Helijn

“As it turns out, to ‘become who you are’ is not about finding a ‘who’ you have always been looking for. It is not about separating ‘you’ off from everything else. And it is not about existing as you truly ‘are’ for all time. The self does not lie passively in wait for us to discover it. Selfhood is made in the active, ongoing process, in the German verb werden, 'to become'.”
― John Kaag, Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are

“Lang nadat ik was opgehouden mijn vaders paden na te lopen, had ik van hem geleerd dat er in sommige levens bergen bestaan waar je niet naar terug kunt keren. Dat je in levens als het mijne en het zijne niet terug kunt naar de berg die het middelpunt is van alle andere, en het begin van je eigen geschiedenis. En dat mensen zoals wij, die op de eerste en hoogste berg een vriend hebben verloren, niets anders rest dan dwalen over de acht bergen.”
― Paolo Cognetti, Le otto montagne

“I think my love for books sprang from my need to escape the world I was born into, to slide into another where words were straightforward and honest, where there was clearly delineated good and evil, where I found girls who were strong and smart and creative and foolish enough to fight dragons, to run away from home to live in museums, to become child spies, to make new friends and build secret gardens.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped: A Memoir

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”
― Henry David Thoreau