Amanda

“There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate—the genetic and neural fate—of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death. I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”
― Oliver Sacks, Gratitude

“A CACTUS DOESN’T LIVE in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet.”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

“There is an abiding beauty which may be appreciated by those who will see things as they are and who will ask for no reward except to see.”
― Vera Brittain

“Where the mind is perhaps rather unwilling to be convinced, it will always find something to support its doubts.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility