Lily Burana Quotes

• “Soon I was weeping---for the reservists who put their entire lives on hold when called to duty, for the military mothers who had to keep their families together all alone, for the parents, spouses, sons, and daughters who were beset with worry, for Mike, and for the soldiers who would never come home. I only meant to buy a shower curtain, and now, quite unexpectedly, right when I least wanted it, months of pent-up loneliness, fear, and frustration were pouring out in an endless churn of hot, silent tears.”

  Lily Burana

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• “War is hell and waiting is hell and war is waiting.”

  Lily Burana

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• “Somewhere nere Ogallala, about six hours into that majestic, maddening prairie, I realize that half an hour has passed since I've seen a vehicle in either direction.
  Oh, I think, as I finally see a pair of headlights draw nigh in the eastbound lane, so this must be where the West begins.”

  Lily Burana

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• “A military man's courtship rites may not be poetic, but then, they're not cryptic, either. Even if he's bashful, when he fancies you, you know it, because you can't hide a lover's blush under the Army's signature high-and-tight haircut.”

  Lily Burana

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• “The best stage name is already taken . . . I have to come up with something else. . . . I guess you begin with what resonates, what sounds like who you want to be.”

  Lily Burana

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• “It was then that I felt the full gravity of his profession. This was a real warrior, with real principles. Not a bang-bang Hollywood type, not a bendable dress-up doll in a hot uniform. A soldier, a soul. Life and death decisions were not an academic exercise for him, and he was not playing at this.”

  Lily Burana

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• “Grief, I began to see, is gratitude turned inside out.”

  Lily Burana

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• “I find myself looking around at everything with an unsatisfied sniff. I'm too easily irritated and bored, and I'm disturbed by the arrogance that that implies.”

  Lily Burana

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• “Depression is a funhouse, with suicidal ideation the wavy, distorting mirrors that have you trapped and stumbling from corner to corner in that box on the midway. You don’t think clearly, and the first thing to disappear is your sense of worth. You believe you don’t matter. You believe you’d be better off dead. When someone dies by their own hand, those left behind spin in wonder: Didn’t they know how loved they were? How valued? How much of a smoking crater they left behind by dying? Well, no, they don’t. When you’re in the funhouse of depression, the opposite becomes true. A deep, pervasive sense of worthlessness seeps across everything like a spreading stain. You fixate on the burden of your incapacity, how messed up and heavy you are, and there’s no talking yourself out of it. You can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps because you don’t have bootstraps. You don’t even have boots. You’re treading barefoot over broken glass, day after day, exhausted and sick of the pain. You can’t seem to get it right, and you imagine how things would go much better, people would do so much better, if you weren’t around to drag them down. You’d be doing everyone a favor, really. That’s how dangerous depression can be. Not only do you believe you’d be better off dead, but also that everyone else would be relieved by your absence. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  Lily Burana

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• “So many of us resist the truth that self-care is not self-indulgence, but it is a fact that you cannot pour from an empty cup. Or a shattered one.”

  Lily Burana

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