Hard Truths Quotes

“An acquaintance merely enjoys your company, a fair-weather companion flatters when all is well, a true friend has your best interests at heart and the pluck to tell you what you need to hear.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Errors do not cease to be errors simply because they’re ratified into law.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Memories were short and history unkind. It was the way of the world.”
― Deborah Harkness, Shadow of Night

“Mum liked to say that some things happen for a reason, that sometimes obstacles were there to stop you from doing something stupid.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races

“Sometimes it is not the people who change, it is just the mask that falls off.”
― JoDee Neathery, Wings Against The Wind

“You would be an utter fool if you weren’t.”
― Candace L. Talmadge, Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal

“The devil has not vanished simply because people refuse to believe he exists, no more than God has...”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“God Is, Lucifer is a devil, and there is a Hell.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Faust: My Soul be Damned for the World, Vol. 1

“Life after love was possible. I was proof. Loss taught you about yourself, burrowed in the dark parts of your soul and ate you from the inside out.”
― Hailey Edwards

“He is a stone, incapable of feeling anything, and I don't like being reminded that he's also human. I don't like to be reminded that we love the same person.”
― Laura Sebastian, Ash Princess

“I can't find a man I want, and I'm beginning to think the problem is me. Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I'm holding out for something that doesn't even exist." She'd voiced her secret fear. Maybe grand passion was just a dream. With all the kissing she'd done in the past few months, she'd not once been overcome with desire. Her parents certainly hadn't had any great passion between them. Come to think of it, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen grand passion outside of a movie theater or a book.”
― Karen Marie Moning

“The rules you’ve been taught about success weren’t designed for your success. They were designed for your compliance.”
― Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Money's Dirty Little Secrets: How to Break the Rules, Get Filthy Rich, and Laugh All the Way to the Bank

“When reality hits hard
and battles turn into wars to fight,
What story do you tell yourself
to sleep at night?”
― Ritu Negi, Collywobbles

“Intelligence doesn’t get you anywhere. I think…all it does, that knowledge, it just makes you awake to see the world for what it really is.”
― fleabagshair, this is how you lose the time war

“The system isn’t broken. It was built to keep you broke. Learn the rules—or keep losing by default.”
― Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Money's Dirty Little Secrets: How to Break the Rules, Get Filthy Rich, and Laugh All the Way to the Bank

“The game is rigged—but not for the reasons you think. It’s rigged to reward those who don’t play by the script.”
― Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Money's Dirty Little Secrets: How to Break the Rules, Get Filthy Rich, and Laugh All the Way to the Bank

“Voices we prefer to ignore may speak words we need to hear.”
― Pamela Cox

“The rules are simple. The courage to follow them? That’s the hard part.”
― Joseph C. Kunz Jr., Money's Dirty Little Secrets: How to Break the Rules, Get Filthy Rich, and Laugh All the Way to the Bank

“Do you ever think about just asking her, point-blank?"
Nick grunted. "I recommend that if you ask a question like that, just make sure you're really, truly ready to hear the answer.”
― Suzanne Rindell, Summer Fridays

“In conversation he was always ready to champion the wretched of the earth, but in reality he did not like to be in their vicinity - especially on September evening as hot as this one.”
― Glenn Savan, White Palace

“And this was a class act indeed, pretending interest in this women's bitchy monologue so that later, as sore as he felt, she would admit him in bed, and all the while secretly despising her. Just what was he doing at this woman's table if that was how he felt?”
― Glenn Savan, White Palace

“The word 'trauma' used to mean something! It meant blood! It meant horror! Now? Now it means your fucking latte was cold! It means your feelings got a little bruised because the world didn't roll out a red carpet for you today.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“We call everything 'trauma' now. We call everything 'toxic.' Someone didn't text you back fast enough? They’re toxic. You had a mildly unpleasant conversation with your boss? You’re traumatized. You are stealing the valor of the damned! You are hijacking the vocabulary of the genuinely broken, the people who have survived actual nightmares. People who have looked the absolute worst of humanity in the face and had to figure out how to keep breathing. And you’re using their vocabulary to describe a mild inconvenience? It makes me sick. It’s an insult to the truly ruined.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“We have diluted the language of suffering until it means absolutely nothing. And the terrifying truth is this: if everything is fucking trauma, then nothing is trauma.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“The graveyards are full of men who had ‘potential.'

They all thought they were going to be something.
Now they're dirt.

Potential is the lie you tell yourself so you don't feel like a bum when you wake up at noon.

The world doesn't pay for the dream, kid. It pays for the fucking scar.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“You are terrified of being 'cringe,' so you choose to be invisible.

You hold back. You edit yourself.

You stay quiet because you’re terrified someone in the cheap seats might think you’re 'too much.'

You silence your art to please people who don't even like themselves.

That’s not humility…nah ; that’s fucking cowardice.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“Oh, so you don't want to be 'cringe'? Oh That's adorable.

But It’s also kinda pathetic.

"You’re drowning your own soul so the neighbors don't look at you funny.

You think you’re being modest?

You are quieting your genius to make comfortable people feel safe. F*** comfort.

Be 'cringe.' Be loud. Be a fucking disaster. Anything is better than being a ghost in your own story”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“You’re hiding under the bed because you’re scared the world might laugh.”.

You shut your mouth to please people who hate their own lives.

That is not humility, man, that is SURRENDER!

You are trading your guts for their approval, and their approval. Don’t be a fucking coward in your won story. Stand up and let them throw the f*cking stones.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“You think you miss her? Bullsh*t. You miss the crash.

You miss the chaos.

You are addicted to the cortisol, not the person. Coz Peace feels like boredom

because you were raised in a house where love meant screaming.

You don’t know what to do with a quiet Tuesday.

You need the plates smashing. You need the fucking heat to survive . You aren’t heartbroken; you’re just detoxing from the chaos.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”

“The way i distance myself from people is probably the most scariest violent parts about me...

I guess....I could love you to fucking death until the stars burn out and the sea turns to dust,

And yet never utter a single word in your direction. It’s a F*cking terrible paradox.”
― Lokesh Tuli, Notes From Exile: The "Manual for the Broken”