What? Quotes.

[what-quotes]

"When I’m hungover, dreading another week of work and feeling bloated and low, I start to wonder, Why not me? I’ve tried so hard, watched my phone for so many hours, soldiered through so many romcoms and revised my Tinder bio so many times. It’s so easy to pick myself apart. If I had more interesting hobbies, if I didn’t get nervous and lose my train of thought so often, if I could make cooler references. If I put myself out there more, if I learned how to do full body contouring, if I went running more often. Sometimes, the serotonin drops and the sun dims and I know, I’m sure, the real truth is that I’m just not lovable. And it becomes all too easy to crawl into bed and stay there for a week, diving into these ugly thoughts for other horrible truths to anchor me there."

No Hard Feelings - Genevieve Novak

[what-quotes]

People who hate cats are like atheists, they cannot get through a conversation without telling you their views. There is such a righteousness that comes with it. You tell someone you have a cat, and they tell you, to your face, that they hate the thing that you love. There are so few instances in life where this is acceptable. But cat haters can’t wait to unleash their claws. They like to make you sound strange for loving an animal they don’t understand. They tell you cats are not loyal. They shake their heads while you explain the loyalty you have experienced from your own. The madder they can make you look, the more satisfaction they seem to gain. People who don’t like cats are scared of them because they don’t know how to touch them, and therefore they question themselves and their abilities to feel safe. Or they are dead on the inside. It’s one or the other.

Cat Lady - Dawn O'Porter

[what-quotes]

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

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There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

[what-quotes]

"I'll tell you something that happened to me. It was just after I got married. We had all kinds of troubles. I was so fed up with it that I decided to end it all. One morning, before dawn, I put a rope in my car. My mind was made up. I wanted to kill myself. I set off for Mianeh. This was in 1960. I reached the mulberry tree plantations. I stopped there. It was still dark. I threw the rope over a tree but it didn't catch hold. I tried once, twice but to no avail. So then I climbed the tree and tied the rope on tight. Then I felt something soft under my hand. Mulberries. Deliciously sweet mulberries. I ate one. It was succulent, then a second and third. Suddenly, I noticed that the sun was rising over the mountaintop... What sun, what scenery, what greenery! All of a sudden, I heard children heading off to school. They stopped to look at me. They asked me to shake the tree. The mulberries fell and they ate. I felt happy. Then I gathered some mulberries to take them home. My wife was still sleeping. When she woke up, she ate mulberries as well. And she enjoyed them too. I had left to kill myself and I came back with mulberries. A mulberry saved my life. A mulberry saved my life."

-Mr. Bagheri, Taste of Cherry Tree (1997)

[what-quotes]

"When I was little, I couldn't really count on anyone. I mean, I really couldn't. So I became an island - and the island is small. I don't need anyone. And I know that sounds sort of terrible, but it's actually comforting to know that I have this ability to need no one. It feels like a superpower. Like I'm untouchable."

-Emma, Just for the summer by Abby Jimenez

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"When I die, leave my body in the woods. The wolves will be gentler than any man." - Unknown

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"No one will ever know the violence it took to become this gentle" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[what-quotes]

And I want to go home

But I am home...

-Riches and Wonders by The Mountain Goats

[stars-bean]

Spirited Away (2001) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

[what-quotes]

[what-quotes]

I Swear Somewhere This Works

In a parallel universe or another world

or a different life, 

we sit across from each other 

at the kitchen table 

and go over 

the grocery 

list.

- Trista Matter (book: The dogs I have kissed)

[what-quotes]

Some truths do nothing but destroy and decay what they do not obliterate. Truths do not always set one free.

From Blood and Ash, Jennifer L. Armentrout

[what-quotes]

Imagine a house with emotions as rooms. One room for sadness. One room for guilt. Another for pain. Let the emotion consume that room, but that room only. And when you’re done experiencing that emotion, shut the door. Lock it, and step away. - The Boy With Fire,  Aparna Verma

[what-quotes]

The human soul doesn't want to be advised or fixed or saved. It simply wants to be witnessed, exactly as it is.

Parker Palmer 

[what-quotes]

- The Oracle, Matrix

[what-quotes]

Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. We look around occasionally (...) and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff.

Fredrik Backman, Anxious People