Quotes from Lisa Unger

A word I read comes to mind: solastalgia, a miserable tangle of solace, desolation, and nostalgia.

She wanted to take those words back. But they were out, shattering in the air all around them, slicing them both.

You can't squeeze blood from a stone. You can try, but you do all the bleeding.

when we put on clothes, we're telling ourselves something, and we're communicating that something to every person we meet.

Dysfunction isn't a choice, it's a disease.

Honestly, it's the most you can ask of men sometimes. They're so wound up, so buried beneath layers of "boys don't cry," and "pussy," and "man up," that they don't even know how to feel about anything. I should know.

We count so much on politeness, those of us who are hiding things. We count on people not staring too long, or asking too many questions.

I couldn't leave there  without carrying some of her sadness and loneliness with me like a cloak. There was a smell that I've come to think of as life rot. Where a life has spoiled, gone bad through lack of use.

Most of us don't live in the present tense. We dwell in a mental place where our regrets and grudges from our past compete with our fears about the future. Sometimes we barely notice what's going on around us, we're so busy time traveling.

When did the news become worse than any dystopian fiction we could imagine?

there is nothing certain in life but death. We may labour under the delusion that we know what the day ahead of us holds, what the hour holds. But we do not. We may think our death, our very certain death, is something distant and remote, an island we might never visit. But for some of us, its right here, waiting.

Even though we can't always have affection for every person we meet, we can always treat every person with kindness.

Honestly, I tried not to think about my sister much. Or my mother. I have been guilty of doing what it takes to bury most of my memories when it comes to that- from junk food to booze to drugs, there are few poisons with which I haven't experimented. I've found a million ways to keep the demons in a comfortable, quiet stupor, lazing around on my inner couches.

People, no one tells you when you're young, fade as time passes without them—all the little qualities and tics, the happy times, the sweet moments, become blurry and vague. It's the bad things that stay with you, the ugly things that nag.

You know," he said. He paused a minute, as though picking his words carefully. "It's okay to disappoint people sometimes. It's okay for us to say no simply because we don't want to do something." Intellectually

It was human nature to see only what you want to see, and nothing would change that, no matter what tools people had at their disposal. The truth is only what you think it is.

People only stay in your life if they want to. So often, they just go away. And there's really nothing you can do.

What does it mean to forgive someone? It only means that you release the anger, the hatred. It doesn't mean that you're saying it's all right now, or that you've forgotten the wrong. It just means that you've drained the boil. When you touch it, it doesn't hurt as much. That's all.

Never talk to strangers. If someone ever tries to take you, fight with everything you have. Scream as loud as you can. (He'd never told her what to do if the man was too strong and there was no one to hear her screaming.)

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change form.

I don't believe in regret. If you regret things about your life, then I'll bet that you're not paying attention. Regret is just imagining that you know what would have happened if you took that job in California or married your high school sweetheart or just looked one more time before you stepped out into the street...or didn't. But you don't know; you can't possibly know.

things disappear and are never found simply because there's too much ground to cover.

We are changed by the things we experience. The big things, the small things have their impact and can't be undone. To judge those experiences, to hate the things that have happened to us is to hate who we've become because of them.

When you start to really know someone, all his physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in his energy, recognize the scent of his skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That's why you can't fall in love with beauty.