Despite Quotes - Page 4

• Defeat may prove to have been the only path to resurrection, despite its ugliness.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Temporary Defeat, May, Path

  Antoine de Saint Exupery (1942). “Flight to Arras”

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• We looked at each other. And it occurred to me that despite his faults, which were numerous and spectacular, the reason I’d liked Boris and felt happy around him from almost the moment I’d met him was that he was never afraid. You didn’t meet many people who moved freely through the world with such a vigorous contempt for it and at the same time such oddball and unthwartable faith in what, in childhood, he had liked to call “the Planet of Earth.

  Donna Tartt

  People, Childhood, World

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• A knife, it felt like a knife, and I'd discovered that despite everything that's happened, I still had an endless untapped potential for getting hurt.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Hurt, Knives, Untapped Potential

  Chuck Palahniuk (2011). “Invisible Monsters: A Novel”, p.139, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Love doesn't always come when you want it to. Sometimes it just happens, despite your will.

  Virginia C. Andrews

  Want, Sometimes, Happens

  Virginia C. Andrews (2004). “Flowers in the Attic”

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• That stirring which had fluttered in her on first glimpsing the sea—that stirring landlocked children know so well—moved in her now, with the golden stars over head, and the green fireflies glinting on the wooded shore. She carefully unfolded the stirring that she had so tightly packed away. It billowed out like a sail, and she laughed, despite herself, despite hunger and hard things ahead.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Stars, Children, Firefly

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making”, p.176, Feiwel & Friends

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• Despite our differences, we did have a history. No one understood where I was coming from the way he did.

  Sarah Dessen

  Differences, Way, Understood

  Sarah Dessen (2004). “This Lullaby”, p.171, Penguin

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• Don't expect me to be perfect. Despite all my lives, I'm still only human. I can't deliver perfection, and I'll only disappoint you. But I want you to know that you are the most important person to me. I'm trying to protect you. Sometimes I screw things up. I may even tell a white lie every now and then. But you have to give me the benefit of the doubt.

  Kirsten Miller

  Lying, White, Giving

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• Merripen, despite his fear of heights, had often climbed a ladder to wash the second floor window for her. He had wanted her view of the outside world to be clear. He had said the sky should always be blue for her.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Blue, Views, Sky

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• Why are you smiling?' Gargarin asked Froi, from across the balconette. 'When you're going to have to learn a lesson in diplomacy today and choose between the gardens of two women?' Froi laughed, his chin resting on Quintana's head, his eyes taking in the joy of his son, despite the ridiculous cap that covered the babe's head. He looked across at Lirah and Arjuro and Rafuel, and then back to Gargarin who was smiling himself, because he knew the answer to his own question. 'Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder.

  Melina Marchetta

  Eye, Son, Garden

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• She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities.

  Sheryl Sandberg

  Mistake, Skills, People

  Sheryl Sandberg (2014). “Lean In for Graduates”, p.37, Knopf

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• „I forgive you for stealing my shawl.“ She smiles as he laughs. And then she vanishes. A simple trick of distracting his attention long enough to slip out through the hall, despite the lingering temptation to stay.

  Erin Morgenstern

  Simple, Long, Laughing

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• For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years. Like some people who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, she lay there unable to die, resisting death as she had resisted life, frozen with resentment of process and change.

  William S. Burroughs

  Years, People, Bed

  William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac (2009). “And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks”, p.57, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea.

  Pema Chodron

  Beautiful, Hurt, Children

  Pema Chodron (2000). “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times”, p.65, Shambhala Publications

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• Despite what I said about staying the way we were, I changed. I, who have always believed in speaking my mind and made it my mission to uncover the truth, have found myself keeping secrets. Sometimes life is more complicated than the simple rules we make for it.

  Elizabeth Chandler

  Simple, Speaking My Mind, Keeping Secrets

  Elizabeth Chandler (2011). “Dark Secrets 1: Legacy of Lies and Don't Tell”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

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• It's my uniform. Everyone in my company wears it." "It's hideous." Rose felt her hackles rise. The neon green uniform was hideous, but she didn't appreciate him pointing it out. She opened her mouth. "Yet despite it, you look lovely," he said. "Flattery will get you nowhere," she told him. "It's not flattery," he said coldly. "Flattery requires exaggeration. I'm merely stating a fact. You're a beautiful woman wearing an ugly sack of unnatural color.

  Ilona Andrews

  Beautiful, Color, Rose

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• Tuon's eyes snapped open, and despite the dim light, she focused directly on Mat. She saw the knife in his hand, ready to throw. Then she looked over her shoulder.

  Robert Jordan

  Eye, Light, Hands

  Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson (2013). “A Memory of Light”, p.316, Macmillan

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• I heard someone walk out of the alley behind me, and my body went tense and tight, despite my weariness.  Then a young woman's voice said, in a passable British accent, "The Little People are easily startled, but they'll soon be back.  And in greater numbers."     I sagged in sudden, exhausted relief.  The bad guys hardly ever quote Star Wars.

  Jim Butcher

  Stars, War, Voice

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• The nerves of the skin send pain signals to the brain to warn us of the danger from and impending injury. In the case of self-inflicted wounding, this pain acts as the body's own defense mechanism to stop one from proceeding in the effort at physical injury. If a person proceeds despite the pain, that means that he or she is motivated by something stronger than the pain, something that makes him or her capable of ignoring or enduring it.

  Steven Levenkron

  Pain, Mean, Self

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• Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.

  Jerry Bridges

  Adversity, Soul, Promise

  Jerry Bridges, Gerald Bridges, Jack Kuhatschek (1989). “You Can Trust God”, Navpress Publishing Group

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• He was too perfect, despite being one of the most imperfect people I knew.

  Richelle Mead

  People, Perfect, Sydney Sage

  Richelle Mead (2013). “The Indigo Spell: A Bloodlines Novel”, p.219, Penguin

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• No mother is ever, completely, a child's idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well. But despite everything, we didn't do too badly by one another, we did as well as most.

  Margaret Atwood

  Mother, Children, Ideas

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Sep 25, 2014

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• Because we managed to keep our heart open, despite the pain. Because we realized that the person who left us did not take the sun with them or leave darkness in their place.

  Paulo Coelho

  Pain, Heart, Darkness

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• Despite the fact that Raven and Tack are often fighting, it's impossible to imagine one without the other. They are like two plants that have grown around each other - they strangle and squeeze and support at the same time.

  Lauren Oliver

  Fighting, Ravens, Two

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• And didn't it always go like that--body parts not lining up the way you wanted them to, all of it a little bit off, as if the world itself were an animated sequence of longing and envy and self-hatred and grandiosity and failure and success, a strange and endless cartoon loop that you couldn't stop watching, because, despite all you knew by now, it was still so interesting.

  Meg Wolitzer

  Self, Envy, Interesting

  Meg Wolitzer (2013). “The Interestings”, p.468, Random House

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• Ursan flourished the knife, threatening me. "Talk, or I'll start cutting off body parts." "Yours? Or mine?" I kept my voice steady despite my insides twisting into goo. "It's an important distinction.

  Maria V. Snyder

  Cutting, Knives, Voice

  Maria V. Snyder (2013). “Scent of Magic”, p.61, Harlequin

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