Maria > Maria's Quotes

“A strange, terrific force unlike anything I've ever experienced is sprouting in my heart, taking root there, growing. Shut up behind my rib cage, my warm heart expands and contracts independent of my will--over and over.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“People don't save other people. People save themselves.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“It was as if her own heart had been surgically removed from her body and was being kept at a remote location, still connected to her and pumping blood through her veins, but exposed to dangers she couldn't see: her heart in a box somewhere, in the open air, unprotected.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“Leonard’s being up early constituted a new change in his sleeping patterns, was part of the former change in his sleeping patterns, or indicated a beneficial development. She didn’t know if his perfectionism canceled out his loss of ambition, or if they were two sides of the same coin. When you stood between somebody you loved and death, it was hard to be awake and it was hard to sleep.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot

“How we schedule our days is how we spend our lives.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life

“A conversation with a Moderator friend revealed another telling distinction. “I got a sundae from my favorite ice-cream store,” she told me, “and it was delicious. But after a while, I could hardly taste it. I let a friend finish it.” “I’ve never left ice cream unfinished in my life,” I said. For Moderators, the first bite tastes the best, and then their pleasure gradually drops, and they might even stop eating before they’re finished. For Abstainers, however, the desire for each bite is just as strong as for the first bite—or stronger, so they may want seconds, too. In other words, for Abstainers, having something makes them want it more; for Moderators, having something makes them want it less.”
― Gretchen Rubin, Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives

“I considered my options. There were only two and they were essentially the same. I could go back in the direction I had come from, or I could go forward in the direction I intended to go.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“Our stories sometimes seem to comfort us because they give us a sense of certainty, even when they’re not true. But there is great freedom in releasing ourselves from the stories that cloud our perceptions and starting to feel okay with not always understanding the situation we’re in.”
― Noah Rasheta, No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions About Core Buddhist Teachings

“Projection shields us from personal responsibility. It obscures our shame and confusion and places the onus for reconciling it on the body of someone else. We don’t have to work to understand something when it is someone else’s fault. We don’t have to undo the shame-based beliefs we were brought up with. We don’t have to question our parents, friends, churches, synagogues, mosques, government, media. We don’t have to challenge or be challenged.”
― Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

“Hating your body is like finding a person you despise and then choosing to spend the rest of your life with them while loathing every moment of the partnership.”
― Sonya Renee Taylor, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you're having one, it is somehow not obvious to you. I'm fine, you think. So what if I watched TV for twenty-four straight hours yesterday. I'm not falling apart. I'm just lazy. Why it's better to think yourself lazy than think yourself in distress, I'm not sure. But it was better. More than better: it was vital.”
― Tara Westover, Educated

“Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own peace of mind).”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“A word after a word after a word is power.”
― Margaret Atwood

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“great writers are indecent people
they live unfairly
saving the best part for paper.

good human beings save the world
so that bastards like me can keep creating art,
become immortal.
if you read this after I am dead
it means I made it.”
― Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

“what matters most is how well you walk through the fire”
― Charles Bukowski

“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”
― Charles Bukowski, Post Office

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
― Charles Bukowski

“Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”
― Charles Bukowski

“unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I often carry things to read
so that I will not have to look at
the people.”
― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

“Imperfections define perfection”
― Colleen Hoover, Slammed

“I want to be your end, but you gotta let it begin.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“Sometimes in life, we need a few bad days in order to keep the good ones in perspective.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“For her I bend, for you I break.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“A life of mediocrity is a waste of a life.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“Nothing in my life has ever felt so good yet hurt so achingly bad.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“When I die, I need to know that I did everything I’ve ever wanted to do, and I’ve seen everything I’ve ever wanted to see, and I’ve loved everyone I’ve ever wanted to love.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday

“There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet. You would think there would only be so much you could do with twenty-six letters. You would think there were only so many ways those letters could make you feel when mixed up and shoved together to make words.
However, there are infinite ways those twenty-six letters can make a person feel, and this song is living proof. I’ll never understand how a few simple words strung together can change a person, but this song, these words, are completely changing me. I feel like my maybe someday just became my right now.”
― Colleen Hoover, Maybe Someday