A Gift For You

Today is my birthday.

I want to share some of my favorite quotes with you, in an effort not only to be transparent about what moves and inspires and touches my heart, but as a gift back to you for being wonderful readers and commenters and friends. I'm so grateful for you.

"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

~ Helen Keller

"I have noticed that if you look carefully at people’s eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away."

~ from “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd

"I will love you always. When this red hair is white, I will still love you. When the smooth softness of youth is replaced by the delicate softness of age, I will still want to touch your skin. When your face is full of the lines of every smile you have ever smiled, of every surprise I have seen flash through your eyes, when every tear you have ever cried has left its mark upon your face, I will treasure you all the more, because I was there to see it all. I will share your life with you, and I will love you until the last breath leaves your body or mine."

~ from “A Lick of Frost” by Laurell K. Hamilton

"The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed. The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning. As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing. I also needed to hear other women’s stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman’s story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven’t seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different."

~Sue Monk Kidd

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone."

~Miller Williams

“When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.”

~Langston Hughes

"That thing, that moment, when you kiss someone and everything around becomes hazy and the only thing in focus is you and this person and you realize that that person is the only person that you’re supposed to kiss for the rest of your life, and for one moment you get this amazing gift and you want to laugh and you want to cry because you feel so lucky that you found it and so scared that that it will go away all at the same time."

~from the movie "Never Been Kissed"

"I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me."

~Elizabeth Gilbert

"Love is like a friendship caught on fire: In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable."

~Bruce Lee

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief... and unspeakable love."

~Washington Irving

"Lips that taste of tears, they say, are the best for kissing."

~ Dorothy Parker

"Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?"

~ Thomas Jefferson

"Music is the medicine of the breaking heart."

~Leigh Hunt

"So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit."

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

“A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.”

~George Jean Nathan

"Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else`s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too."

~Frederick Buechner

"The singer has everything within him. The notes come out from his

very life. They are not materials gathered from outside."

~Rabindranath Tagore

"Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway."

~Emory Austin

"Music is always happening, and sometimes you get to touch it for a while, and when you do, you know that everything’s connected to everything else."

~ from “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” by Kim Edwards

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, knowing struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

~ Elizabeth Kubler Ross

“Walk with me

through the rain

on a moonlit night

let it cleanse our souls

of broken dreams

so we may begin anew

in each other’s arms”

~Ranee Dillon

"Could it ever be

that you would love me deeply

as in my heart's dream?"

~Amy Kiel

"Falling in love is like jumping off a really tall building. your brain tells you it's not a good idea, but your heart tells you that you can fly."

~ Unknown

"When you start to know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and your body but not your heart. And that’s why, when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant."

~Unknown

“When our minds are no longer fragmented by the illusion of our separation from each other, but healed by the truth of our oneness, we are awakened to a new dimension of compassion” ~Marianne Williamson”

"It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides. What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight. And more often then not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of their soul.”

~Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Only after disaster can we be resurrected"

~ Unknown

"To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too."

~Victoria Moran