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Yes Quotes

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Yes Quotes

“Her hands warming on tea looked like chunks of knitting a child had felted in grubby palms. Enough decades, and a body slowly twists into one great cramp, but there was a time once, where she had been sexy, and if not sexy, at least odd-looking enough to compel. Through this clear window she could see how good it all had been. She had no regrets. That's not true, Mathilde. The whisper in the ear. Oh, Christ, yes, there was one. Solitary, gleaming, a regret. It was that all her life she had said no. From the beginning she had let so few people in. That first night, his young face glowing up a hers in the black light, bodies beating the air around them, and inside there was that unexpected sharp recognition, oh, this. A sudden peace arriving for her. She who hadn't been at peace since she was so little. Out of nowhere, out of this surprising night with its shatters of lightning and the stormy black campus outside, with the heat and song and sex and animal fear inside. He had seen her and made the leap and swung through the crowd and taken her hand, this bright boy who was giving her a place to rest. He offered not only his whole laughing self, the past that build him and the warm beating body that moved her with its beauty and the future she felt compressed and waiting, but also the torch he carried before him in the dark, his understanding, dazzling, instant, that there was goodness at her core. With the gift came the bitter seed of regret, the unbridgeable gap between the Mathilde she was and the Mathilde he had seen her to be. A question, in the end, of vision. She wished she'd been the kind Mathilde, the good one, his idea of her. She would have looked smiling down at him, she would've heard beyond marry me to the world that spun behind the words. There would have been no pause, no hesitation. She would've laughed, touched his face for the first time, felt his warmth in the palm of her hand. 'Yes,' she would've said. 'Sure.”

“To say yes wholeheartedly is to be religious. It has nothing to do with a belief in a god. All that you need is wholehearted yes. All that you need is a total yes, so that not even a small fragment of no remains in the heart. When you say a total yes, you become a light unto yourself. And this light starts to guide you on your path. Then no outer guide is needed. When you say a total yes, you don't hold back. The total yes means to flow with life and to be available to life. The total yes means that non-resistance is all that is needed. We have to cooperate with life. Our mind is very afraid of saying yes. The mind naturally resists saying yes. The mind lives through saying no. We have lived with saying no for so many lives that we have forgotten the possibility of saying yes. We have forgotten the possibility of saying yes to ourselves, to say to others and to say yes to all that is.”

“Dad believes that negative criticism is inherently more truthful and constructive than positive criticism. He also believes that every "No" spoken gives a future "Yes" more power and credibility. He's a master at finding the tone, pitch, and demeanor to say "Yes" so that it obviously means a "No." It's an art form. There are a million dead "No"s in that monstrous, distant, future "Yes." Even though it's a million miles away, I can always see it from where I am.”

“Kalen (admin): What were you doing when the string appeared? Theodore: Platonic bonding. Mikel (admin): Isobel? The messages stopped there, and she swallowed, typing out a hesitant reply. Isobel: I’m not sure how much detail I’m supposed to go into. Kalen (admin): Jesus Christ. Did any of you follow the goddamned rules? Isobel: What rules? Oscar: Not a chance. Moses: No. Kilian: Yes.”

“Do you want to marry him?" Peter stopped in front of her, pressing close. "You know I don't." "Do I? Do we know each other anymore? It's been a long time. I'm not the same person I was." "You are," she insisted. "I know who you are." She knew it was ridiculous, to feel so strong so fast...but she did. It just felt like they belonged together. She took his hand and held it tight. His face softened. "All right, then. There may be one way,,,." he said out to the faint silver hue of the moors on the horizon. Valerie looked at him blankly, her mind racing off on its own. "We could run away," he said, speaking her mind before she's quite reached the thought. He came even closer, almost touching his forehead to hers. "Run away with me," he repeated the words, smiling a real smile, full and dark, in that terrifying way he had, as though his actions were self-contained, as though there were no consequences. She wanted to be a part of his ripple-less world. "Where would we go?" His lips brushed her ear. "Anywhere you want," he said. "The sea, the city, the mountains..." Anywhere. With him. He pulled back to look at her. "You're afraid." "No, I'm not." "You'd leave your home? Your family? Your whole life?" "I-I think I would. Anything to be with you." She heard herself saying it and realized it was true. "Anything?" Valerie pretended to think a moment, for show, to be able to tell herself she had. Then, almost meekly, "Yes." "Yes?" "Yes.”

“Margot’s off shopping for new boots with her friend Casey, Daddy’s at work, and Kitty and I are lazing about watching TV when my phone buzzes next to me. It’s a text from Peter. "Movie tonight?" I text back yes, exclamation point. Then I delete the exclamation point for sounding too eager. Though without the exclamation point, the yes seems completely unenthused. I settle on a smiley face and press send before I can obsess over it further.”

“There is no logical, rational, pre-structured criterion "out there" with a divine plan. There is no truth "out there" which our weak minds or souls eventually run across. There is this casual, haphazard, amoral process that leaps the logical gaps and brings about newness. And the procedurés only demand is that given talents be invested, risked, doubled, the possibilities explored.”