Jess

“You ache. You ache all over. You are aching to be you, but you're scared of what it means to do so.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.
Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo...and it's worth fighting for.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live.”
― Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

“Maybe I should have stayed longer, explained better. But all I can do right now is remain here, so very far from where I want to be. Maybe it'll all be worth it one day. Maybe it won't, and we'll have lost all this time (and your grandfather will have been right). But know that what I'm doing here is trying to give you a future filled with light.”
― Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark