Minal

“I don’t mean to ruin the ending for you, sweet child, but life is one long headwind. To make any kind of impact requires self-will bordering on madness. The world will be hostile, it will be suspicious of your intent, it will misinterpret you, it will inject you with doubt, it will flatter you into self-sabotage. My God, I’m making it sound so glamorous and personal! What the world is, more than anything? It’s indifferent.”
“Say amen to that,” Spencer said.
“But you have a vision. You put a frame around it. You sign your name anyway. That’s the risk. That’s the leap. That’s the madness: thinking anyone’s going to care.”
― Maria Semple, Today Will Be Different

“The world isn’t your friend,” Joe told Eleanor. “It’s not designed to go your way. All you can do is make the decision to muscle through and fight the trend.”
― Maria Semple, Today Will Be Different

“Because modern society has almost completely eliminated trauma and violence from everyday life, anyone who does suffer those things is deemed to be extraordinarily unfortunate. This gives people access to sympathy and resources but also creates an identity of victimhood that can delay recovery.”
― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood