No Promises.

When you find out who you are, you will no longer be innocent. That will be sad for others to see. All that knowledge will show on your face and change it. But sad only for others, not for yourself. You will feel you have a kind of wisdom, very mistaken, but a mistake of some power to you and so you will sadly treasure it and grow it.

—Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs

That is human nature, that people come after you, willingly enough, provided only that you no longer love or want them.

—A.S. Byatt, Possession

I am tired of knowing nothing and being reminded of it all the time.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night   (via bqrmagic)

(Source: bluesandbarebones, via bqrmagic)

You’re giving me signs that grieve my soul and make me wonder if maybe your mind’s been changed about me.

—The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

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 fishbodies, 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, Cat’s Eye

I didn’t want to kiss you goodbye, that was the trouble—I wanted to kiss you goodnight. And there’s a lot of difference.

—Ernest Hemingway (via holy-shrimp)

(via espressoandknits)

The ride will be circuitous, bumpy, and extremely expensive and you will feel miserable and responsible for everyone’s unhappiness.

—Memo to The New York Times: What Actually Happens During “36 Hours in…” a Foreign Country

lovers alone wear sunlight

—e.e. cummings