Jessica > Jessica's Quotes

“Quietness is an essential part of all awareness. In quiet times and sleepy times, a child can dwell in thoughts of his own, and in songs and stories of his own.”
― Margaret Wise Brown

“Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.”
― Emma Donoghue, Room

“I say don’t find yourself. I say never know who you are. Because that’s what keeps you striving and discovering. And it forces you to remain humble in your judgments and accepting of the differences in others.”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“I remember discussing this dynamic with my Russian teacher one day, and he had an interesting theory. Having lived under communism for so many generations, with little to no economic opportunity and caged by a culture of fear, Russian society found the most valuable currency to be trust. And to build trust you have to be honest. That means when things suck, you say so openly and without apology. People’s displays of unpleasant honesty were rewarded for the simple fact that they were necessary for survival—you had to know whom you could rely on and whom you couldn’t, and you needed to know quickly. But, in the “free” West, my Russian teacher continued, there existed an abundance of economic opportunity—so much economic opportunity that it became far more valuable to present yourself in a certain way, even if it was false, than to actually be that way. Trust lost its value. Appearances and salesmanship became more advantageous forms of expression. Knowing a lot of people superficially was more beneficial than knowing a few people closely. This is why it became the norm in Western cultures to smile and say polite things even when you don’t feel like it, to tell little white lies and agree with someone whom you don’t actually agree with. This is why people learn to pretend to be friends with people they don’t actually like, to buy things they don’t actually want. The economic system promotes such deception. The downside of this is that you never know, in the West, if you can completely trust the person you’re talking to. Sometimes this is the case even among good friends or family members. There is such pressure in the West to be likable that people often reconfigure their entire personality depending on the person they’re dealing with. Rejection”
― Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

“So much of motherhood is acting.”
― Emma Donoghue, Astray

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit

“Recently I came across a Zen prayer that Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, recites prior to eating: "In this plate of food, I see the entire universe supporting my existence." I like Hanh's meditation a lot because the wording allows me to include God in my gratitude without excluding gratitude to all the unseen human beings who also had a hand in the gift of the food in front of me.”
― Jacqueline A Bussie

“Doubt, in other words, makes us open and receptive, especially to letting God tell us who Love is rather than assuming we already know all there is to know about her.”
― Jacqueline A. Bussie, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules'

“When we are confident and secure, we are open to only one thing: ourselves.”
― Jacqueline A. Bussie, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules'

“Certainty's pitfall is that it can close us off from the views of other people, sometimes even to the point of being unable to listen to them.”
― Jacqueline A. Bussie, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules'

“I'm trying not to be an asshole,' you say.
Sometimes trying to be the absence of something makes you that very thing.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

“I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.”
― Amy Poehler

“I think we should stop asking people in their twenties what they “want to do” and start asking them what they don’t want to do.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me.”
― Amy Poehler, Yes Please

“Outside his office my father had a framed copy of a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to his son’s teacher, translated into Pashto. It is a very beautiful letter, full of good advice. “Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books…But also give him quiet time to ponder the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and the flowers on a green hillside,” it says. “Teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat.”
― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

“The problem is that everything is relative. Happiness is based on expectations and we have the internet now. A whole world constantly asking us, "But is your life as perfect as this? Well, how about now? Is it as perfect as this? If it isn't, change it!!" The truth of course is, that if people really were as happy as they look on the internet, they wouldn't spend so much damn time on the internet. Because no one who's having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure. So, if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that's probably because it's full of shit.”
― Frederik Backman

“when we suffer, he suffers with us. He didn’t create the evil that was done here. He gave us free will—the choice to love and nurture or to hate and destroy one another. Mankind has been getting it wrong since the dawn of time.”
― Lindsay Jayne Ashford, A Feather on the Water

“And that had led to them talking about social media – he believed that the more people were connected on social media, the lonelier society became. ‘That’s why everyone hates each other nowadays,’ he reckoned. ‘Because they are overloaded with non-friend friends.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“every man has his mission, which is to leave the world better, in some way, than he found it.”
― L. Frank Baum, Life and Adventures of Santa Claus

“Segregation is really just slavery by another name,...”
― Marie Benedict,Victoria Christopher Murray

“Don't worry, Belle. I know how painful it is to be judged by a construct of society that doesn't make sense and because of that, have to live with a painful secret. Neither of us has been able to live openly as our true selves, and I'm sorry for the role I played in threatening you and your hidden identity.”
― Marie Benedict,Victoria Christopher Murray