Megan > Megan's Quotes

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time...give it, give it all, give it now.”
― Annie Dillard

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.”
― Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“I sip my coffee. I look at the mountain, which is still doing its tricks, as you look at a still-beautiful face belonging to a person who was once your lover in another country years ago: with fond nostalgia, and recognition, but no real feelings save a secret astonishment that you are now strangers. Thanks. For the memories. It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution, cutting us off at both ends.”
― Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

“Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
― Annie Dillard

“... so this is for us.
This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love
and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know
because the beauty is in the act of doing it.
Not what it can lead to.
This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing
and no one is around and they will never know
but I will forever remember
and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have,
and this is for you who write or play or read or sing
by yourself with the light off and door closed
when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned
and maybe no one will ever hear it
or read your words
or know your thoughts
but it doesn’t make it less glorious.
It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.
Infinite.
For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe in
and only you can decide how much it meant
and means
and will forever mean
and other people will experience it too
through you.
Through your spirit. Through the way you talk.
Through the way you walk and love and laugh and care
and I never meant to write this long
but what I want to say is:
Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself
and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story.
Let your very identity be your book.
Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain
where no one will ever hear
and your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar.
Make your life be your art
and you will never be forgotten.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories on Leaving & Arriving

“I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Mine was the twilight and the morning. Mine was a world of rooftops and love songs.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page.”
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

“i bleed every month. but do not die. how am i not magic. – the lie”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“both. i want to stay. i want to leave. i am three oceans away from my soul. – lost”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“in our own ways we all break. it is okay to hold your heart outside of your body for days. months. years. at a time. – heal”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“I want to live so densely. lush. and slow in the next few years, that a year becomes ten years, and my past becomes only a page in the book of my life.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

“do not choose the lesser life. do you hear me. do you hear me. choose the life that is. yours. the life that is seducing your lungs. that is dripping down your chin.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, nejma

“go.
enjoy.
leave.
it was all about you, anyway.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, Salt

“Just because someone desires you, it does not mean they value you.

Read it over.

Again

And let those words resonate in your mind.”
― Nayyirah Waheed

“sometimes the night wakes in the middle of me. and i can do nothing but become the moon.”
― Nayyirah Waheed, salt.

“Life is messy. Grit and grace come at us fast, side by side. Sometimes the grit becomes overwhelming and diminishes our spirit. What’s good seems lost and gone forever. This is a story about the pathway back to what’s beautiful, when the way back seems impossible.”
― Sharon E. Rainey, Making a Pearl from the Grit of Life

“Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.

I couldn't get the boy to kill me, but I wore his jacket for the longest time.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Hello, darling. Sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known. You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“You're trying not to tell him you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently
we have had our difficulties and there are many things
I want to ask you.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grain of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry it's such a lousy story.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.”
― Ocean Vuong

“How sweet. That rain. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“Sometimes I ask for too much just to feel my mouth overflow.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“Gravity breaking our kneecaps just to show us the sky.”
― Ocean Vuong, Night Sky with Exit Wounds