Emily

“I know now that I'm strong enough, brave enough, whole enough to hold it all - how it was and how it ended. What I got wrong, what I made right, who I was, who I wasn't, who I've yet to become. What I miss, what was lost, what's still unfolding. I'm not perfect or shiny or bulletproof. The story of my life is not a fairy tale. It's not a horror story. It's just a story like most stories - dark and light and beautiful and terrible and still being written.”
― Shauna Niequist, I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

“The birds are like tourists. They screech and make a mess, but you’re not allowed to shoot them…”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“She would ask herself these questions: does this place make me feel positive? Can I be truly whole and uncompromisingly myself? Do I love and treasure myself here?”
― Hwang Bo-Reum, Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

“Oh, those are all our very best moments, when we’re wasting our lives. It’s an act of magnificent rebellion to do meaningless things, to waste time, to swim and drink soda and sleep late. To be silly and frivolous, to laugh at stupid little jokes and tell stupid little stories. Or to paint big paintings, the biggest you can manage, and to try to learn to whisper in color. To look for a way to show other people: this was me, these were my humans, these were our farts. These were our bodies, and they were small, far too small, because they couldn’t contain all our love.
That’s all of life. All we can hope for. You mustn’t think about the fact that it might end, because then you live like a coward, you never love too much or sing too loudly. You have to take it for granted, the artist thinks, the whole thing: sunrises and slow Sunday mornings and water balloons and another person’s breath against your neck. That’s the only courageous thing a person can do.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends