I'm obsessed with quotes. My Pinterest board has thousands, my notebooks always have random quotes scattered through them and my phone is nothing but screenshots of ones that speak so tenderly to my soul. Quotes talk to me about the parts of myself that I have always searched for the words for. Here is a (very) small collection of some of my current favorites (they are always changing, as I am constantly changing along with the seasons). ♥
‘She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.” – Lord Byron
‘Her hair was long, Her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.” – John Keats
‘Everything is blossoming most recklessly;
if there were voices instead of colors
there would be an unbelievable shrieking
in the heart of the night.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us.” – Bukowski
“And I. I too.
Quite collected at cocktail parties,
Meanwhile in my head
I’m undergoing open-heart surgery.” – Anne Sexton
“There’s always a few moments at dusk when the sky sheds purple and the world seems to exhale out the day. I’m learning to breathe alongside it. I’m learning to soften into the in-betweens, to be content with the not knowing, to innately understand when its fine to stop all of the reaching for a bit and just be and believe.” – V. Erickson
“I wish to cry. Yet, I laugh, and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent moon on the top of the beer can.” – Sylvia Platt
“I and me are always too deep in conversation.” – Nietzsche
“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” – Neil Gaiman
“Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. Its quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.” – Rumi
“We must know that we have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and be loved.” – Mother Teresa
“I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep. “ – Charlotte Bronte
‘ To love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heart
thickening the air, heavy like water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think , How can a body withstand this?
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.’
- Ellen Bass
‘I want more men
with flowers falling from their skin.
More water in their eyes.
More tremble in their bodies.
More women in their hearts than on their hands .
More softness in their height.
More honesty in their voice.
More wonder.
More humility in their feet.’ -Nayyirah Waheed
“It has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. I learned everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learned love is about giving. Everything. And letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. I learned all things come in twos. Life and death. Pain and joy. Salt and sugar. Me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good. Making friends out of strangers. Making strangers out of friends. Learning mint chocolate chip ice cream will fix just about everything. And for the pains it cant there will always be my mother’s arms. We must learn to focus our warm energy. Always. Soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world. For if we cant learn to be kinder to each other how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate parts of ourselves.’ – Rupi Kaur
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of the heart.” – Jane Austen
“She had wild eyes, slightly insane. She also carried an overload of compassion that was real enough and which obviously cost her something.” – Bukowski
“This morning – with her, having coffee.” Johnny Cash when asked for his description of paradise.
“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” – Kurt Vonnegud
‘We rewrite the definition of brave and it is this: love again, love again, love again.” – Foresa Latif
“You call me ‘sister’ not because you are my blood but because you understand the kind of tragedies we both have endured to come back into loving ourselves again and again”. - Ijeoma Umebinyuon
“My heart wants roots. My mind wants wings. I cannot bear their bickering’s.” – E.Y. Harburt
“Wait for someone who could be the moon for you. Just as strong, just as steady, illuminating changes and seas and blooming flowers and summer nights. They’d wait for you in the dark. They’d dance around the sun. they’d receive your primal howls, your secrets, your dreams and shifting tides. Wait for the moon. Wait for nothing less than what steals your breath. What breaks you open. What lures your soul. What helps you rise.” – Victoria Erickson
“She puzzled the mystery of her desperate need of kindness. As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealthy, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind.” – Anais Nin
“Despite the forecast, live like its spring.” – Lilly Pulitzer
“Great art is horseshit. Buy tacos.” – Bukowski
“Let tenderness pour from your eyes, the way sun gazes warmly on earth. “ – Hafie
“Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.” – S. B. Breathnace
“May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resistant than sinew, sensitive than nerve.” – Sapphe
Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey. – Lord ByroN
“Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward.” – e.e.cummings
“How strange to see the wrinkles on the sides of my eyes growing and getting deeper the older I get. I laugh. A lot. This is the proof and they are my scars of happiness.” – T. K. Gregson
“Understand, I’ll slip quietly away from the noisy crowd when I see the pale stars rising , blooming, over the oaks. I’ll pursue solitary pathways through the pale twilit meadows, with only this one dream: you come too.” – Rilke
“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.” – G.K. Chesterton
“My dear, in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. I realized, through it all, that… in the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger- something better, pushing right back.” – Albert Camus
“Forgive me that I ignored the sun and that I lived in sorrow. Forgive, forgive, that I mistook too many others for you.” – T. SelL
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.- Emerson
“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.” – Kurt Vonneurd
“My heart is not a home for cowards”- d.antoinette foy
“We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.” –Hemingway