Strained Relationships Quotes

“With strained relationships, missed opportunities, and waning commitments, we must capture a profound and introspective view on dealing with life's challenges. A primordial clue to being a reasonable winner is being honest to ourselves and responsible to others. ( "The world was somewhere else")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Julie helped him to feel defined. He was Julie's boyfriend. Julie's fiance. Julie's provocation. He came into focus when he stood beside her, despite the fact that the person standing beside her was mostly not him.”
― Meg Rosoff, Jonathan Unleashed

“They tried still to see each other in secret. But it was impossible for them to regain the carelessness of their old relation. Their frankness was spoiled. The two boys who loved each other with a tenderness so fearful that they had never dared exchange a fraternal kiss, and had imagined that there could be no greater happiness than in seeing each other, and in being friends, and sharing each other's dreams, now felt that they were stained and spotted by the suspicion of evil minds. They came to see evil even in the most innocent acts: a look, a hand-clasp—they blushed, they had evil thoughts. Their relation became intolerable.”
― Romain Rolland, Jean Christophe

“The truth lies behind the strain in her voice, wallows in her hollow laugh. And now I recognise it for what it is; a buzz that’s existed since we met; the threatening stinger of a persistent lie.”
― Soulla Christodoulou, Alexander and Maria

“You can regret doing something as much as you can regret doing nothing.”
― Alexis Bass, Happily and Madly

“Strained Relations by Stewart Stafford

Brother, you have flown from me,
Too often and to that blinding maze,
As capricious as the wind that blows,
No visible shared blood between us.

Are you not my mother's and father's son?
If the fault lies with me, then tell me so,
Or let the bloodied bandage fall from you,
So the wound heals without reinfection.

You picked prized strangers over family,
More damaging self-flagellation as hubris,
They let you down as parents an infant,
Still, you chose a messy path of pain.

The only glimmer of light in the next life,
Is we two reuniting together again, brother,
Or shall you flee to fellow astral travellers?
A last dagger thrust in the permafrost cold?

© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Guess there are no meritorious service awards for emotional availability.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Angela tried to identify every auditory detail as if matching the sound to the activity would bring her father closer to her.”
― Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

“The thought of her parents once evoked an involuntary ache in her chest, but now she experienced a new uncaring neutrality. Angela's future felt so full, and her parents existed another life ago, ghosts relieved from the duty of haunting.”
― Emily Habeck, Shark Heart

“You know, birds always find their way home, no matter the distance. Perhaps you will, too.”
― M.A. Kuzniar, Upon a Frosted Star