I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.

I want to be untouchable and beautiful and completely dead inside.

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don’t say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you.

He said that dogs were not loyal but servile, that cats were opportunists and traitors, that peacocks were heralds of death, that macaws were simply decorative annoyances, that rabbits fomented greed, that monkeys carried the fever of lust, and that roosters were damned because they had been complicit in three denials of Christ.

I am told you are constant in your attendance at divine service.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let it remain so. God consoles us in all adversity.”

“I try to share your belief, ma’m.

So why become the crumbs and sand at the bottom of the bag, the rain-stained receipt in the trunk of the car, the canceled checks in the drawer, the unused bottle of perfume, why become what doesn’t matter but won’t go away, what is both tragic and annoying; why undermine the grace we seek against the tedious dark?

Fall in love or fall in hate.
Get inspired or be depressed.
Get confused or be straight.
Flunk a class or ace a test.
Become a slut or be reborn a virgin.
Get fit or get fat.
Make babies or make art.
Speak the truth or lie and cheat.
Live happily ever after or get divorced.
Dance on tables or sit in the corner and be shy.
Let me (scream or whisper) a secret to you:
It doesn’t matter.
Nobody’s actually watching.
Life is divine chaos. Embrace it. Forgive yourself.
Breathe. And enjoy the ride.

The myriad possibilities of the past lay behind me, a strew of wreckage. Was there, in all that, one particular shard - a decision reached, a road taken, a signpost followed - that would show me just how I had come to my present state? No, of course not. My journey, like everyone else’s, even yours, had not been a thing of signposts and decisive marching, but drift only, a kind of slow subsidence, my shoulders bowing down under the gradual accumulation of all the things I had not done. I was living like that because I was living like that, there is no other answer.

To take possession of a city of which you are not a native you must first fall in love there.

How shall I describe it, this sense of myself as something without weight, without moorings, a floating phantom? Other people seemed to have a density, a thereness, which I lacked. Among them, these big, carefree creatures, I was like a child among adults. I watched them, wide-eyed, wondering at their calm assurance in the face of a baffling and preposterous world…They talked of cause and effect, as if they believed it possible to isolate an event and hold it up to scrutiny in a pure, timeless space, outside the mad swirl of things. They would speak of whole peoples as if they were speaking of a single individual, while to speak even of an individual with any show of certainty seemed to me foolhardy. Oh, they knew no bounds.

I’ve made no name for myself, have no social credibility, no sex appeal, no talent…In a word, to borrow your turn of phrase, I am an utterly mediocre person. What have I got to lose? If you can think of anything, clue me in, why don’t you?

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage - pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically - to say ‘no’ to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside. The enemy of the ‘best’ is often the ‘good.’

teachingliteracy:

cinderellainrubbershoes:

“I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

-Augustus Waters (The Fault in Our Stars by John Green)

aseaofquotes:

Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Submitted by youaremypatronus.

(via teachingliteracy)

I have the true feeling of myself only when I am unbearably unhappy.