T.J. > T.J.'s Quotes

“There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

of walking in the noisy street

and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,

and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes


to see with the other eye”
― Rumi

“A dreamer,” scorns her mother.

“A dreamer,” mourns her father.

“A dreamer,” warns Estele.

Still, it does not seem such a bad word.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“It is just a storm, he tells himself, but he is tired of looking for shelter. It is just a storm, but there is always another waiting in its wake.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“But a life without art, without wonder, without beautiful things—she would go mad. She has gone mad.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“To really know ourselves we have to question ourselves. I always liked that idea.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“I had spent my adolescence trying to blend in with my peers in suburban America, and had come of age feeling like my belonging was something to prove. Something that was always in the hands of other people to be given and never my own to take, to decide which side I was on, whom I was allowed to align with. I could never be of both worlds, only half in and half out, waiting to be ejected at will by someone with greater claim than me. Someone whole.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“It’s fascinating. How so much of love is about who you are with someone.”
― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation

“I've always felt like once someone sees me deep down, that's it. There's something ugly in there, or unlovable, and you're the only person who's ever made me feel like I'm okay.”
― Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation

“You fucking undo me.”
― Emily Henry, Book Lovers

“Enjoy the stories of other people's lives, but don't forget to live your own.”
― Alice Feeney, Rock Paper Scissors

“How wild it was, to let it be.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“I'd finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted to find was a way in.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
― Bruce Lee

“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“My last thought before I fell asleep was: He is dead. My only friend. My only enemy.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“No," he says quietly. "In every universe, it's you for me. Even if it's not me for you.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“Love means constantly saying you're sorry, and then doing better.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another.

Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.

You belong here. ”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“He's become my best friend the way the others did. Bit by bit, sand passing through an hour glass so slowly, it's impossible to pin down the moment it happens. When suddenly, more of my heart belongs to him than doesn't, and I know I'll never get a single grain back.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“There doesn’t need to be a winner and a loser. You just have to care how the other person feels. You have to care more about them than you do about being right.”
― Emily Henry, Happy Place

“I love you like all-fire.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“And that’s part of our trouble. Thinking things are inevitable. Not believing change is possible.”
― Suzanne Collins, Sunrise on the Reaping

“There is something beautiful about autumn that makes things more beautiful. Out of all the seasons, it is the most honest about time. Summer and spring blind you to its passing with their colorful displays. Winter paints over everything in white. But autumn is not shy about things coming to an end. It welcomes it, waving leafy flags of red, yellow, and gold. It celebrates its sadness.” Hana Ishikawa”
― Samantha Sotto Yambao, Water Moon

“What's wrong with failing?" Keishin tilted his head. "Or wanting to make things better? Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean that's how they should always be. And if I fail, so what? That just means I'm eliminating a wrong turn and getting closer to the right one.”
― Samantha Sotto Yambao, Water Moon

“When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed