Ashley

“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”
― Maxim Gorky, The Lower Depths and Other Plays

“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.”
― Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays

“Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha