She said that she didn't plan it exactly that way, so it goes

"Do you like skipping?" I asked. She nodded, I could see, as we walked side-by-side entering the grounds of my apartment complex.

"I do," she responded with a growing smile.

We both knew where this was headed.

"We have to hold hands, you know. There's no other way to skip," I explained, leading her to where we both wanted. I put out my left hand, hoping.

"I see," she said, as her smile finished growing now. She let out her right hand, placing it in the cusp of mine.

My heart jumped in synch with the first skip of my leg.

First Skip, It Won't Be Our Last by Calvin

It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri... It will be a species very like us - but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses

Carl Sagan

A million here, a million there

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Buddha

Remember that you're sorely missed

To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands. Anyone murdered by brigands, whose throat is cut at night in a wood, or something of that sort, must surely hope to escape till the very last minute. There have been instances when a man has still hoped for escape, running or begging for mercy after his throat was cut. But in the other case all that last hope, which makes dying ten times as easy, taken away for certain. There is the sentence, and the whole awful torture lies in the fact that there is certainly no escape, and there is no torture in the world more terrible. You may lead a soldier out and set him facing the cannon in battle and fire at him and he'll still hope; but read a sentence of certain death over that same soldier, and he will go out of his mind or burst into tears. Who can tell whether human nature is able to bear this without madness.

Prince Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, found in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov

As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in its all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is, "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure.

Vladimir Solovyov

Everything is, no doubt

Things aren't working out like they're supposed to,
but at least they're working out.
If you ask yourself if anything is meaningful,
you'll find that everything is, no doubt.
Call it lack of inspiration,
resignation, stupid or immature.

You can only do as much in little time,
if you're up for sharing I can split up mine.
'Cause it makes me happy.

I've been up and down
and out and in
and everything that's in between.
And in my ridicule I thought that I was something special,
in spite of ordinary dreams.
But you end up getting tired of doing psychoanalysis of yourself.

But you can only do as much in little time,
if you're up for sharing I can split up mine.
'Cause it makes me happy.

(Why can't we stay this way?)
I don't wanna go back,
I don't wanna move on.
(Why can't we stay this way?)
I don't wanna grow old,
I don't wanna stay young.

(Why can't we stay this way?)
I don't wanna go back,
I don't wanna move on.
(Why can't we stay this way?)
I don't wanna grow old,
I don't wanna stay young.

I don't wanna know you,
not like I used to know people.
I don't wanna change you,
not like I used to change people.
I just want to have you here.

Stay This Way by Peter Bjorn and John

So listen up homey

Sickness beware,
I will be there,
Weakness watch out,
I'll be her crutch,
Sadness, oh you,
Can back away,
'Cause I'll keep her from your rain,
Anger, calm down,
I will stay my ground,
Fear, fear me,
dare not come near me,
Forget about failure,
Lose all the lies,
All you demons beware,
For her,
I'll be there.

For Her by Tristan Claude