Arif Ali

“When you leave home to follow your dreams, your road will probably be riddled with potholes, not always paved in happy Technicolor bricks. You'll probably be kicked to the ground 150 million times and told you're nuts by friends and strangers alike. As you progress you may feel lonely or terrified for your physical and emotional safety. You may overestimate your own capabilities or fail to live up to them, and you'll surely fall flat on your face once in a while.”
― Kelly Cutrone, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You

“I'm drenched
in the flood
which has yet to come

I'm tied up
in the prison
that has yet to exist

Not having played
the game of chess
I'm already the checkmate

Not having tasted
a single cup of your wine
I'm already drunk

Not having entered
the battlefield
I'm already wounded and slain

I no longer
know the difference
between image and reality

Like the shadow
I am
and
I am not”
― Jalaluddin Rumi, The Love Poems of Rumi

“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, "What was it that you wanted and why didn't you fight for it?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“No one is born a monster. But I wish some people were. It would make it easier to hate them, to kill them, to forget their dead faces.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword