And in that moment I possessed and lost the whole world and everything in it and was left with the feeling and the knowledge, which is love, that no matter how we give ourselves we always end up losing. That to love is to lose, the moment we agree to the bargain. And that, being human, we keep standing there wanting to lose more.

Ann Rinaldi

Categorized in : Giving Love Is Love You

I didn't know how to say goodbye. Words were stupid. They said so little. Yet they opened up holes you could fall into and never climb out of again.

Ann Rinaldi

stupid goodbye fall

When I wrote, I felt better, as if I had remade the world all of a piece, the way I wanted it to be, not the way it was.

Ann Rinaldi

pieces way world

Love is like light and there are two kinds, the bursting fireworks of the moment and the solid, fixed stars that sometimes become obscured in the heavens, but are always there, year after year, for a lifetime.

Ann Rinaldi

stars light love-is

A person has to be strong in life. A person must practice strength, even if they don't feel it.

Ann Rinaldi

strong practice feels

I want a place. It has to do with the kind of person I want to be. And how I fit in to everything. I want people to listen when I open my mouth. And know I'm worth listening to." She stared at me. "That's all?" To me it was not all, it was everything.

Ann Rinaldi

mouths listening people

Most of our miseries we bring on ourselves. And they're the sum of our own stupidity.

Ann Rinaldi

misery stupidity

I will stand by you. You must not be afraid. This is a brave land, Susanna, founded by brave people who never shrank from their duty or their vision of freedom. But this land has a future only if each of us stands up for what is right when it is given us to do so.

Ann Rinaldi

land brave people

When I write I am the real me.

Ann Rinaldi

real-me real writing

You don't trade in the devil you know for the one you don't know.

Ann Rinaldi

devil trade life

No one is a virgin, because life has screwed us all.

Ann Rinaldi

virgins

Sometimes it takes courage to leave.

Ann Rinaldi

courage-to-leave sometimes

Sometimes it take courage to leave.

Ann Rinaldi

courage-to-leave sometimes

Because I had already resolved that if you're afraid of love, your heart will break anyway, only in not half so nice a fashion as it does when you let somebody love you.

Ann Rinaldi

fashion nice love-you

Let me say the good are often punished unfairly.

Ann Rinaldi

let-me

Are all American girls as daft as you, Rachel?" "I hope so," I said.

Ann Rinaldi

daft girl said

A person doesn't ask permission to fall in love; not even of themselves.

Ann Rinaldi

falling-in-love persons permission

When a woman's face is wrinkled And her hairs are sprinkled, With gray, Lackaday! Aside she's cast, No one respect will pay; Remember, Lasses, remember. And while the sun shines make hay: You must not expect in December, The flowers you gathered in May.

Ann Rinaldi

shining flower hair

The most important thing we ever have to learn in life is to live with our choices.

Ann Rinaldi

important choices life-is

Doing good doesn't always make you feel good. I don't care what they tell you in church.

Ann Rinaldi

care feel-good church

There are depths to the human soul that should not be fathomed.

Ann Rinaldi

depth soul should