Darina

“In terms of her painting, never mind the innovations she brought to bear on her private life, she forged a passage to a world of openness and freedom, as frightening as it was exhilarating.
'I've always been absolutely terrified every single moment of my life,' she said, 'and I've never let it stop me from doing a single thing I wanted to do,”
― Olivia Laing, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

“Your new life is going to cost you your old one.
It’s going to cost you your comfort zone and your sense
of direction.
It’s going to cost you relationships and friends.
It’s going to cost you being liked and understood.
It doesn’t matter.
The people who are meant for you are going to meet you
on the other side. You’re going to build a new comfort
zone around the things that actually move you forward.
Instead of being liked, you’re going to be loved. Instead of
being understood, you’re going to be seen.
All you’re going to lose is what was built for a person you
no longer are.”
― Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery

“He has asked me before how the world can be so heartless. It is this dastardly need to remain calm and composed and polite that has left us all feeling so alone.”
― Olivia Atwater, Half a Soul

“Intelligence requires first the gift of curiosity.  Without curiosity, who would ask questions?  Second, intelligence is the ability to synthesize.  Facts alone signify little.  Neither are they to be trusted.  Intelligence is the subtle arrangement of that which might or might not be true, the intuitive selection and the weaving of such selections into a pleasing whole that makes for meaning.  Third, intelligence has need of laughter.  Without laughter so much that is bitter and dark is allowed into being.  That which is bitter and dark may be clever, it may even be cunning, but it is never intelligent.  As for wisdom, wisdom is simple.  The wise are able to recognize, and to accept, that not only is one never intelligent enough, but that when all is said and done, one knows exactly nothing.”
― Ki Longfellow, Flow Down Like Silver: Hypatia of Alexandria