You donât shut yourself up for ten hours a day to write, if everything in your life is absolutely hunky-dory. Writing only happens when somethingâs wrong.âSophie Divry, The library of unrequited love. Highlighted
Thereâs no space for leisure in life. Youâre either going up or down, end of story. And at a certain point in your life, you have to decide what you want to do with your time.âSophie Divry, The library of unrequited love. Highlighted
When we make choices, we open ourselves up to hard work and failure and heartbreak, so sometimes it feels easier to not to know, not to choose, and not to do. But it isnât.
"I wish I had experimentedâwith workâin a way I feel I canât right now at almost thirty. I felt a lot of internal pressure to figure it out, but all the thinking I did was really debilitating and unproductive."
âSo, youâre the Outward Bound girl!â For years to come, even on residency interviews, I spent most of the time answering questions about what happened when kids ran away in the wilderness or whether it was safe to swim in a river with alligators ... Identities and careers are made not out of college majors and GPAs but out of a couple of door-opening pieces of identity capital.âMeg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now. Highlighted
I have seen countless twentysomethings spend too many years living without perspective. What is worse are the tears shed by thirtysomethings and fortysomethings because they are now paying a steep price...
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain You are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today And then one day you find, ten years has got behind you No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. âDavid Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, âTimeâ
She goes quiet for a little while. Remembers something. ââI speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older.ââ âIs that . . .?â âMontaigne himself.ââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
The lesson of history is that ignorance and superstition are things that can rise up, inside almost anyone, at any moment. And what starts as a doubt in a mind can swiftly become an act in the world.âMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
Maybe someday soon we can try another park bench. I donât know. I canât know.âMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
Whenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I donât expect, I feel civilization has become a little safer.âMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
There comes a time when the only way to start living is to tell the truth. To be who you really are, even if it is dangerous.âMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
You are psychologically incapable of being able to predict what will make you happy. Your brain can only perceive what it's known, so when you choose what you want for the future, you're actually just recreating a solution or ideal of the past.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
The synopses we spend so much time writing are for characters we no longer are. ⌠You cannot always make sense of your coexisting truths.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
Youâre not going to be ready for the love of your life when they show up. ⌠And if you deny yourself that relationship because you think you need to do more work beforehand, youâre denying yourself the best growing tool there is.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
When you see somebody else displaying one of these traits, itâs infuriating, not because you inherently dislike it, but because you have to fight your desire to fully integrate it into your whole consciousness. ⌠The things you hate about others are the things you cannot see in yourself.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
We canât choose whose wreckage can [change the parts of ourselves and our worlds we canât]. We all start as strangers, but we forget that we rarely choose who ends up a stranger, too.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
The root of the work of being human is learning how to think.âBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âExpectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where youâre going.âNorton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. Highlighted
âWeâre always looking for that missing piece in ourselves,â said Jungian analyst Jacqueline Wright. âThat ideal lover or person that weâre looking for holds a quality that we donât recognize or express in ourselves.ââLisa A. Phillips, Unrequited. Highlighted
âYou must never feel badly about making mistakes,â explained Reason quietly, âas long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.ââNorton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. Highlighted
Goals donât improve your future. Goals only improve your present actions. A good goal makes you take action immediately. A bad goal doesnât. A goal shows whatâs right and wrong. What moves you towards your goal is right. What doesnât is wrong.âDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
When youâre really learning, youâll feel stupid and vulnerable â like a hermit crab between shells.âDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
You use your past to make your future.âDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
Changing the world includes changing yourself. Change your beliefs, preferences, acquaintances, hobbies, location, and lifestyle.âDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
Donât try to be more right. Just be less wrong.âDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted