If, every day, I dare to remember that I am here on loan, that this house, this hillside, these minutes, are all leased to me, not given, I will never despair. Despair is for those who expect to live forever. I no longer do.
—Erica Jong
There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We’d be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think ‘it will be okay if it can just be like this forever’ but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.
—Nina LaCour in Hold Still
Some animals, like some men, leave a trail of glory behind them. They give their spirit to the place where they have lived, and remain forever a part of the rocks and streams and the wind and sky.
—Marguerite Henry
For love is immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
—Walter Scott
Childhood feels so permanent, like it's the entire world, and then one day it's over and you're shoveling wet dirt onto your father's coffin, stunned at the impermanence of everything.
—Jonathan Tropper in This is Where I Leave You
Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
—Henri Matisse
This isn't good or bad. It's just the way of things. Nothing stays the same.
—Gordon Atkinson
The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.
—Simone de Beauvoir
I won't ever leave you, even though you're always leaving me.
—Audrey Niffenegger in The Time Traveler’s Wife
You can't undo something that's happened; you can't take back a word that's already been said out loud.
—Jodi Picoult in Nineteen Minutes
They say that there are moments that open up your life like a walnut cracked, that change your point of view so that you never look at things the same way again.
—Jodi Picoult in Keeping Faith
What would I have said to him if I'd known I would never see him again?
—Jennifer Niven in All the Bright Places