Menna van Praag

The only way to stop hurting other people is to stop hurting yourself.

It takes great courage and determination, to keep looking for light in all the darkness of life.

The heart cannot feel joy without also feeling pain, it cannot know love without also knowing loss.

When you follow your heart you allow miraculous possibilities to unfold.

It__ not just the books Alba craves, it__ standing inside a place that houses millions of them. Libraries are Alba__ churches, and the university library, containing one edition of every book ever published in England, is her cathedral.

After he's gone Greer sits for a long time. She rests her head on her knees and weeps - not because she loved Blake and not because she's lost him. But because she did not care of herself. She knew Blake's nature the moment she met him, just as she knew the philandering fiancé. She knew them and she knew herself. Greer thinks of the story of the scorpion and the frog, and she knows she cannot blame these men for her messy life, they only did what she always knew they would do. No, this is not about crushed hopes and broken dreams. This is about trusting her own heart. Hope doesn't even enter into it.

It's always best to feel fulfilled first, before finding a man. Then you'll know the value of yourself, and you'll hold the key to your own happiness. So you won't turn into a vulnerable, needy, emotional mess the minute you fall in love.

I long fora little life,an everyday life,a splash of sunlightthrough a windowa smile from a stranger -a heart to hold in mine.