometimes? Because, I mean, even though those lips belonged to someone I hardly want to speak to much less romantically embrace, I just can't stop thinking about that kiss that stole my heart and has kept my mind entranced for months.

An Invisible Sign of My Own - Aimee Bender

"There is something so awful, something so gross about watching someone who loves you struggle to believe what you both know, deep down, is partially a lie."


When I tell you that I love you, do you really believe me? Do you see the questions in my eyes? Can you feel the uncertainty? Do you wonder if I'm lying, like I wonder if I am?

I always wonder what I look like when I lie. I'm not particularly apt at lying, to be honest with myself. I could never pretend to sleep well enough to not get caught with consciousness when my parents came to check on me. Not once have I fought back tears while simultaneously insisting that "no really, I'm fine" without everyone within a 5 mile radius calling my bluff. So when I tell you that I love you, can you see that I'm wondering if that's really true? Can you tell that I don't know if I've ever really loved anyone, truly and wholly? Maybe I love you, but can you tell that it's not the passionate, need you, want you, can'tbewithoutyou love that I've sought my whole life and will never settle without? Can you read me like I read you?

The Contortionist's Handbook - Craig Clevenger

"Sometimes I couldn't sleep, because I wanted to tell her everything, but instead I'd hold her so tightly I thought I would hurt her. She never said anything, just moaned, quiet. I'd measure her breathing, count how many times she'd stroke my knuckles before she stopped, and then I knew she was asleep. I'd draw her profile in the dark, over and over, happy except for knowing that everything she knew about my life was fiction."


First of all, I have to say that this quote is beautiful in all its simplicity. Aside from that...

Coming from someone who counts finger strokes, who lays next to someone, listening to their breathing so as to appropriately set their exhales opposite of their inhales, who equates holding hands with momentarily holding hearts; this is what I am looking for.
Maybe we are just a compilation of all our small, insignificant parts. And maybe love is just when you find someone who finds these insignificant aspects of your being endearing and special, even favorable. This is why we date so many people and truly love so few of them. We're never satisfied until we find that one person, the one who counts how many times we stroke their knuckles until we fall asleep. The one who keeps their eyes on ours, even after they close, and watches them until our breathing slows and regulates itself. The one who counts our freckles and keeps track of their favorite.
Maybe I believe in love, and maybe I don't. But I believe in noticing the little things and I believe in falling in love with freckles and the way your eyes look at mine and I believe in the way you stroke my fingertips when you really want to hold my hand, and I believe in the way you fall asleep after you say "I don't snore" but you sure do breathe heavy for someone who doesn't snore, and I believe in the way your goodbye hugs make my bones fall apart with sobs and I believe in the way your eyes smile when I bite my bottom lip while watching yours, and I believe in the way you can't make your eyes stay the same color each day just like I can't make you feel the same way about me.
Maybe I believe in love, and maybe I don't.

The Collected Stories - Amy Hempel

"I told him about the way they get to know you. Not the way people do, the way people flatter you by wanting to know every last thing about you, only it isn't a compliment, it is just efficient, a person getting more quickly to the end of you."

I want you to use your imagination for a moment.
Imagine:
you're meeting someone for the first time. Not your average, everyday person. This isn't the person who toys with small talk at all. We all know the type: bold, inquisitive, peculiarly interested in you. For ease of explanation, let me refer to this mysterious character as a he (for the sake of familiarity on my account). He asks you questions you've never been asked before, really seems to want to know what makes you tick. His intrigue intrigues you. Why does he seem so interested?
Some people, I've learned, are masters at this game. People are curious by nature of course, but these characters are really interested in you. And just you! so it seems.

But these are the ones who pursue you (and they pursue hard), try to figure you out. And when they do, they realize that you're human. And when you're human you lose your air of mystery.

Desire, dissect, discard.

And really, isn't that what people are all about? They want you while they want you, but they have no problem discarding you when they don't. We're selfish creatures. No matter how much you claim to care about the feelings of others, this compassion pales in comparison to your regard for your own needs and desires. A rigorous pursuit to know someone is merely a quicker means to figuring them out.
So sure, it's flattering when he seems to genuinely care about what you have to say. He really wants to know about your past, your opinions, aspirations. He might just be the most avid "20 questions" player you've ever encountered and you just don't see an end in sight. There's plenty to know, right?
Wrong.
You must never believe that other people will ever find you as interesting as you find yourself.

The Collected Stories - Amy Hempel

"Can a woman hurt you as much as a man?"
"Worse. They understand you better, so they can hurt you worse."

The stereotypical differences between men and woman always perplex me. At times they can be so subtle, and others so grave. I think the difference lies in this:
most women tend to fall for multiple men. We strive to be different, the exception, makes him whole, makes him want to be loyalfaithfullovingsensitivecompassionate. We want to change men. We not only want them to want to fit our molds, but fill them and maintain their shape as well. We want to be able to say, "that's how he used to be, I mean, at least until he met me." And this desire isn't extended to just one male--no, it's extended to every male we are attracted to in any form, sometimes even those we are not. Women want to be the one men talk about--the one inside their heads, but more importantly inside their hearts.
Men, on the other hand, don't share this admittedly twisted desire. Instead, men fall for an impressively small number of women. Most of them never get inside their heads, much less their hearts. It takes a special kind of woman, unique to the man in question. But when he meets her, she is special. She is the exception.
The trouble is, the average woman has an incorrigible addiction to the game of cat and mouse. A woman will do everything she can to get inside you, get to know you, root herself in the deepest places of the very foundation of yourself (sometimes in places you didn't even know existed prior to her roots inhabiting them). She will try her damnest to really know you. And she will.
But 9 times out of 10, she'll extract those roots when you least expect it. When you've just gotten comfortable with her presence there, with her making her way into every place in your life she can possibly fit herself. But once she has you, she'll face the question that every woman faces in this position: do I really want this man anymore, now that I've won him over?

And that is the million dollar question.
That is the power of a woman.
That is man's vulnerability. Achilles' tendon of his love life.
They understand you better, so they can hurt you worse.