Ethan Peck Quotes

When she died, Mom left me her letters and journals. Windows into things I would have been too young to understand when she was alive, or too busy, or too much of a know-it-all.

As I grow older, I have a growing curiosity about my other half. My dad did a wonderful job raising me, and I wouldn't change it for the world, but at the same time there is a growing curiosity about my other half.

What was so extraordinary to me about going through this box of my mother's letters and diaries was meeting my mother not as my mother, but as a real person. And what breaks my heart is that I had no idea how self-aware she was and how protective of me she was.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

You want to find out what it is about you or what it is about your past and your lineage that's in you now, and whether you carry those traits and maybe what one's mission is to take it to the next level.

My work is intensely personal.

Call it egotistical or narcissist, but I think that's what we all look for in books - the right stories that help us make sense of the world that we, on a very personal level, live in every day.

The memoir was a very personal book. I wrote it as a personal journey and search about who my father was and how my family had come together and come apart - sorting all that out, you know, issues of personal identity.

The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.

She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.

Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.

If you want to change from sex towards love, try to understand your sexuality. Watch it, watch the mechanicalness of it. See the futility, see the whole absurdity of it - it is not leading you anywhere. Become a little more refined, become a little more subtle. Look not for the body, but somebody's being. Watch, explore. Sooner or later you will find somebody who fits with you.

I carry in my datebook a piece of paper that my mother copied out for me, from the 1840 Census. Hardy Callaway Culver of Hancock County, Georgia, had 42 slaves, 31 "employed in agriculture." Culver was my great-great-great grandfather. I carry this piece of paper with me every day because I don't want to forget. I don't know what to do with the information, but I don't want to forget it.

In life you only have to travel 6 inches. That is the distance from your mind to your heart.

Love is the only way of knowledge, which in the act of union answers my quest. In the act of loving, of giving myself, in the act of penetrating the other person, I find myself, I discover myself, I discover us both, I discover man.

The older you get, you always learn more. Sometimes it's a process of learning about yourself and what your journey is. Sometimes the process moves forward at a rapid pace in a short amount of time - or moves backwards. And you're like, "Man, I thought I had made so much progress, and now all of a sudden, I'm 10 steps further behind than when I started."

I'm not not looking for a girlfriend - but I'm not particularly looking for a girlfriend, either. I'm not knocking having a relationship; at the end of the day, you want to share with someone. But I just look at it as, I have the rest of my life to do that. I'm not in any rush.

I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.

The only reason we write - well, the only reason why I write; maybe I shouldn't generalize - is so that I can find out something about myself. Writers have this narcissistic obsession about how we got to be who we are. I have to understand my ancestors - my father, his mother and her mother - to understand who I am. It all leads back to the narcissistic pleasure of discovering yourself.

It can be so terrifying to open yourself up to true love. That love can be with your mate, with your child, with yourself, because we are ultimately such vulnerable little creatures in this world.

Dating is not only a wonderful time of life, but also a context for enormous spiritual and personal growth. You learn so much about yourself, others, God, love, spirituality, and life through dating. Done well, it can be fulfilling in and of itself. Done well, it can be one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of your life. Done well, it can lead to a good marriage.

Love affairs are the real only education in life.

When you look back... on your love affairs... what you really find out is that the only person you really go to bed with is yourself.

I know this is your hand now,' she tells him. "Roland would have never touched me like that." Connor smiles, and Risa takes a moment to look down at the shark on his wrist. It holds no fear for her now, because the shark has been tamed by the soul of a boy. No- the soul of a man.

Romance is a means to the end of self-completion, but love is an end in itself.