“I want a soulmate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.”

— Henry Rollins

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.”

— Howard Thurman

“There is only one heart in my body, have mercy on me.”

— Franz Wright, One Heart

“We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.”

— Michel de Montaigne, Essais

Leila Chatti, from "Postcard from Gone"

“To achieve great things, we must be self-confined: mastery is revealed in limitation.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Selected Poetry

As I kid, I wanted to be a savior, trailblazer, the prophecy child. I wanted a big life, with ups and ups like the breasts of mountains and lows like the depths of valleys full of forgotten debris. I was convinced the great flood was knocking at my door, beckoning me to become someone bigger. A juvenile fantasy, a hazy dream.

I'm 19 now. It's not a grand big life, I'm no hero. I love my friends and sunday mornings. I like cats and strawberries. No flood, no rapture, no calamity- just quiet weekdays and sleepy weekends. But oh my days, I am full, finally.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

"Poems are not written...", Andrey Voznesensky (translated by metamorphesque)

When you're blessed with a new beginning don't repeat old mistakes.

“I’ve found that growing up means being honest. About what I want. What I need. What I feel. Who I am.”

— Epiphany

“Promise me not to hide yourself when you’re in pain, it’s unfair that we laughed together but you cried alone”

— Unknown

a heart that always understands also gets tired

The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1920–1923

Nikos Kazantzakis, from “Report to Greco”, tr. by P. A. Bien