I wanted people to trust me, despite anything they'd heard. And more than that, I wanted them to know me. Not the stuff they thought they knew about me. No, the real me. I wanted them to get past the rumors. To see beyond the relationships I once had.
—Jay Asher in Thirteen Reasons Why
We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.
—Charles Caleb Colton
They were at different places in the same relationship, and like anything that's out of alignment, they were destined to crash sooner or later.
—Jodi Picoult in The Tenth Circle
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
—Georgia O'Keeffe
I dreamed of you every night. It felt so real. And when I'd wake up the next morning, it was like your disappearance was fresh. Like you'd left me all over again.
—Brodi Ashton in Everneath
Buddhism is not a refuge from life. It is life stripped bare and known most intimately. Zen doesn't make you a "better person." It helps you become fully human. My mentor was no model for how to behave perfectly but for how to experience completely. He never told me how to live my life. He just helped me become alive.
—Shozan Jack Haubner in Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk
Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley
All I'm telling you to do is to be smart about it. Know that if this man isn't looking for a serious relationship, you're not going to change his mind just because you two are going on dates and being intimate. You could be the most perfect woman on the green earth—you're capable of interesting conversation, you cook a mean breakfast, you hand out backrubs like sandwiches, you're independent—but if he's not ready for a serious relationship, he's going to treat you like sports fish.
—Steve Harvey in Think Like a Man
There are some things you don't learn about yourself until you let someone else into the most intimate places of your heart.
—Kiera Cass in The Heir