“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re thinking too hard. I can see it on your face. Just be here. Right now. With me.”
And how could I refuse that?
I said, “I’m here.”
“You are.”
“Right now.”
“Yes.”
“With you.”
And god, how he smiled at me.”
Source: Heartsong
“The rusty, broken sound crawled up from his throat, and he was huffing out his nose, but he was smiling, and I understood then what Joe had seen in Ox, why Gordo and Mark were always going to find their way back to each other, why Kelly never stopped searching for Robbie. It was warm like a summer day. It was candy canes and pinecones, it was epic and awesome, it was dirt and leaves and rain, it was grass and lake water and sunshine.
It was a forest so alive, so untouched.”
Source: Brothersong
“A smile is the cure that makes all miseries disappear.”
“She smiles, and its soft and loving, and the look I always imagines on the woman I would spend the rest of my life with.”
Source: You've Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs
“After class, if she got out early, sometimes I'd catch
her
downstairs writing up her notes. And she'd smile
and I had to bite back every single corny thing I'd ever
wanted to say, like: All off me is an invitation reaching toward you, or
my fingertips ache where they haven't touched your skin or
I hear the promise of us in the crescendo of every ballad
and maybe I was supposed to be a bachatero instead of a pilot
because all I had were torch songs for a girl I barely knew.”
Source: You've Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs
“Loneliness is a state of emotional pain. Being alone is a state of physical removal. Loneliness can be debilitating. Being alone can be empowering.”
Source: Better than Happiness: The True Antidote to Discontent
“The heaviest mask you’ll ever wear is the one that smiles to keep others comfortable.”
Source: Be You!: What They Hate in You Is Missing in Them
“I see the moon in the sky. It's bright and I wonder why, people have dark intentions and truths are hidden. Beware the smile without a laugh.”
“Step lightly, reader… and notice—
the Buddha’s smile is not something to observe from afar.
It is waiting… quietly…
in the curve of your own lips.”
Source: The Buddha’s Smile: A Humorous Guide to Wisdom
“Smile at me,' he murmured, the silver in his eyes swirling.
'Why?'
'Because when you do that, there's utterly nothing I would not allow you to do to me.”
Source: A Shadow in the Ember