I read the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything. —STEVEN WRIGHT
“I know it took a lot of courage, what you did. I wouldn’t want you to think I didn’t notice. But that’s not what I’m talking about, not really. Courage is easy, when the alternative is getting killed. It’s hope that’s hard. You saw something out there that no one else could, and you followed it. That’s something I could never do.”
― The Passage
― The Passage
“When life held your hand in the flames, it taught you something about the kind of burning you can endure. You survived: don’t forget that, and don’t diminish it. KEEP MOVING.”
― Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
― Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change
“When you have a lot of shine to you, as so many bighearted people often do, you can attract a lot of people easily, because people are drawn to it, that kind of light. It can be so easy to forget that not everyone deserves your shine. But when you spend so much of your earliest years being told you have no shine at all, even though you're pretty sure maybe you do, and someone finally tells you they see it too, you do, you have it, you want to give them everything. Because of this, more often than not, you're not falling in love with them, you're using them as a way to fall in love with yourself.”
― How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't
― How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't
“Every woman I knew seemed to think she was failing in some way, had been raised to believe she was lacking, and was certain someone else was doing it better. Had been told never to trust her own instincts. Taught to think of life as a solution when “done right,” when in reality we existed in a kaleidoscope made of shades of gray, able to be very happy and very sad all at the same time.”
― No One Tells You This
― No One Tells You This
“I called her two days later, never having believed more firmly in love at first sight, in destiny. When she laughed on the other end of the line, something inside of me cracked open, and I let her step inside.”
― Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
― Her Body and Other Parties: Stories
Betsy’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Betsy’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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