âThe best thing is, the more you get used to saying no, the less you have to cancel.ââMichelle Elman, The Joy of Being Selfish. Highlighted
âWhile we may not think of it in such terms, queer folks are intimately familiar with phototropism. Too many of us are forced to live our lives in closets, contoured by shad-ow. We stay there for safety as well as comfort, counterintuitive as that may sound. We dig our roots deeper into the dark, clinging to our confines out of a fear that is instilled in us, that is not our own: fear of our own fulfillment.ââAtmos, The Overview: Meditations on Nature for a World in Transition. Highlighted
âYou 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.ââSophie Divry, The Library of Unrequited Love. Highlighted
âThereâs 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.ââSophie Divry, The Library of Unrequited Love. Highlighted
âWhen 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.â
â"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."â
ââSo, 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.ââMeg Jay, The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now. Highlighted
âI 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...â
âTired 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, âTimeââ
âShe 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.âââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
âThe 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.ââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
âMaybe someday soon we can try another park bench. I donât know. I canât know.ââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
âWhenever I see someone reading a book, especially if it is someone I donât expect, I feel civilization has become a little safer.ââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
âThere 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.ââMatt Haig, How to Stop Time. Highlighted
âYou 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.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âThe synopses we spend so much time writing are for characters we no longer are. ⌠You cannot always make sense of your coexisting truths.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âYouâre 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.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âWhen 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.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âWe 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.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âThe root of the work of being human is learning how to think.ââBrianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think. Highlighted
âItâs a good idea to lift the bonnet and check what kind of moldy secondhand beliefs might have trickled in without you noticing.ââLeena Norms, Half-Arse Human. Highlighted
ââExpectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where youâre going.ââNorton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. Highlighted
ââWeâre 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.âââLisa A. Phillips, Unrequited. Highlighted
ââYou 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.âââNorton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth. Highlighted
âGoals 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.ââDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
âWhen youâre really learning, youâll feel stupid and vulnerable â like a hermit crab between shells.ââDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
âYou use your past to make your future.ââDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
âChanging the world includes changing yourself. Change your beliefs, preferences, acquaintances, hobbies, location, and lifestyle.ââDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted
âDonât try to be more right. Just be less wrong.ââDerek Sivers, How to Live. Highlighted