"These are the days that must happen to you." written by Walt Whitman

"No matter how you feel… Get up. Dress up. Show up. And never give up."

"‎The biggest coward is a man who awakens a woman’s love with no intention of loving her." written by Bob Marley

“Today I saw cancer, cigarettes, and shortness of breath. This is why I walk to the ocean. Swim with sharks and jellyfish. I may never get this chance again. This is why if you want to kiss, you should kiss. If you want to cry, you should cry. And if you want to live, you should live. You don’t have to love me. You already did.” — Ryan Ross

"I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there’s no going back." written by Robyn Davidson, Tracks

"You know how sometimes your life is so perfect you’re afraid for the next moment, because it couldn’t possibly be quite as good? That’s what it felt like." written by Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

"And kid, you’ve got to love yourself. You’ve got wake up at four in the morning, brew black coffee, and stare at the birds drowning in the darkness of the dawn. You’ve got to sit next to the man at the train station who’s reading your favorite book and start a conversation. You’ve got to come home after a bad day and burn your skin from a shower. Then you’ve got to wash all your sheets until they smell of lemon detergent you bought for four dollars at the local grocery store. You’ve got to stop taking everything so goddam personally. You are not the moon kissing the black sky. You’ve got to compliment someones crooked brows at an art fair and tell them that their eyes remind you of green swimming pools in mid July. You’ve got to stop letting yourself get upset about things that won’t matter in two years. Sleep in on Saturday mornings and wake yourself up early on Sunday. You’ve got to stop worrying about what you’re going to tell her when she finds out. You’ve got to stop over thinking why he stopped caring about you over six months ago. You’ve got to stop asking everyone for their opinions. Fuck it. Love yourself, kiddo. You’ve got to love yourself."

And I just thought that you should know that I’ve been holding on while you’ve been letting go.

"One time you told me that the opposite of love isn’t hate. And I didn’t understand that, but I think I do now. Because if you hate someone, you must still care, right? You have to care a little bit; otherwise you would just ignore them and forget they even live." written by Barry Lyga, Goth Girl Rising

"I used to call people, then I got into e-mailing, then texting, and now I just ignore everyone." written by The New Yorker

"I crave space. It charges my batteries. It helps me breathe. Being around people can be so exhausting, because most of them love to take and barely know how to give. Except for a rare few."

"Sometimes, when you’re sad you don’t know what to do, it helps to be angry. But then the tears come back again all the same, and you fall asleep with the salty taste of them on your lips." written by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

"She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface." written by Diane Chamberlain, The Lost Daughter

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst, and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold onto it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid, little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry. You will. Some day." written by Lester Burnham, American Beauty

"Sometimes you imagine that everything could have been different for you, that if only you had gone right one day when you chose to go left, you would be living a life you could never have anticipated. But at other times you think there was no other way forward―that you were always bound to end up exactly where you have." written by Kevin Brockmeier, The View from the Seventh Layer

Divorce isn’t such a tragedy. A tragedy’s staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love.

You’re going to have to go beyond yourself to keep him. That’s a tiring thing.

Sometimes I’m terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants. The way it stops and starts.

Just because you don’t say much doesn’t mean people don’t notice you. It’s actually the quiet ones who often draw the most attention. There’s this constant whirlwind of motion and sound all around, and then there’s the quiet one, the eye of the storm.

Sometimes the past needed to stay buried; it was the only way you could move on. And sometimes you had to dig it up, because that too was the only way.

Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.

The stupid thing about anger is how people hurt you and then you let them keep hurting you by being angry about how they originally hurt you. It’s a vicious cycle.

- - Susane Colasanti, So Much Closer - - 

The wicked thing is, that when we’re really upset, we always take it out on the people who are closest and whom we love the most.

- - Rosamunde Pilcher, Winter Solstice - -

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.

- - Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber - -

That was what I feared most: that he just wasn’t excited about us anymore—that something between us had altered irreversibly. And afterward, I started seeing the evidence everywhere: in the way he didn’t sleep facing me anymore, or the way he’d stopped asking me the questions he used to need to know the answers to, the way he stopped needing to tell me things in order for them to count.

 - - Laura Dave, London Is the Best City in America - 

“The thing about loving someone, is that yelling at them only feels good while you’re doing it — as soon as they’re gone, all you want to do is take it all back.”

- - Lauren Barnholdt, Getting Close - -