Lang Leav > Lang's Quotes

“If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Muddiness is not merely a disturber of prose, it is also a destroyer of life, of hope: death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram. Think of the tragedies that are rooted in ambiguity, and be clear! When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.”
― E.B. White

“We may be just two different clocks, that do not tock in unison.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“When words run dry,
he does not try,
nor do I.

We are on par.

He just is,
I just am
and we just are”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“I had my first dream about you last night.
Really? She smiles. What was it about?
I don't remember exactly but the whole time I was dreaming, I knew you were mine.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“A marker drawn to show our end, is etched into its line.

The briefest moment shared with you—the longest on my mind.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“You were the one, I wanted most to stay.

But time could not be kept at bay.

The more it goes, the more it's gone, the more it takes away.”
― Lang Leav

“In her eyes, the sadness sings—of one who was destined, for better things.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“I was there in your forgetting, until I was forgot.”
― Lang Leav

“People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, and unfathomable – deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.”
― Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women

“I felt in him what women feel in men, something so tender, swollen, tyrannical, absurd; I would never take the consequences of interfering with it.”
― Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women

“But I do enjoy words—some words for their own sake! Words like river, and dawn, and daylight, and time. These words seem much richer than our experiences of the things they represent—”
― Alasdair Gray, Lanark

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that
without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
― Pearl S. Buck

“I distrust speech therapy. Words are the language of lies and evasions. Music cannot lie. Music talks to the heart.”
― Alasdair Gray, Lanark

“What satisfaction do you, personally, get from being a writer?" Lanark tried to remember. He said, "It's the only disciplined work I remember trying. I sleep better for it.”
― Alasdair Gray, Lanark

“Advice to a Young Poet
Don’t spend yourself in the small copper coins
of complaint and accusation.
Don’t answer those in authority, those who fancy
themselves all-powerful,
with grubby, fingered words
for which you’ll be picked up at three in the morning.
Answer with pictures that no one has ever painted,
answer with thoughts which no one has ever thought,
answer with verses which no one has ever fashioned,
answer with a language which no one has ever uttered.
Not with the sword, poet, will you sly tyranny
but with the freshness of spring and autumn’s maturity.
Beaten and blood-stained, strike your gold coins,
heavy with the destiny of your age,
heavy with your own destiny,
golden coins bearing your own likeness,
reflecting mankind’s suffering
against the background
of man’s two million years upon our planet.
Such coins
shall stay in circulation even after ten thousand years,
valid like life’s rebellious spring,
like life repeating itself, ever-youthful—
while the coins
with the theatrical, proud and imperial gestures—
the measure of pride reflecting stupidity—
will long have lain dead in the museum show-cases
under artificial light,
shunning the sun,
dead for a thousand years.”
― Ondra Lysohorsky, Selected poems

“It goes without saying that a fine short poem can have the resonance and depth of an entire novel.”
― James Wright, Selected Poems

“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.”
― Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken and Other Poems

“What was it like to love him? Asked Gratitude.
It was like being exhumed, I answered, and brought to life in a flash of brilliance.

What was it like to be loved in return? Asked Joy.
It was like being seen after a perpetual darkness, I replied. To be heard after a lifetime of silence.

What was it like to lose him? Asked Sorrow. There was a long pause before I responded:

It was like hearing every goodbye ever said to me—said all at once.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“It happens like this.

"One day you meet someone and for some inexplicable reason, you feel more connected to this stranger than anyone else--closer to them than your closest family. Perhaps this person carries within them an angel--one sent to you for some higher purpose; to teach you an important lesson or to keep you safe during a perilous time. What you must do is trust in them--even if they come hand in hand with pain or suffering--the reason for their presence will become clear in due time."

Though here is a word of warning--you may grow to love this person but remember they are not yours to keep. Their purpose isn't to save you but to show you how to save yourself. And once this is fulfilled; the halo lifts and the angel leaves their body as the person exits your life. They will be a stranger to you once more.

-------------------------------------------------

It's so dark right now, I can't see any light around me.
That's because the light is coming from you. You can't see it but everyone else can.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“It was a question I had worn on my lips for days - like a loose thread on my favourite sweater I couldn't resist pulling - despite knowing it could all unravel around me.

"Do you love me?" I ask.

In your hesitation I found my answer.”
― Lang Leav, Love & Misadventure

“Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.”
― Anna Funder, All That I Am

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.”
― Cliff Fadiman

“Stars are beautiful, but they may not take part in anything, they must just look on forever.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

“You are the sun, I am the sun-dial. Unless you shine on me all time stands still.”
― Ondra Lysohorsky, Selected poems

“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“I followed the course
From chaos to art
Desire the horse
Depression the cart”
― Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing