Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 at 12:09 AM
Book: The Storyteller's tale
Author: Omair Ahmad

"And isn't that the tragedy of love, it's utter and complete deceit, that you can only be true in it, that you only wish to reveal your full truth to the one you love, with no frills and no lies, that you want to be loved as you are? That you wish to be loved for your truth, and not your ability to hide it?

 

Yeh dil kab ishq ke kabil raha hai

Kahaan isko dimaagh-o-dil raha hai?

 

When has this heart been capable of loving?

When has it had the intelligence (to play the game) of love, this heart of mine…" 

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"Isn't that the brutal truth of love, that you can never choose the ache it leaves you with, that it doesn't matter if you offer to take the pain on your unprotected breast, it will still stab you in the back? She had no defences left anymore, and began to weep gently."

 

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After the leave taking (the story teller said) there is the leaving. And once you have left, you discover the  ten thousand things that you still carry - memories of touch, scent and sight.

 

"It is only after leaving that you discover the city within you has changed, and its roads wind now to different destinations. After the end of love there is the unloving, when you can engage in the ceaseless hunt for all those things to be taken out, and somehow discarded; when you can fight against the new roads and try futilely, to return to what you were before.

 

There is, though, another choice. Half the story of love is the discovery of it as you put it behind you. And with that discovery comes the knowledge that your own journey is still incomplete. The maps have changed, the continents have shifted, and the horizons are not the ones you remember. However, the road is still open  and there is much to see, but only if you have the courage to see that the first step is always a departure."

 

That Love is all there is, is all that we know of love.

at 12:07 AM

Book: A million little pieces 

Author: James Frey

 

"The one word love means too little for what it is. It means everything and that is still not enough. It does not communicate even a fraction of the feelings involved. Love. The word is not enough for what it is. "

"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other." ~Carl Jung

at 12:05 AM
Book: Godan
Author: Munshi Premchand

(Mehta to Malti) "Platonic love and selfless love, in which the lover lives only for his beloved and sacrifices everything for her, are humbug. I've read stories in which the lover sacrificed his life because the dream of his life had other lovers. I attribute this to passion, not to love. Love is not a docile cow; it's a magnificent lion. And the lion allows no one to come near his prey. "

 

(Malti to Mehta) "If love is a lion, I better not come near it. I thought love was soft and sweet, like a cow.  I think true love is always above suspicion - for suspicion leads to violence. Love demands complete surrender. In the temple of love, rewards go to the devotee, not the critic. "

 

Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me. ~Anne Morrow

at 12:04 AM
Book: The Zahir
Author: Paulo Coelho

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

 

This force on earth  is to make us happy, to bring us closer to God and to our neihgbor, and yet, given the way that we love now, we enjoy one hour of anxiety for every minute of peace."

If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

at 12:00 AM
Book: By the river Piedra I sat down and wept
Author: Paulo Coelho

"I looked at the other, there in the corner of the room, fragile, exhausted, disillusioned. Controlling and enslaving what should really be free: her emotions. Trying to judge her future  loves by the rule of her past suffering.

 

But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it; even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointed and sadness.

 

The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us." 

"There is just one life for each of us: our own." Euripides

Sunday, May 24, 2009 at 9:21 PM
Book - God's Debris
Author - Scott Adams

(A conversation between the old man and the delivery boy. The delivery boy is narrating it.) 

“Has anyone ever advised you to ‘be yourself’?”


I said I’d heard that a lot.


“What does it mean to be yourself?” he asked. “If it

means to do what you think you ought to do, then you’re

doing that already. If it means to act like you’re exempt

from society’s influence, that’s the worst advice in the

world; you would probably stop bathing and wearing clothes.

The advice to ‘be yourself’ is obviously nonsense. But our

brains accept this tripe as wisdom because it is more comfortable

to believe we have a strategy for life than to believe

we have no idea how to behave.”

 


 

Ignorance is bliss. Or is it?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 9:40 PM
Book: The Human Stain
Author: Philip Roth

"Because we don't know. Do we? Everyone knows - How what happens the way it does. What underlines the anarchy of the train of events, the uncertainties, the mishaps, the disunities, the shocking irregularities that define human life. 

Nobody knows.

'Everyone knows' is the invocation of the cliche and the beginning of banalization of experience, and its solemnity and the sense of authority that people have in voicing the cliche that's so insufferable. What we know is that, in an uncliched way, nobody knows anything. You can't know anything. The things you 'know', you dont know. Intention? Motive? Consequence? Meaning? All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what we pass for knowing." 


“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached”

Monday, May 18, 2009 at 9:28 PM
Book: Godan

"Attachment is another name for our sorrow at what we have not been able to achieve in this world. Duties performed and tasks accomplished disappear into the limbo of oblivion, leaving no sense of longing behind. But our feeling for persons left behind as orphans or for tasks which failed to reach fruition, persists."


Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.

Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 11:00 PM
Book: The Prophet

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self same well from which your laughter rises was often times filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine, the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 

When you are sorowful, look again into your heart, and in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say 'joy is greater than sorrow' and other say 'Nay, sorrow is greater than joy' But I say unto you, they are inseparable. 

Together they come and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily, you are suspended like scales between your joy and sorrow. 

Only when you are empty are you at stand still and balanced. 

When the treasure keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall."

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.

at 9:27 PM
Book: The Zahir
Author: Paulo Coelho

"That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut them loose. People need to understand that nobody is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is, no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are." 

Faith isn't faith until it's all you are holding on to.

at 5:00 AM
Book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Author: Richard Bach

"When you come to the edge of all light you have known, and are about to step out into darkness, faith is knowing one of the two things will happen: there will be something to stand on or you will be taught to fly."