nikki

“The simple fact is that people who achieve excellence in their fields didn’t just have a dream. They got up at 4:00 am to practice on parallel bars or had to forgo other desirable activities and paths in order to get in six hours of violin practice a day, or stayed off several million absurd writing advice blogs with their overheated little cliques that dispense useless regurgitated maxims and empty praise and decide to actually confront their own thoughts on a page. Or they read Beowulf and Dante carefully and deeply when they didn’t see any point, since all they were interested in was Sylvia Plath, because someone of more experience and wisdom told them to do so. I don’t know whether we’re overly lazy, stupid, or childish these days. But the idea of preparing oneself for excellence has somehow disappeared. So – my advice to dreamers: Don’t just follow your dreams. Earn them. Do what it takes to achieve it. Work for it. Don’t just sit there and dream because if you do, it will never, ever be yours.”
― Harrison Solow

“It's terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches off into a new world.”
― Blake Crouch, Dark Matter

“The air is of silver and pearl, the night is liquid with moonlight.”
― Willa Cather, The Collected Works of Willa Cather (Unexpurgated Edition)

“We are all just ghosts of the people we hoped that we were and counterfeit replicas of the people we wanted to be.”
― Alice Feeney, Sometimes I Lie