To secure his king's trust, his family's future, and perhaps even his own happiness, he needed to convince her he was more than a mercenary -- in fact, a man who would stand by her side.
It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.
We were an imperfect family. I knew that. But at last we were on each other's side, dug in with a new and more profound commitment. Our happiness was hard won, it was ours and I was determined to keep us whole.
The ocean-blue bowl won’t refuse to bruise, won’t hold it back from the gaping earth-wounds. There will still come water, chill wind and happy goosebumps, and in the utmost corners of oaks, leaves laughing.
It isn't the happy ending that Ingrid and I have dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and had you close
Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.
Each time he suggested they get married, she said no. They were too happy, precariously so, and she wanted to guard that bond; she feared that marriage would flatten it into a prosaic partnership.
Happiness is free, Mama says, as sure as the blinkin' stars, the withered arms the trees throw down for our fires, the waterproofin' on our skin, and the tongues of wind curlin' the walnut leaves before slidin' down our ears.
Don't look to a husband or a child or a friend or your family to make you happy. It is not within their capacity to do so.
Dustfinger still clearly remembered the feeling of being in love for the first time. How vulnerable his heart had suddenly been! Such a trembling, quivering thing, happy and miserably unhappy at once.
That's what was wrong with drinking too much. You became immune to drunken delights. There was no solace in liquor. Before you got happy, you collapsed.
When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.
...sadness is a powerful foe, maybe harder to keep down than happiness...
Willem laughs again. The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it's like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to spread happiness.
The sound is clear and strong as a bell, and it fills me with joy, and it's like, for the first time in my life, I understand that this is the point of laughter, to spread happiness.
That is just what life is when it is beautiful and happy - a game! Naturally, one can also do all kinds of other things with it, make a duty of it, or a battleground, or a prison, but that does not make it any prettier...
Happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, love... All these things work the same way. The more you search for them, the less likely you are to find them.
I led the life of so many other so-called respectable people,—that is, in debauchery. And like the majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I was a man of irreproachable morality.
Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.
They were both smiling so hard, it was surprising the frame could contain the happiness of that moment, surprising that it didn't shatter into a million pieces, floating all over the funeral home like dust.
The power to give everything or take it all away is the inborn power contained in every confident woman’s grasp – the only way for a man to regain that power, is to keep her happy enough that she forgets she even has it.
