Wait Quotes

“Bullets always hit two people, the shooter and the one shot.”
― Cuong Lu, Wait

“Wait, for now. Distrust everything, if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become interesting. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again; their memories are what give them the need for other hands. And the desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a while and listen: music of hair, music of pain, music of looms weaving all their loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear the flute of your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion. —GALWAY KINNELL”
― Cuong Lu, Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair

“I was already dead. I didn’t have a dream. I didn’t know who I was or what I was looking for. I didn’t see a future. I was lost, just trying to survive. My days were empty.”
― Cuong Lu, Wait

“If you think you have nothing to give, it isn’t true. Be generous. No one is too poor to give.”
― Cuong Lu, Wait

“Suppose your beloved says she doesn’t love you anymore. If you listen only on the surface, you think she’s had enough of you and wants to leave. Of course, that makes you sad. But if you listen deeply, with all your heart, you might hear something else—that she’s suffering and her needs are not being met, perhaps her needs for attention and connection. Rather than feeling hurt or attacked and storming off, you can try harder to be deeply present at such a critical moment. If you do, you might uncover truths that neither of you realized.”
― Cuong Lu, Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair