Gina Marinello-Sweeney Quotes

Battle scars were not a commodity that I was accustomed to selling, least of all to myself.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Rebecca, we live in a world where darkness seems, in the minds of many, something banished to the world of fairy tales and superhero movies. How surprising it then becomes—even for those of us who believe otherwise—that it may appear in our own lives, in our own battles. To face an opponent that is more than the average ‘jerk,’ who has made a deadly choice, is, let us admit it, nothing that we expect to experience.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Maturity is so often considered to be synonymous with ‘adult.’ But I truly feel that maturity may be defined by the ability to be both an adult and a child.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Can a rose survive in winter?
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Many a year I told her tales. And then the time came for me to watch. And watch I have.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Raindrops lingered in a melody of remembrance cast from the heavens above as I myself cast aside the dryness of the present day.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Caution: Danger ahead. Do not refer to Adriana as little in regards to either her age or stature. If you happen to disregard this most basic of laws, approach with caution. Much, much caution.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The starry night sky echoed across my thoughts, the expanse of my own void filtered in its quiet solitude.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The only way that your work will truly find an audience is if it is genuine.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Inspiration doesn't always come in chronological order.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
I would travel far and wide...seeing, listening, creating. I would weave tales for an enthralled audience. A song would be heard throughout the kingdom, and I would be a part of that. You would normally think that a bard would pick up his tales from stories heard in his travels or, perhaps, from personal observation of these events. Perhaps some bards would create the stories themselves or, at least, adapt the original versions heard... But what if the bard were really more than a bard? What if he were once a gallant knight or an old sea captain...perhaps even a forgotten prince? What if the stories he told, what if the characters brought to life in his stories, were really of his comrades and himself? Stories from long ago that he finally wished to be heard? What if those who listened to his tales, all the while assuming that they were far disconnected from their communicator, were really listening to the narrative of a wanderer intimately connected to it all? And where would such an individual go when his final days as an “official” bard were spent? Perhaps he would decide to retire in a lighthouse. For, surely, no place would be more fitting for the hero emeritus. He would gaze upon the glorious sea in recollection...guiding others with the beacon of light atop his home as he had once been shepherded. The adventurer became the storyteller...and then the Sentinel of the Sea.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
A poem must be authentic. It could be flowery, it could have the most brilliant metaphor, it could be bursting with onomatopoeia and alliteration, assonance and consonance, hyperbole and paradox, from every end, it could have daring syntax and clever cacophony, it could have a neat and ordered rhyme scheme...but, if it loses its authenticity, its ability to convey the very heart and soul of the poet, then all the euphony and cacophony in the world cannot make up for the loss of its identity as a poem. And that is the true cacophony.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Like dandelions they flew across the expanse Of desert calm without advance They filtered through the stilled “become” Returning to the land they knew. They knew no more than where they flew. And so they gathered, one and all, And scattered it throughout their path. Only golden-shafted majesty could still their might. And so they flew onward, without a path.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
You were...are...what I heard. Every note.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
No magnetic wombats, no flying hyenas, no catfish masquerading as samurai, and, MOST CERTAINLY, no Duku jam!
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The last time I checked, I wasn’t the one who tripped over a glass container of sugar that I had myself dropped... after, of course, having received several bruises from an attempt to retrieve a flip-flop that had somehow ended up in the sink.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The luminescent flow of a sunbathed garden— illuminating the shifting colors of its inhabitants— echoed in my memory as I opened the antique bookstore door in the shaft of window light. The books, like the flowers of the garden, awaited me with the thrill of a new mystery.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
That,” Adriana said, “is a puzzling mystery that must be solved.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Or, maybe what really mattered was that game of Crazy 8s.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
And the shower of roses spun around me, inviting me to take part in their ever-present waltz.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
. . . for a moment, perhaps an hour, they would wait, wait for something, and when that waiting was over, it was simply dismissed, goodbyes stated, reading materials closed, a momentary pause in the day that did not hold up to whatever came next.Waiting was often a resented gift, imparted to those who accepted it grudgingly in the hopes that something better would come along when the gift was tossed aside, boxed away for the next recipient.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
I told my imagination to discontinue communication with my thoughts.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
There is a host of angels surrounding you, Rebecca. Not figuratively. Literally. With wings spread far to encompass you, protect you with their Light. Remember that they are with you—see them with your heart and soul—whenever you are forced to engage in battle with forces that seek and have become, through their own will, evil.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
St. Catherine of Siena once said, ‘If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze.’ But,” I turned to him urgently, “how can I even light a single candle if someone blocks off the first step?
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The Eternal Smiler strode forth, handing her one, as well. I considered the psychology behind her smile and formed the conclusion that, despite its obvious coating of pleasantry, it was an understandable psychological decision.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
The college bookstore was a splash of life, culture, and society. As a psychology student, I often found myself intrigued by the behavior, ways of thinking and feeling, and general schemata of others, and this was the perfect spot to engage my senses.Other times, I was just annoyed.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
I stared back at her, my eyes leveled with hers in inscrutable certainty. For a moment, our eyes remained engaged, unflinching and impenetrable, as the shrill, steady call of a siren ran across the street outside, mixing with the effervescent glow of traffic lights and a steady pitter-patter of pedestrian feet sauntering across the street in wakeful gait.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Yes, it is,” I whispered, “and one day the spell will not cause you to forget it.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
It is the littlest of flowers that fly the farthest . . . That have the courage to fly the farthest.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
It was a gaze that held the comfort of familiarity. There was no mystery, no enigmatic depth, but unrestrained length, the length of years—the laughter of childhood games and Christmas carols of home— lining its pathways with simple, yet easily overlooked, understanding.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
He had not been tossed aside by time, but lost in it.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Two years could change so much under the facade of changing nothing at all.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney
Knowledge can be powerful. But it can only be beautiful if there is more to it. If it is guided by something greater than the simple desire to enhance the potency of the mind.
Gina Marinello-Sweeney