Quotes from Love Letters to the Dead

“I think a lot of people want to be someone, but we are scared that if we try, we won't be as good as everyone imagines we could be.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“And maybe what growing up really means is knowing that you don't have to be just a character, going whichever way the story says. It's knowing you could be the author instead.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“What I told you about saving people isn't true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself. [...] You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that's when you know. You can't run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it's part of you. They see your face on it. And they won't fire the shot.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“You can be noble and brave and beautiful and still find yourself falling.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“When we are in love, we are both completely in danger and completely saved.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“You think you know someone, but that person always changes, and you keep changing, too. I understood it suddenly, how that’s what being alive means. Our own invisible plates shifting inside of our bodies, beginning to align into the people we are going to become.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“But we aren't transparent. If we want someone to know us, we have to tell them stuff.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“There's more to life than being a passenger.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“There are a lot of human experiences that challenge the limits of our language,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons that we have poetry.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“Truth is beautiful, no matter what the truth is. Even if it's scary or bad. It is beauty simply because it's true. And truth is bright. Truth makes you more you.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“Sometimes when we say things, we hear silence. Or only echoes. Like screaming from inside. And that’s really lonely. But that only happens when we weren’t really listening. It means we weren’t ready to listen yet. Because every time we speak, there is a voice. There is the world that answers back.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I wish you could tell me where you are now. I mean, I know you’re dead, but I think there must be something in a human being that can’t just disappear. It’s dark out. You’re out there. Somewhere, somewhere. I’d like to let you in.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“Nirvana means freedom. Freedom from suffering. I guess some people would say that death is just that. So, congratulations on being free, I guess. The rest of us are still here, grappling with all that's been torn up.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“she walked like she belonged in a better world,”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I mean, words can't be good enough for a lot of things. But, you know, I guess we have to try.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel, or not to feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to -- letting a person be what he really is.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I know that it can be hard to believe that someone loves you if you are afraid of being yourself, or if you are not exactly sure who you are. It can be hard to believe that someone won't leave.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“So maybe when we can say things, when we can write the words, when we can express how it feels, we aren’t so helpless.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I think that by beauty, you don't just mean something that's pretty. You mean something that makes us human.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“It's sad when everyone knows you, but no one knows you.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“We do things sometimes because we feel so much inside of us, and we don’t notice how it affects somebody else.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“The thing about traditions is that they hold up the shape of your memory.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“How could she just leave me here to live without her? I miss her so much. I love her. I want her to grow up and become who she was meant to be. I wanted her to grow up with me.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“You learned right away that applause sounds like love.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I think it’s like when you lose something so close to you, it’s like losing yourself. That’s why at the end, it’s hard for her to write even. She can hardly remember how. Because she barely knows what she is anymore.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“I feel like I am drowning in memories. Everything is too bright.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“If beauty is truth, and truth is beauty, they are defined by each other, so how do we know the meaning of either?”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

“You know when you think you know someone? More than anyone in the world? You know you know them, because you've seen them, like, for real. And then you reach out, and suddenly they are just... gone. You though you belonged together. You thought they were yours, but they're not. You want to protect them, but you can't.”
― Ava Dellaira, quote from Love Letters to the Dead

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Popular quotes

“While Nape was making the bread and Dryas boiling the ram, Daphnis and Chloe had time to go forth as far as the ivy-bush; and when he had set his snares again and pricked his lime-twigs, they not only catched good store of birds, but had a sweet collation of kisses without intermission, and a dear conversation in the language of love: "Chloe, I came for thy sake." "I know it, Daphnis." "'Tis long of thee that I destroy the poor birds." "What wilt thou with me?" "Remember me." "I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in yonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts." "But it lies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow." "Courage, man; the Sun burns hot." "I would it burnt like that fire which now burns my very heart." "You do but gibe and cozen me!" "I do not, by the goats by which thou didst once bid me to swear to thee.”
― quote from Daphnis and Chloe

“I began my mindfulness exercises and focused on how the water felt against my skin, how my toes felt as I raised my feet and they came into contact with the bubbles on the surface, and the pressure of the tub against my back. I focused on my breathing and allowed it to become slower and deeper, letting my tummy rise and fall instead of my back and shoulders. Then, as I was at my most relaxed, I pushed my bum forward, opened my mouth, slipped my head underwater and took the biggest gulp of water I could until it flooded my lungs. My brain’s immediate reaction was to force myself to the surface and cough the water out, but I fought hard against it and remained underneath, thrashing about like a fish caught in a net.”
― John Marrs, quote from The Good Samaritan

“A cat will blink when struck with a hammer.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty

“For the briefest of seconds, it was like he looked back into the stands, like maybe he spotted me, shaking my rattle, giving him all the encouragement I could. I could have sworn I saw a corner of his mouth curl up. Then he did the whole Velcro batting glove thing and stepped up to the plate.
The pitch came.
He swung.
Crack!
He hit it! He hit it! I jumped up and started shouting.
I had a second to see the stunned look on his face, like maybe he’d never hit the ball before, but that couldn’t be…
And then I realized what it was. As he started running, he turned his head, his gaze following the ball…
The ball that went out of the ballpark!
Right over the Backyard Mania billboard!
Home run!
My boyfriend had hit a home run!”
― Rachel Hawthorne, quote from The Boyfriend League

“Construyendo los pensamientos de esta manera y, particularmente, si tu deseo es aprovechar la muerte para el bien de todos los seres, será necesario que reconozcas la Luz, a fin de alcanzar con ella la sublime coronación del Estado del Gran Símbolo4. Para ello, debes decir: ‘Puede que no pueda comprenderlo, pero conoceré este Bardo y dominando al Gran Cuerpo de Unión en él, renaceré en cualquiera de las formas que beneficie a los seres sensibles. Serviré a todos ellos que se extienden hasta los confines del espacio. Sin interrumpir el pensamiento de la disposición del espíritu de la vigilia’ ”. Es en este momento cuando el moribundo debe tratar de recordar las enseñanzas religiosas que le fueron impartidas durante su vida. Al decir estas palabras, el guía debe colocar sus labios cerca del oído y repetirlas claramente, dejando una huella en la mente del moribundo para que no tenga oportunidad de extraviarse y se mantenga recta en su camino. Por esa razón, tras el cese completo de la espiración, debe presionarse firmemente el nervio del sueño; luego, si quien muere es un lama o una persona con mayor instrucción, se le grabarán las siguientes palabras: “Reverendo Señor, ahora te encuentras en la experiencia de la Luz Clara Fundamental; permanece en ese estado”. Si se trata de una persona cualquiera, el guía deberá decir: “Oh, noble nacido (nombre), escucha lo que tengo para decirte: estás experimentando el Resplandor de la Luz Clara de la Realidad Pura. Debes reconocerla. Tu intelecto actual, ya vacío por completo y sin formas que condicionen el color, la sustancia o el pensamiento, vacío hasta la naturalidad más absoluta, es la Realidad y el Todo Bueno. El propio intelecto, ahora ya por completo vacío pero manteniendo su existencia en sí, está libre de limitaciones y brilla. Es el intelecto mismo y no el vacío de la nada, la bienaventurada conciencia, el Buda Todo Bondad. La conciencia tuya, ahora sin formación y vacía de toda realidad, y tu intelecto en pleno brillo, son dos esencias inseparables cuya unión es el estado Dharma-Käya, la Iluminación Perfecta. La conciencia tuya, unida al Cuerpo Grande que Resplandece, vacía por completo y luminosa, no tiene principio ni fin, y es una Luz Perdurable, el Buda Amitabha. Será necesario y suficiente que reconozcas el vacío de tu intelecto en el Estado Búdico, y que comprendas que se trata de tu conciencia, para que te mantengas con la mente en su estado divino”.”
― Padmasambhava, quote from Tibetan Book of the Dead

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