Marisa Crane

The Smiths dream into my ear on this lost and lonely morning. I sing along like it is the only prayer I know (forgive me, Mother Mary).

I’m just a broken person looking for other broken people who may have gotten shards of me stuck in their feet and aren’t too concerned about pulling them out.

Loving him is like trying to hold onto an armful of balloons. Maybe I need someone to come along and pop them.

And all the while I thought I was drowning, I was actually the one holding my head under the water.

Don’t ever let anyone keep your heart on a shelf just to take it down whenever it is convenient for them to feel.

Blood banks are all closed; you can’t use others to keep you warm.

How could a man be satisfied with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances? No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he’s chosen from among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.

Nature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be defended.

A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.

All diseases run into one, old age.

The revelation of Thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do what is right.

Rich men without convictions are more dangerous in modern society than poor women without chastity.

It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.

Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that come from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence. The great Sufi poet Rumi wrote, Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

Remember always that you have not only the right to be an individual; you have an obligation to be one. You cannot make any useful contribution in life unless you do this.

What you can’t pay back you pay forward.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.