Maya Hamid

“It’s just easier to laugh than to cry. If I cry, I’ll cry alone. But if you laugh, we can do it together. I guess no one knows how strong they can be until it’s their turn to deal with tragedy.”
― Yusra Mardini, Butterfly: From Refugee to Olympian, My Story of Rescue, Hope and Triumph

“We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants...I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.

People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism?

The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Words have power. They can save, cure, uplift, devastate, deflate, and kill. And unconscious priming with words influences pro- and antisocial behaviors.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

“The opposite of fear is hope, defined as the expectation of good
fortune not only for ourselves but for the group to which we belong. Fear is about limits; hope is about growth. Fear pushes away; hope pulls others closer. Fear divides; hope unifies.”
― Steven D. Levitt, SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance