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No because Clarice Lispector said, “Who has not asked himself at some time or another: am I a monster or is this what it means to be human?” and Florence Welch said, “But you have to satisfy the monster. The monster has loved you for longer than anybody else.” and Ocean Vuong said, “and what I really wanted to say was that a monster isn’t such a terrible thing to be.” and Helga Floros said, “I want to ask you which monster scared you the most as a kid.” and Mary Shelley said, “When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?” and Fredrich Neitzche said, “Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?” but he also said, “Throw roses into the abyss and say; ‘here’s my thanks to the monster that didn’t succeed in swallowing me alive.’” and Mark Manson said, “There are still monsters in the back of my mind, and there probably always will be, but they’re getting quieter now.”

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Conee Berdera said, “Dear life, I am slowly falling in love with you again.” and Ellen Bass said, “Then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes, and you say, yes, I will take you. I will love you, again.” and “to love life, to love it even when you have no stomach for it.” and Andrea Gibson said, “I suppose I love this life in spite of my clenched fists.” and Ada Limon said, “You say you love the world, so love the world.” and Warsan Sire said, “I’ll rewrite this entire life and this time there’ll be so much love, you won’t be able to see beyond it.” 

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Ada Limon said,  “I haven't given up on trying to live a good life, a really good one even.” and “I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour.” and  Anis Mojgani said, "Will I be something? Am I something? and the answer comes: You already are. You always were. And you still have time to be."

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When Homer said,  "Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again." and Oscar Wilde said,  "I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die."  

***Edit: The first quote I had attributed to Homer actually came from the movie Troy (2004). Thank you, @eudaimoniavariations for that correction!

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When Mary Oliver said, "Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside all of us." and when Amanda Jasnowski Pascual said, "They say god is real and when I look at you I believe it.” and when Anis Mojgani said, "I dream too much and I don't write enough and I'm trying to find God everywhere.”

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Being merciful, it seems to me, is the only good idea we have had so far.

Kurt Vonnegut 

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Yes, I deserve a spring–I owe nobody nothing.

Virginia Woolf

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Thinking about when Marcel Proust said, “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” and Stephen Chbosky said, “There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.” and when Dino Ahmetovic said, "Come on, dance with me. The earth is spinning. We can't just stand on it." and when Nicolas Chamfort said, “The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”

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And if the memory of these days is all I ever have, it will be worth it.

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Anne Sexton said, “As for me, I am watercolor. I wash off.” and Emily Dickinson said, “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.” and Chuck Palahniuk said, “If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character... Would you slow down? Or speed up?” and Vita Sackville-West said, “Homesick we are, and always, for another And different world.” and Clarice Lispector said, “For one has the right to shout. So, I am shouting.” and Chelsea Hodson said, “I might be better as an idea, you said, and it was hard not to agree- everyone is better as a theory.” and Charles Bukowski said, “We have come so far and gone nowhere. We have lived so long and hardly at all.” and Jose Saramago said, “And here I am, trapped between today and the future and with no hope in either of them.” and Virginia Woolf said, “Do you still believe in life by the way?” and I am thinking about how badly I want to feel like I take up space.

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I’ve been thinking about how Elle Emerson said, “No one is watching. So why does it have to be beautiful? You in pain are no closer to god than you in the drive thru or you, checking your email, or you, holding your own hand.” and how James Wright said, “God, sometimes I think I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself.” and how Margaret Atwood said, “If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next- if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions- you’d be doomed. You’d be ruined as God.” and how Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “To love someone means to see them as God intended them.” and how Andres Cerpa said, “I couldn’t draw my own face if God asked.”

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Thinking about the Achilles Come Down lyrics, “You crave the applause yet hate the attention then miss it, your act is a ruse.” And how that feels like when Donald Miller said, “Who trusts people to love who they really are? Who is willing to take the risk? Nobody steps onto a stage and gets a standing ovation for being human. You have to dance or something.” But he also said, “I act less than before and get less applause but feel slightly more loved.” And I don’t know what to do with that.

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Claude Monet said, “Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” and Vincent Van Gogh said, “The way to know life is to love many things.” and “If I am worth something later, I am worth something now.” and Kurt Vonnegut said, “If this isn’t nice, I don't know what is.” and Fyodor Dostoevsky said, “Compassion was the most important, perhaps the sole law of human existence.” and James Wright said, “God, sometimes I am so happy I don't know what to do with me.” and I am really working on this happiness. 

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“We, Freida and I, both send our love, for the New Year, the Year 1 of the new world. The Old year had to die.” -D.H. Lawrence

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“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

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I have been thinking about when Charles Bukowski said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.” and when R.Y.S. Perez said, “People should love in the same way that they should write; insistently, fervently, forever.” and when they said, “I will show you all the ways in which you are easy to love.” and when Yves Olade said, “I wanted to talk about love. You wanted to become it.” and when Pablo Neruda said, “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” and when Clive Barker said, “Wherever I go, I will speak of you with love.” and when Anne Sexton said, “I don’t care, I love you anyhow. It is too late to turn you out of my heart. Part of you lives here.” and when Christopher Citro said, “I love you. I want us both to eat well.”

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I’ve been thinking about how Elle Emerson said, “No one is watching. So why does it have to be beautiful? You in pain are no closer to god than you in the drive thru or you, checking your email, or you, holding your own hand.” and how James Wright said, “God, sometimes I think I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself.” and how Margaret Atwood said, “If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next- if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions- you’d be doomed. You’d be ruined as God.” and how Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “To love someone means to see them as God intended them.” and how Andres Cerpa said, “I couldn’t draw my own face if God asked.”