Lisa Unger > Quotes

“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. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and body but not your heart. And that's why, when you really connect with a person's inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“I think most people are just trying to be happy, and that most of their actions, however misguided, are in line with that goal. Most people just want to feel they belong somewhere, want to be loved, and want to feel they're important to someone. If you really examine all the wrongheaded and messed-up things they do, they can most often be traced back to that basic desire. The abusers, the addicted, the cruel and unpleasant, the manipulators --these are just people who started this quest for happiness in the basement of their lives. Someone communicated to them through word or deed that they were undeserving, so they think they have to claw their way there over the backs of others, leaving scars and creating damage. Of course, they only create more misery for themselves and others.”
― Lisa Unger, Sliver of Truth

“I can get my head turned by a good-looking guy as much as the next girl. But sexy doesn't impress me. Smart impresses me, strength of character impresses me. But most of all, I am impressed by kindness. Kindness, I think, comes from learning hard lessons well, from falling and picking yourself up. It comes from surviving failure and loss. It implies an understanding of the human condition, forgives its many flaws and quirks. When I see that in someone, it fills me with admiration.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“The Universe doesn't like secrets. It conspires to reveal the truth, to lead you to it.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“When you love someone, it doesn't really matter if they love you back or not. Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. or punishment, depending on the circumstances.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“It's strange how memory gets twisted and pulled like taffy in its retelling, how a single event can mean something different to everyone present.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“The universe conspires to reveal the truth and to make your path easy if you have the courage to follow the signs.”
― Lisa Unger

“Many people believe that evil is the presence of something. I think it's the absence of something.”
― Lisa Unger, Sliver of Truth

“We may say we're looking for love, following dreams, chasing the dollar, but aren't we just looking for a place where we belong? A place where our thoughts, feelings, and fears are understood? - Ridley Jones”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“Others of us are lost. We're forever seeking. We torture ourselves with philosophies and ache to see the world. We question everything, even our own existence. We ask a lifetime of questions and are never satisfied with the answers because we don't recognize anyone as an authority to give them. We see life and the world as an enormous puzzle that we might never understand, that our questions might go unanswered until the day we die, almost never occurs to us. And when it does, it fills us with dread.”
― Lisa Unger, Sliver of Truth

“I loved him so much. It didn't change all the reasons we couldn't be together, but it kept me returning to his body, kept my skin seeking his skin over and over again in the sad dance we did.”
― Lisa Unger, Sliver of Truth

“People who stay in the same town with the same friends for their entire lives never get a chance to find out who they can really be, because they will always be considered as who they were.”
― Lisa Unger, Fragile

“Everyone always talks about how well mothers know their children. No one ever seems to notice how well children know their mothers.”
― Lisa Unger, Fragile

“How many people can you claim truly care about you? I mean, not just the people in your life who are fun to hang out with, not just the people who you love and trust. But people who feel good when you are happy and successful, feel bad when you are hurt or going through a hard time, people who would walk away from their lives for a little while to help you with yours. Not many. I felt that from Jake and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. Because there’s another side to it, you know. When someone is invested in your well-being, like your parents, for example, you become responsible for them in a way. Anything you do to hurt yourself hurts them. I already felt responsible for too many people that way. You’re not really free when people care about you; not if you care about them.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“Writers are first and foremost observers. We lose ourselves in the watching and then the telling of the world we find. Often we feel on the fringes, in the margins of life. And that's where we belong. What you are a part of, you cannot observe.”
― lisa unger

“Just because people treat you like shit, just because you may feel like shit sometimes, doesn't mean you are shit. You can make something of your life. You can give of yourself in this world to make it a better place." - Jake quoting his mentor, Arnie Coel”
― Lisa Unger

“The truth has not so much set us free as it has ripped away a carefully constructed facade, leaving us naked to begin again.”
― Lisa Unger

“Motherhood was an ever widening circle of good-byes.”
― Lisa Unger, Fragile

“Depression is not dramatic, but it is total. It’s sneaky - you almost don’t notice it at first. Like a cat burglar, it comes in through an open window while you’re sleeping. It takes little things at first; your appetite, your desire to return phone calls. Then it comes back for the big stuff, like your will to live.

Then next thing you know, your legs are filled with sand. The thought of brushing your teeth fills you with dread, it seems like such an impossible task. Suddenly you’re living your life in black and white – nothing is bright, nothing is pretty anymore. Music sounds tinny and distant. Things you found funny seem dull and off-key.”
― Lisa Unger, Sliver of Truth

“Love accepts. Forgiveness comes in time.”
― Lisa Unger, Die for You

“And we stood like that. The joining of hands is highly underrated in the acts of intimacy. You kiss acquaintances or colleagues, casually to say hello or good-bye. You might even kiss a close friend chastely on the lips. You might quickly hug anyone you knew. You might even meet someone at a party, take him home and sleep with him, never to see him or hear from him again. But to join hands and stand holding each other that way, with the electricity of possibilities flowing between you? The tenderness of it, the promise of it, is only something you share with a few people in your life.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“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.”
― Lisa Unger, In the Blood

“Hope is good. Without it, well, you do the math. But hope has to be like a prayer. Putting it out there to something more powerful than yourself.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“In the end, I cared about him so much that I just thought he deserved someone who loved him more than I did.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“...in the end it's not just the big and small events that make you who you are, make your life what it is, it's how you choose to react to them-that's where you have control over your life.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“Bored people looked for drama and caused trouble.”
― Lisa Unger, Heartbroken

“It's a little known fact, but parents are like superheroes. With just a few magic words they can make you feel ten feet tall and bulletproof, they can slay the dragons of doubt and worry, they can make your problems disappear. But of course they can only do this as long as you're a child. When you've become an adult, become the master of your own universe, they're not as powerful as they once were. Maybe that's why so many of us take our time growing up.”
― Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies

“The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a gift.”
― Lisa Unger, Fragile

“You [meaning mothers] said good-bye a little every day -- from the minute they left your body until they left your home.”
― Lisa Unger, Fragile

“People didn’t fall in love with other people. They fell in love with how other people made them feel about themselves. And so, it was easy to get someone to love you—if you knew how they wanted to feel.”
― Lisa Unger, Confessions on the 7:45