Ali

“Peace of mind is an inside job, unrelated to fame, fortune, or whether your partner loves you. Horribly, what this means is that it is also an inside job for the few people you love most desperately in the world. We cannot arrange lasting safety or happiness for our most beloved people. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. Not one single person in history has gotten an alcoholic sober. (Maybe you’ll be the first. But—and I say this with love—I doubt it.) If it is someone else’s problem, you probably don’t have the solution.”
― Anne Lamott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

“There were some for whom the world was such a tricky thing that they marvelled at it without feeling any need to puzzle it out.”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

“Besides, those few people who aren’t a mess are probably good for about twenty minutes of dinner conversation.

This is good news, that almost everyone is petty, narcissistic, secretly insecure, and in it for themselves, because a few of the funny ones may actually long to be friends with you and me. They can be real with us, the greatest relief.

As we develop love, appreciation, and forgiveness for others over time, we may accidentally develop those things toward ourselves, too.”
― Anne Lamott, Almost Everything: Notes on Hope

“For the first time in a lifetime by the river he noticed—really noticed—that under a moonless sky the river makes its own mercurial light. Light that is also darkness, darkness that is also light.”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River