Aly > Aly's Quotes

“According to Aristotle, friends hold a mirror up to each other. This mirror allows them to see things they wouldn’t be able to observe if they were holding up the mirror to themselves. (We think of it as the difference between a shaky selfie and a really clear portrait taken by somebody else.) Observing ourselves in the mirror of others is how we improve as people. We can see our flaws illuminated in new ways, but we can also notice many good things we didn’t know were there. Until a friend specifically requests you bring your lemon meringue pie to brunch, you might not realize you’ve become an excellent baker. Until a friend finds the courage to tell you that she never feels like you’re listening to her, you might not realize this is how others are perceiving your chatterbox tendencies. After the third friend in a row calls you for help asking for a raise, you might finally give yourself credit as a pretty good negotiator. Once you’ve seen yourself in a mirror of friendship—in both positive and challenging ways—the reflection cannot be unseen.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“The upside is you get to be seen for who you really are. You get the security of a safe harbor. You get the satisfaction of knowing that you chose each other and continue to choose each other every day. You get to know yourself deeper than you ever thought possible, thanks to this external mirror in the form of your friend. And you get a lot of really good inside jokes.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt with. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding and my dear one, you and I have been granted a mighty generous one.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

“What I Know: 1. What you don't know, you're not supposed to know yet. 2. More will be revealed. 3 Crisis means to sift. Let it all fall away and you'll be left with what matters. 4.What matters most cannot be taken away. 5. Just do the next right thing one thing at a time. That'll take you all the way home.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“In all my close friendships, words are the bricks I use to build bridges. To know someone I need to hear her, and to feel known, I need to be heard by her. The process of knowing and loving another person happens for me through conversation. I reveal something to help my friend understand me, she responds in a way that assures me she values my revelation, and then she adds something to help me understand her. This back-and-forth is repeated again and again as we go deeper into each other's hearts, minds, pasts, and dreams. Eventually, a friendship is built - a solid, sheltering structure that exists in the space between us - a space outside of ourselves that we can climb deep into. There is her, there is me, and then there is our friendship - this bridge we've built together.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“We think our job as humans is to avoid pain, our job as parents is to protect our children from pain, and our job as friends is to fix each other's pain. Maybe that's why we all feel like failures so often - because we all have the wrong job description for love.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Có nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me?

I miss you more than I remember you.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you're born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Most people are only as needy as their unmet needs.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Instead of thinking how you can change yourself in order to please your partner, as so many relationship books advise, think: Can this person provide what I need in order to be happy?”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you're still in a relationship, remember that just because you can get along with anyone doesn't mean you have to. If you're unhappy after having tried every way to make things work, chances are that you should move on. It's in your best interest to end a dysfunctional relationship rather than get stuck forever with the wrong person just because you're secure.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“our culture encourages you [with an anxious attachment style] to believe that many of your needs are illegitimate. But whether they are legitimate or not for someone else is beside the point. They are essential for your happiness, and that is what's important.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“True love, in the evolutionary sense, means peace of mind. “Still waters run deep” is a good way of characterizing it.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Getting attached means that our brain becomes wired to seek the support of our partner by ensuring their psychological and physical proximity. If our partner fails to reassure us, we are programmed to continue our attempts”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“The more attuned you are to your partner's needs at the early stages -- and he or she to yours -- the less energy you will need to expend attending to him or her later.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“A general word of advice: It’s always more effective to assume the best in conflict situations. In fact, expecting the worst—which is typical of people with insecure attachment styles—often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you assume your partner will act hurtfully or reject you, you automatically respond defensively—thus starting a vicious cycle of negativity.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, first find the right person to depend on and travel down it with them.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“By using the abundance philosophy, you maintain your ability to evaluate potential partners more objectively. What you are actually doing is desensitizing your attachment system and tricking it into being easier on you.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“I would explain that human love is a combination of three emotions or impulses: desire, vulnerability, and bravery. Desire makes one feel vulnerable, which then requires one to be brave.”
― Daniel Jones, Modern Love, Revised and Updated: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption

“I love that you've known every version of me. You were there at the beginning and I want you there at the end.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“Behind every meet-cute is an emotional origin story, one that answers a deeper question. Not “How did you two meet?” but “Why did you become so deeply embedded in each other’s lives?”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“We love and admire our friends so much, we want the world to respect and reward them for their efforts. We want our friends to demand more for themselves. And get it.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“If you prioritize only your romantic relationships, who is going to hold your hand through a breakup? Relying on your spouse to be your everything will definitely undo your marriage. No one human can meet your every single emotional need. If you only prioritize your kids, what happens when they’re grown and living far away, wrapped up in their own lives? Or if you only prioritize work? Wow, that’s too sad to even contemplate.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“Langan adds that being transparent also means opening up about how important someone is to you as a friend—making sure you are saying to them that you value their presence in your life. Don’t just occasionally think of your friend fondly. Tell them that your life would lose meaning if they disappeared from it. Tell them you love them. Tell them exactly why you want to hold on to this friendship and make it last for the long haul.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“Big Friendship can hold you when you’re worried that everything else is falling apart. It can be a space of validation when you feel alone in the world. It can provide the relief of feeling seen without having to explain yourself in too many words. And it offers the security of knowing that you won’t have to go through life’s inevitable challenges alone.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“Our choice to show up at weddings as a family unit wasn’t just a cute stunt. It was an extension of our political beliefs that friendship is a relationship that’s equal in importance to romantic and family bonds.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“At a cultural level, there is a lot of lip service about friendship being wonderful and important, but not a lot of social support for protecting what’s precious about it. Even deep, lasting friendships like ours need protection—and, sometimes, repair.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close

“The researcher Adam Grant has found that the people who are unafraid to share their knowledge and resources with others in their community are the most likely to succeed over the long term.”
― Aminatou Sow, Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close