Alison

“I have always maintained that the people who ultimately succeed are the creative ones.”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

“Here’s what you need to understand about other people’s addictions: You didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. There’s nothing you can do to manage Rayya at this point, and the more you try to control the situation, the more you will lose. When it comes to other people’s addictions, whatever you try to control ends up controlling you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River

“with age I have learned my feelings and my experience are, sadly, not unique. Terrible things happen. We make choices. Time cannot be rewound. The good that comes out of the bad can be unbearable.”
― Virginia Evans, The Correspondent

“But some of the really brave students—the ones who wanted to make the most of their experience in Earth School—asked, “Okay, who will volunteer to be my abuser this time?” or “Who will be my alcoholic family member?” or “Who will be the lover who betrays me?” or “Who will be the child who breaks my heart?” or “Who will be the one who dies and leaves me all alone?” Now here comes the miracle. To each request, some benevolent soul on the other side of the boardroom raised their hand and said, “I’ll do that for you, my love. I’ll do that.” And so our teachers arranged to meet us. They agreed to bring us gifts not only of kindness and compassion but also of pain and trauma—by being exactly the people we needed to crash into at some prearranged moment so we could be broken open enough to perhaps learn something essential from the encounter, graduate from that lesson, and evolve ever closer to the light. Wouldn’t that be incredibly generous of someone, to do that for you? To help you grow like that?”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, All the Way to the River