The Best of Me ..My favorite quotes

I decided to watch this film today after having some doubts. You see, I am still not centered up till now  and most of all, my emotions are way too low.  Blame it to PMS:) Anyway, after church, I purchased my ticket and with my favorite pop corn and a bottle of water, I went inside the cinema 15 minutes early. See, that's how punctual I am.

The movie was good. It has made me recall fond memories of people who were with me at some points in my life. The idea of loving someone for so long a time is really not an illusion after  all. Even if you won't end up being with that person anymore, love is still valid. There is never any limit to loving. Indeed, when you meet the right person, the best of you surfaces. I know it.:)

These are some good quotes I love bringing with me through life. There is so much wisdom, pain, joy and love in here.  Take time. 

1. “That's why I loved being with you. We could do the simplest things, like toss starfish into the ocean and share a burger and talk and even then I knew that I was fortunate. Because you were the first guy who wasn't constantly trying to impress me. You accepted who you were, but more than that, you accepted me for me. And nothing else mattered-- not my family or your family or anyone else in the world. It was just us.” 

2. “Don't take my advice. Or anyone's advice. Trust yourself. For good or for bad, happy or unhappy, it's your life, and what you do with it has always been entirely up to you.” 

3. “Life was messy. Always had been and always would be and that was just the way it was, so why bother complaining? You either did something about it or you didn’t, and then you lived with the choice you made.” 

4. “I don't know that I've ever felt as happy as I did that day, but then again, it was always like that when we were together. I never wanted it to end.” 

5.“You'll make mistakes and struggle like everyone, but when you are with the right person, you'll almost perfect joy, like you are the luckiest person who ever lived. And that means you'll love and be loved...and in the end, nothing else really matters.”  


 ( all quotes taken from http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/15677976-the-best-of-me)

Stay in love.Namaste!

Water for Elephants

photo form google images

                                            

It's my first time to read a Sarah Gruen's novel.I love the fact that she was able to bring me to the great world of circus which I havent really been into during my younger days.Giving vivid descriptions of the menagerie and the distinct relationship between that elephant Rosie and the main characters was superb.It was painful for me to know that each character has to undergo episodes that were equally heatbreaking.The story of love and passion between Jacob and Marlena and the overwhelming devotion of  the schizophrenic August towards Marlena were no extraordinary stories.Each of us has been into their shoes.In the end, things are alright and fate leads us to where we are supposed to be.



One needs a strong spirit to overcome any circumstance.Jacob has depicted that.He survived despite everything  unpleasant has happened to him.The purity of his heart reminded me of my once pure and innocent love towards someone who shared the same purity and innocence with me.I wonder whether ours would have a great ending too.



Old age may limit one from doing the usual stuff but it should not be something that would paralyze him from still dreaming and hoping of a brighter tomorrow..at least for a limited time.Jacob's strength allowed him to be free from the confines of that hospital.He did not allow his state to control him.He was in the end FREED and enjoyed what he loved most..The circus.



It was a story of hope, triumph, friendship and love.It's my story.It's everybody's story.




"Sara Gruen mines fertile territory in Water for Elephants: the chronic miseries of advancing old age and the terrible years of the Great Depression, when people wandered the country in search of work, their homes and failed business left behind.
As the novel begins, Jacob Jankowski is an old man in an assisted living home, his memories sparked by a nearby visiting circus and a creeping helplessness that assaults his aging body: “Age is a terrible thief. Just when you think you’re getting the hang of it, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back.”
As he falls into fitful dreams, the past emerges. Stripped of everything after his parents’ untimely death, the twenty-three-year-old fails to sit for his veterinary exams at Cornell, grief-stricken and robbed of home and future, the country bartering in goods instead of money.
Hopping a circus train in the dead of night that by belongs to The Flying Squadron of the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, Jacob hires on to care for the show’s menagerie, his advanced training in veterinary medicine a ticket into this bizarre world. Uncle Al, Benzini Brothers circus owner-by-default, is a ruthless businessman who cares only for his reputation, engaged in a quest for fame to rival the great Ringling Brothers.
Star performer Marlena, an equestrienne, adores her animals and is quick to notice Jacob but circumspect in her actions. Her mercurial husband, the trainer August, is obsessively jealous and given to unspeakable cruelties toward man and beast. Jacob does his best to protect the animals from their harsh existence, especially Rosie, an elephant purchased to replace Marlena’s lead horse.
Jacob is increasingly attached to Rosie, empathizing with her plight at August’s hands and helpless to change the situation. Because of his growing affection for Marlena, Jacob suffers August’s increasing affronts, caught in a cycle of inevitable violence, certain of a reckoning.
Related in the somber tones of the Depression, the novel addresses the hardscrabble and often unscrupulous practices of a traveling circus, the rowdy carnie atmosphere and the antiseptic corridors of the assisted living home, all viewed through Jacob’s perspective, as he rages helplessly against the decrepitude of old age and the secrets of the past: “In seventy years, I never told a blessed soul.”
In prose both poignant and infinitely tender, Jacob dwells in both worlds, revealing the wounds of the past and the sorrows of the present. In a devastating denouement, as inescapable as the indifferent world that turns a blind eye to the vagrants of the ‘30s, Jacob’s spirit retains the essence of his kind nature, a man who cannot be broken by circumstances. All is redeemed in a coup de grace that will leave the reader richer for having met this raggedy tribe of miscreants and lost souls."




From  http://www.curledup.com/water4el.htm

WE ARE MARSHALL(2006 movie)

                             

I saw this movie via HBO three years ago but up until now it has left a spot in my heart.Matthew McConaughey was just amazing. He gave justice playing the role of a football coach who wanted so much to give hope to his team and to everyone else who had been into mourning since the death of almost the entire  football team in a plane crash.The plot was no extraordinary feat but stories like this always give me the strength to continue fighting through life no matter how uncertain the results would be.As the new coach McConaughey emphatically contradicted the norm that it's always winning that matters.He stressed that winning and losing do not really matter in any game.It is how we play the game that counts most.I agree.Doing things by heart is enough to make one a winner.In life too, i have often failed and won.This  really dont matter to me largely.I still stand a winner in every streak of the game whatever the result is because i always give my best shot to life.This 2006 flick  made me cry BIG TIME but it also  made me realized once more that there are better things in this game called life than complaining.There are opportunities worth grabbing.I should hold on to my faith.

"The story told in "We Are Marshall" sounds a little like the invention of a screenwriter. An airplane carrying a university football team crashes, killing nearly all of the players, most of the coaching staff and several prominent fans. The university and the close-knit surrounding community are devastated but decide to persevere. A new head coach assembles a team of freshman and athletes who have never played football. This motley crew goes on to win its first home game with a record-breaking number of fans in attendance.

But in spite of sounding like they were made for Hollywood, these events really took place. On November 14, 1970, Southern Airways Flight 932 crashed on approach to Tri-State Airport in Kenova, West Virginia. Marshall University had chartered the plane to carry its football team, the Thundering Herd, home from a game against East Carolina University. All 70 passengers and five crew members were killed. Only a handful of the Thundering Herd were not on board. "(http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/we-are-marshall.htm)