Promise Quotes - Page 39

• Her face crashes. She hasn't dealt with a single transfusion or lumbar puncture. She wasn't allowed near me for the bone-marrow transplant, but she could have been there for any number of diagnoses, and wasn't. Even her promises to visit more often have faded away with Christmas. It's her turn to taste some reality.

  Jenny Downham

  Reality, Numbers, Diagnosis

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• For paradise we long. For perfection we were made...This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives...This longing makes our loves and friendships possible, and so very unsatisfactory. The hunger is for...nothing less than perfect communion with the...one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together...we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled...The only death to fear is the death of settling for something less.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Perfect, Long, Together

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• O, there is lovely to feel a book, a good book, firm in the hand, for its fatness holds rich promise, and you are hot inside to think of good hours to come.

  Richard Llewellyn

  Book, Thinking, Hands

  RICHARD LLEWELLYN (1967). “HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY”

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• There is no relationship in life that comes with the promise of zero pain.

  Obert Skye

  Zero, Pain

  Obert Skye, Ben Sowards (2008). “The Eyes of the Want”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

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• So the Dark did a simple thing. They showed the maker of the sword his own uncertainty and fear. Fear of having done the wrong thing--fear that having done this one great thing, he would never again be able to accomplish anything of great worth--fear of age, of insufficiency, of unmet promise. All such great fears, that are the doom of people given the gift of making, and lie always somewhere in their minds.

  Susan Cooper

  Lying, Dark, Simple

  Susan Cooper (2010). “Silver on the Tree”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

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• ...though I cannot promise to take you home," said North Wind, as she sank nearer and nearer to the tops of the houses, "I can promise you it will be all right in the end. You will get home somehow.

  George MacDonald

  Home, Wind, House

  George MacDonald (2015). “At the Back of the North Wind (Illustrated): Children's Classic Fantasy Novel from the Author of Adela Cathcart, Phantastes, The Princess and the Goblin, Lilith, England’s Antiphon, The Light Princess & Dealings with the Fairies”, p.27, e-artnow

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• The common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn't indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn't detect.

  Mark Twain

  Heart, Eye, Judging

  Mark Twain (2016). “Joan of Arc”, p.117, Ignatius Press

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• It feels strange to me to be living in a box, hiding from the steadying influence of the moon; wearing the hide of a cow, which is supposed to be dyed to match God-knows-what, on my feet; making promises over the telephone about things I will do at a precise hour next year.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Moon, Years, Feet

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “High Tide in Tucson”, p.15, Faber & Faber

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• To Jack, there was nothing more powerful than a promise made over a handshake. He would have died ー literally chosen death ー before breaking his word.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Powerful, Made, Handshake

  Lisa Kleypas (2008). “Blue-Eyed Devil: A Novel”, p.99, Macmillan

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• I am running into a new year and the old years blow back like a wind that I catch in my hair like strong fingers like all my old promises and it will be hard to let go of what I said to myself about myself when I was sixteen and twenty-six and thirty-six but I am running into a new year and I beg what i love and I leave to forgive me.

  Lucille Clifton

  Letting Go, Running, New Year

  Lucille Clifton (1974). “An ordinary woman”

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• We came in the wind of the carnival. A wind of change, or promises. The merry wind, the magical wind, making March hares of everyone, tumbling blossoms and coat-tails and hats; rushing towards summer in a frenzy of exuberance.

  Joanne Harris

  Summer, Wind, Rushing

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• Think how you love me,' she whispered. 'I don't ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember.' You'll always be like this to me.' Oh no; but promise me you'll remember.' Her tears were falling. 'I'll be different, but somewhere lost inside me there'll always be the person I am tonight.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Fall, Thinking, Remember You

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works”, p.1995, e-artnow

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• I'd love to, she finally said,"on one condition." I steadied myself, hoping it wasn't something too awful. "Yes?" "You have to promise that you won't fall in love with me." I knew she was kidding me by the way she laughed, and I couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes, I had to admit, Jamie had a pretty good sense of humor. I smiled and gave her my word.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Falling In Love, Sigh Of Relief, Awful

  Nicholas Sparks (2011). “A Walk To Remember”, p.23, Hachette UK

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• Those promises we make to ourselves when we are younger, about how we mean to conduct our adult lives, can it be true we break every last one of them? All except for one, I suppose: the promise to judge ourselves by those standards, the promise to remember the child who would be so appalled by compromise, the child who would find jadedness wicked.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Children, Mean, Judging

  Jonathan Lethem, Tom Perrotta, Lester Bangs, Aimee Bender, Amanda Davis (2007). “Lit Riffs”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• Something always happens. You still have to promise stuff anyway. If you have to work to make the promises true... it's like a spell. You have to say the words every time you want the results.

  Diane Duane

  Want, Stuff, Results

  Diane Duane (2003). “High Wizardry”, p.239, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters

  Daniel Webster

  Mean, Men, Gun

  Daniel Webster, James Rees (1839). “The beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: selected and arranged, with a critical essay on his genius and writings”, p.30

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• It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

  Gregory David Roberts

  Dream, Art, Love Is

  Gregory David Roberts (2004). “Shantaram: A Novel”, p.327, Macmillan

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• (and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)

  Zadie Smith

  Giving, Catholic, Politician

  Zadie Smith (2003). “White Teeth”, p.25, Vintage

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• Are you there vodka? It's me, Chelsea. Please get me out of jail and I promise I will never drink again. Drink and drive. I will never drink and drive again. I may even start my own group fashioned after MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, but I'll call it AWLTDASH, Alcoholics Who Like to Drink and Stay Home.

  Chelsea Handler

  Funny, Mother, Home

  "Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea". Book by Chelsea Handler, 2008.

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• ...It looked very different from the Statue of Liberty, but what did that matter? What was the good of having the statue without the liberty, the freedom to go where one chose if one was held back by one's color? No, I preferred the Eiffel Tower, which made no promises." ~ Josephine Baker, once she had seen the Eiffel Tower

  Josephine Baker

  Color, Liberty, Bakers

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• The adult must seem to mislead the child, and the Master the dog. They misread the signs. Their ignorance and their wishes twist everything. You are so sure you know what the promise promised! And the danger is that when what He means by ‘wind’ appears you will ignore it because it is not what you thought it would be—as He Himself was rejected because He was not like the Messiah the Jews had in mind.

  Sheldon Vanauken

  Dog, Children, Ignorance

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• She wore a gown the color of storms, shadows, and rain and a necklace of broken promises and regrets.

  Susanna Clarke

  Regret, Rain, Color

  Susanna Clarke (2005). “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell”, p.162, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

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• I won't get killed,' Rose protested. Is that a promise?' Fish asked dryly, stirring his tea. 'If you break your word, I'll never believe you again.' Rose shook her head at him. 'How can you even taste your tea if you put that much sugar in it?' Don't change the subject. I don't want to be responsible for depriving the world of Rose Brier. Under no circumstances are you allowed to help us do anything more dangerous than...change the oil in my car.

  Regina Doman

  Believe, Oil, Car

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• In the first place, you shouldn't believe in promises. The world is full of them: the promises of riches, of eternal salvation, of infinite love. Some people think they can promise anything, others accept whatever seems to guarantee better days ahead, as, I suspect is your case. Those who make promises they don't keep end up powerless and frustrated, and exactly the fate awaits those who believe promises.

  Paulo Coelho

  Believe, Fate, Thinking

  Paulo Coelho (2009). “The Devil and Miss Prym: A Novel of Temptation”, p.10, Harper Collins

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• Nothing bears out in practice what it promises incipiently.

  John Irving

  Practice, Bears

  John Irving (2012). “A Prayer For Owen Meany”, p.537, Random House

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