{"author":"Alysha Speer","author_id":"Alysha+Speer","total_quotes":21,"quotes":[{"text":"On a second note, though, I have something to say about pain. There are lots of kinds of pain. Pain of smashing your fingers in a car door, pains of loosing a baby, pain of failing a test. But in their own little ways, these pains are all agonizing. Which is sad, and yet, happy, if you really think about it. If we never lost our car keys, or stepped in gum, or had a bad hair day, what kind of people would we be? In a word? Boring. We wouldn't be passionate; we wouldn't know it was exciting to get pregnant, or score an A on a final. So that's why, today at least, I am grateful for pain. Because it's part of what makes me the whacky, goofy, jaded, person that I am. Peace.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["gratitude","jaded","life","pain","painful","peace"],"id":22230,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"The truth doesn't mind being told every once in a while.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["life","truth"],"id":25756,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"Depression weighs you down like a rock in a river. You don't stand a chance. You can fight and pray and hope you have the strength to swim, but sometimes, you have to let yourself sink. Because you'll never know true happiness until someone or something pulls you back out of that river--and you'll never believe it until you realize it was you, yourself who saved you.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["depression","depression","endure","happiness","life","recovery","sad","sadness","self","self-awareness","self-belief","self-growth","self-help","self-improvement","self-motivation","trials","trials-of-life"],"id":26499,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"There was something behind the softness that intertwined our fingers together—love? It felt different from two days ago. All I could think about was his smooth hand, wrapped in mine. It was more than affection—but I wasn’t sure how much more, or if that would ever change.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["body-of-blade","derek","hand","kill","kiss","life","love","sharden","sword"],"id":37909,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"And though I was currently living a fairy tale, some part of my soul knew that happiness couldn't last forever. I didn't deserve a happily ever after, and there weren't many other cards to play when that was the truth.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["alysha","happiness","happy","love","sharden","soul","speer"],"id":75265,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"I did not ask for consciousness, yet it came to me.And I had to know.Once again, I crawled away from my bed and pushed the computer cord back into the socket.It took three minutes.I quickly identified myself and put in my password.Then it thought.I wanted to bounce impatiently, but I couldn’t make myself move.At last, I found the internet, and I typed in a name, on the company page, under my account.I searched ‘images’.And there, on the screen in front of me, was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.I couldn’t stop the tears from welling up and spilling over as I stared back at the smiling face.It couldn’t be him.It was.Derek Erickson.And I was going to kill him.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["body-of-blade","derek","kill","list","love","murder","people","punishment","smile","sword"],"id":88184,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"Life is hell, at some point we all just have to get used to it.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["hell","life","live","me","people","person","sharden","us","we"],"id":99744,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"Sleep did not honor me with it’s presence.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["body-of-blade","exhausted","honor","me","presents","sharden","sleep","sleepy","sword","tired","us","we"],"id":103623,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"I was not weak; I did not cry. But it hurt me, more in a kind of refreshing, thrilling way, than a kind of pain that would cripple me and send me away crying. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands, and my teeth bit into my lips, my knees were locked, but I could not faint.","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["body-of-blade","brave","fingernails","hurt","pain","sharden","sword","thrilling","weak"],"id":119184,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"},{"text":"Only write a story that only you can write. ","author":"Alysha Speer","tags":["book","me","person","story","write","writing","you"],"id":177173,"author_id":"Alysha+Speer"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":21,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}