af(y)

“Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death
If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent
If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance
Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes
Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results
Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not
Half a life is a life you didn't live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you
The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists to live a life
not half a life”
― Gibran Khalil Gibran

“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything,”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“These women were not ahead of their time-they were their time. And that legacy-Mary's-endures.”
― Nancy Goldstone, Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots

“I knew how she smelled, and I knew how she acted in front of me, and I knew how she acted in front
of others, and I knew that she liked Mountain Dew and adventure and dramatic gestures, and I knew
that she was funny and smart and just generally more than the rest of us. But I didn’t know what
brought her here, or what kept her here, or what made her leave. I didn’t know why she owned
thousands of records but never told anyone she even liked music. I didn’t know what she did at night,
with the shades down, with the door locked, in the sealed privacy of her room.
And maybe this was what I needed to do above all. I needed to discover what Margo was like when
she wasn’t being Margo.”
― John Green, Paper Towns