Sara Katherine > Sara's Quotes

“One of the greatest journeys in life is overcoming insecurity and learning to truly not give a shit.”
― J. A. Konrath

“Don't think or judge, just listen.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”
― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
― Sigmund Freud

“For [erotically intelligent couples], love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning. They know that they have years in which to deepen their connection, to experiment, to regress, and even to fail. They see their relationship as something alive and ongoing, not a fait accompli. It’s a story that they are writing together, one with many chapters, and neither partner knows how it will end. There’s always a place they haven’t gone yet, always something about the other still to be discovered.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“Love enjoys knowing everything about you; desire needs mystery. Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected. Love is about having; desire is about wanting. An expression of longing, desire requires ongoing elusiveness. It is less concerned with where it has already been than passionate about where it can still go. But too often, as couples settle into the comforts of love, they cease to fan the flame of desire. They forget that fire needs air.”
― Esther Perel, Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic and the Domestic

“...this is the first time in the history of humankind where we are trying to experience sexuality in the long term, not because we want 14 children, for which we need to have even more because many of them won't make it, and not because it is exclusively a woman's marital duty. This is the first time that we want sex over time about pleasure and connection that is rooted in desire.

So what sustains desire, and why is it so difficult? And at the heart of sustaining desire in a committed relationship, I think is the reconciliation of two fundamental human needs...

So reconciling our need for security and our need for adventure into one relationship, or what we today like to call a passionate marriage, used to be a contradiction in terms. Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide:

Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one.
Give me comfort, give me edge.
Give me novelty, give me familiarity.
Give me predictability, give me surprise.
And we think it's a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that.”
― Esther Perel

“Sometimes you're trying so hard to get your life together and still it's not enough, everything is falling apart. What to do, you're asking. Just keep going through hell for yourself, not for everyone else. Richer with that wisdom, I will build my happiness from nothing. I will rise from the dust. And I will do it on my own. I will live for myself and I won’t look at the others.”
― Asper Blurry, Train to the Edge of the Moon

“All these bad experiences that we go through, they don't just disappear. We carry them our whole life trying to forget, escaping in habits, addictions, hate, toxic relationships. But what we don't know is that by doing so we let them stay alive. We water them like withered flowers and we hang onto them to justify our mistakes and failures.”
― Asper Blurry, Train to the Edge of the Moon

“Maybe people like us can’t be happy. Maybe we’re too damaged and the only thing we can do is to learn how to hate ourselves a little less.”
― Asper Blurry, Train to the Edge of the Moon

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”
― Brené Brown

“We all have an inner light waiting to guide us home. But sometimes the Universe turns off all the lights, so we have no choice but to find our own.”
― Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black: A Guide to Answering Your Soul's Callings and Working Your Light

“I believe that the things that you are here to teach are the very things that you most need to learn, and that the best teachers are the ones that struggle the most because when they get it, they get it with a triple smackdown.”
― Rebecca Campbell, Light is the New Black: A Guide to Answering Your Soul's Callings and Working Your Light

“My godchild Zoe, age 6, suddenly said: "Can you describe what romance is?" I talked about wooing, and yearning, and she sighed and leaned back, "I think that love is my favorite thing in this whole world..." Me too, Zoe, me too.”
― SARK, Eat Mangoes Naked: Finding Pleasure Everywhere

“A succulent wild woman is one of any age who feels free to fully express herself in every dimension of her life.”
― SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

“If she got really quiet and listened, new parts of her wanted to speak.”
― SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

“I envision a world filled with women traveling alone and meeting each other on the path.”
― SARK, Succulent Wild Woman

“We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for love.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“No woman on earth doesn’t give a fuck—no woman is that cool—she’s just hidden her fire. Likely, it’s burning her up.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“The only meaningful thing we can offer one another is love. Not advice, not questions about our choices, not suggestions for the future, just love.”
― Glennon Melton, Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

“If our goal is to be tolerant of people who are different than we are, Chase, then we really are aiming quite low. Traffic jams are to be tolerated. People are to be celebrated.”
― Glennon Melton, Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

“People who are hurting don't need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers. What we need are patient, loving witness. People to sit quietly and hold space for us. People to stand in helpful vigil to our pain.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life. And I am horribly limited.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.”
― Louis C.K.

“It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.”
― Amy Poehler

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
― Fred Rogers