Johanna > Johanna's Quotes

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“If you’re not scared then you’re not taking a chance. If you’re not taking a chance then what the hell are you doing anyway?”
― Ted Mosby

“The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.”
― Holly Jackson, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder

“Everything was a screen, and life itself was a diversion. What mattered now was unlived.”
― André Aciman, Find Me

“You are someone who is different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that in my view is a serious illness. God chose you to be different. Why are you disappointing God with this kind of attitude?”
― Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die

“I'm still dubious about the actual existence of that "thing" myself. But if the "love" you speak of doesn't exist, then someone must have come up with it. Which is a stunning thought. For many ages, love has been the cause of many beautiful paintings, songs, and stories. If it's only made-up, "love" may be humanity's greatest innovation, or perhaps the world's kindest lie.”
― Sugaru Miaki

“I guess he was already a teacher in the sense that he teaches people how you don't want to end up, but as of now, "bad example" isn't a valid job position.”
― Sugaru Miaki, いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ

“Whatever you had him do, Shindo was always better than average. He was quick to grasp just about everything. But on the other hand, up to the last, he was never best in anything. I think maybe he was scared. Deathly afraid of a moment when he'd devote himself to something, then blank out and think "What was I doing?"
So he could never give all of himself to just one thing. I wished I could be like that. And that must be why Shindo always liked things which were clearly pointless. Games from generations past, useless music, his unreasonably huge vacuum tube radio. I love that sense of productiveness.”
― Sugaru Miaki, いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ

“Upon realizing that, my hobbies shifted from the "filling" type to "building walls." I came to appreciate works that purely aimed for beauty and pleasantness, rather than introspective ones.”
― Sugaru Miaki, いたいのいたいの、とんでゆけ

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Why do we own so many things when we don’t need them? What is their purpose? I think the answer is quite clear: We’re desperate to convey our own worth, our own value to others. We use objects to tell people just how valuable we are.”
― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism

“When given too many choices, people tend to worry that there’s something better out there than what they decided on.”
― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism

“Want to know how to make yourself instantly unhappy? Compare yourself with someone else.”
― Fumio Sasaki, Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism

“I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen, and I had better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.
And then I was a careless fool, and I fell in love with you anyway. When you rang me at truly shocking hours of the night, I loved you. When you kissed me in disgusting public toilets and pouted in hotel bars and made me happy in ways in which it had never even occurred to me that a mangled-up, locked-up person like me could be happy, I loved you.
And then, inexplicably, you had the absolute audacity to love me back. Can you believe it?
Sometimes, even now, I still can't.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“So, imagine we’re all born with a set of feelings. Some are broader or deeper than others, but for everyone, there’s that ground floor, a bottom crust of the pie. That’s the maximum depth of feeling you’ve ever experienced. And then, the worst thing happens to you. The very worst thing that could have happened. The thing you had nightmares about as a child, and you thought, it’s all right because that thing will happen to me when I’m older and wiser, and I’ll have felt so many feelings by then that this one worst feeling, the worst possible feeling, won’t seem so terrible.

“But it happens to you when you’re young. It happens when your brain isn’t even fully done cooking—when you’ve barely experienced anything, really. The worst thing is one of the first big things that ever happens to you in your life. It happens to you, and it goes all the way down to the bottom of what you know how to feel, and it rips it open and carves out this chasm down below to make room. And because you were so young, and because it was one of the first big things to happen in your life, you’ll always carry it inside you. Every time something terrible happens to you from then on, it doesn’t just stop at the bottom —it goes all the way down.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue

“We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous. They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: She is so selfless. Can you imagine? The epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self completely. That is the end goal of every patriarchal culture. Because a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can't fake a thought.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“For years, my life has been flat. I’m not sure how else to describe it. I’ve never admitted it before. I’m not depressed, I don’t think. That’s not what I’m saying. Just flat, listless. So much has felt accidental, unnecessary, arbitrary. It’s been lacking a dimension. Something seems to be missing.”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“But isn’t being alone closer to the truest version of ourselves, when we’re not linked to another, not diluted by their presence and judgments? We form relationships with others, friends, family. That’s fine. Those relationships don’t bind the way love does. We can still have lovers, short-term. But only when alone can we focus on ourselves, know ourselves. How can we know ourselves without this solitude?”
― Iain Reid, I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“Quit being so hard on yourself. We are what we are; we love what we love. We don't need to justify it to anyone... not even to ourselves.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“I don't expect life to make sense," he said after a few moments, "but it could certainly be pleasant if it would stop kicking us in the balls.”
― Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

“sometimes courage isn’t climbing Mount Everest or changing the world. Sometimes your mountain to climb is made up of weekdays and months, made up of pushing yourself forward even when you want to nestle into the past. Sometimes changing the world means changing your world as gradually as you need to, as gently as you heal, because sometimes courage isn’t made up of war and bloodshed; sometimes courage isn’t made of combat. Sometimes courage is a quiet fight, a dim softness within you, that flickers even on your darkest days and reminds you that you are strong, that you are growing—that there is hope.”
― Bianca Sparacino, The Strength In Our Scars

“You are allowed to take up space. Own who you are and what you want for yourself. Stop downplaying the things you care about, the hopes you have. Own your passions, your thoughts, your perceptions. Own your fire. Stop putting your worth in the hands of others; stop letting them decide your value. Own saying no, saying yes. Own your mood, your feelings. Own your plans, your path, your success.”
― Bianca Sparacino, The Strength In Our Scars

“You guard yourself from sadness, not realizing that you have closed yourself off to all of the happiness the world is trying to give to you. Stay open; it is how the light gets in.”
― Bianca Sparacino, The Strength In Our Scars

“You may be born into a family, but you walk into friendships. Some you’ll discover you should put behind you. Others are worth every risk.”
― Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End

“Maybe it's better to have gotten it right and been happy for one day instead of living a lifetime of wrongs.”
― Adam Silvera, They Both Die at the End