Life happens. Shit happens. And it happens a lot. To a lot of people.
Do not let your difficulties fill you with anxiety, after all it is only in the darkest nights that stars shine more brightly.
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations.
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.
– Changes
It’s not that we have to quit
this life one day, but it’s how
many things we have to quit
all at once: music, laughter,
the physics of falling leaves,
automobiles, holding hands,
the scent of rain, the concept
of subway trains… if only one
could leave this life slowly!
If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?
I don’t really want to become normal, average, standard. I want merely to gain in strength, in the courage to live out my life more fully, enjoy more, experience more. I want to develop even more original and more unconventional traits
In the end, the world always wins. That’s just the way of things.
I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it’s the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myself better now and know what I have to do.
Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realized.
I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.
Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it.
Obscurity and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.
Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work’s important, family’s important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You’re cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what’s coming.
I have known the joy and pain of friendship. I have served and been served. I have made some good enemies for which I am not a bit sorry. I have loved unselfishly, and I have fondled hatred with the red-hot tongs of Hell. That’s living.
Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control.
The monsters were never
under my bed.
Because the monsters
were inside my head.
I fear no monsters,
for no monsters I see.
Because all this time
the monster has been me.
… you don’t have to wait for someone to treat you bad repeatedly. All it takes is once, and if they get away with it that once, if they know they can treat you like that, then it sets the pattern for the future.
If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then all possibility of life is destroyed.
[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.
I’ve crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I’ve come to a place I never thought I’d have to come to. And I don’t know how I got here. It’s a strange place. It’s a place where a little harmless dreaming and then some sleepy, early-morning talk has led me into considerations of death and annihilation.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
I think that you’ve got to make something that pleases you and hope that other people feel the same way.
Life is but a day;
A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way
From a tree’s summit.
I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.
All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.
Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.
I know it’s not easy for you, living this life, but try to remember, always try to remember, you’re not the only one with troubles.
The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.
Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.
Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone.
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
There are a lot of things I wish I would have done, instead of just sitting around and complaining about having a boring life.
Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.
I saw the world from the stars’ point of view, and it looked unbearably lonely.
I was in the biggest breakdown of my life when I stopped crying long enough to let the words of my epiphany really sink in. That whore, karma, had finally made her way around, and had just bitch-slapped me right across the face. The realization only made me cry harder.
We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.
All the world’s a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
…I told him a story of two people. Two people who shouldn’t have met, and who didn’t like each other much when they did, but who found they were the only two people in the world who could possibly have understood each other.
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives,
Who thinks most, feels noblest, acts the best.
We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won’t do harm – yes, choose a place where you won’t do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.
Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.
Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love.
I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
I should be happy, but instead I feel nothing. I feel a lot of nothing these days. I’ve cried a few times, but mostly I’m empty, as if whatever makes me feel and hurt and laugh and love has been surgically removed, leaving me hollowed out like a shell.
Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.
The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.
If you learn to really sit with loneliness and embrace it for the gift that it is…an opportunity to get to know YOU, to learn how strong you really are, to depend on no one but YOU for your happiness…you will realize that a little loneliness goes a LONG way in creating a richer, deeper, more vibrant and colorful YOU.
All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me… You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.