seray soysal

“If you have something better to be doing than poetry, which means almost anything else, that is the thing you should be doing right now,” he said to the class. Then, he turned to me. “There’s nowhere else you could be?” “No,” I said to him. “Nowhere.” “You made the right choice. Poetry is better than nothing,” he said to me. “But you have nothing to fall back on.” He was careful not to ask any more questions. He must have sensed I was embarrassed to speak in front of the others, who were confident and sharp. The professor took out the napkin and let it open in his hand. “I’m going to be honest with all of you.” The room looked at each other. The professor said to the class, “If you have something else, and you can do something else, then don’t let it go. Most of you will go back to doing that thing.”
― E.J. Koh, The Magical Language of Others

“The present is the revenge of the past.”
― E. J. Koh, The Magical Language of Others

“Happiness is an undercurrent of sensitivity and leads a surreptitious life: it is an internal eventuality. We can feel it in stillness and it stands the test of time. Joy is an eruption of cheerful moments and we want to express it: it is an external eventuality. We might shout it out, as it conveys a dynamic of fleeting instants. Joy gives voice to “en-joy-ment”. ("The grass was greener over there")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It’s because of themselves. All people live in their own dream and their own mind. Even when words seem personal, such as a direct insult, they really have nothing to do with you.

I constantly work with my clients to depersonalize events and interactions with others. When we personalize, we negate the personal story and history of the other people involved. Personalizing assumes that everything is about us.”
― Nedra Glover Tawwab, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself