The Beauty Inside (2012)

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami

You're not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It's simple. It's your right.

"Things The Grandchildren Should Know" by Mark Oliver Everett

Maybe I don't like people as much as the rest of
the world seems to... But occasionally, people will
pleasantly surprise me and I'll fall in love with
them, so go figure.

D. Antoinette Foy

I wear the universe backwards. I imagine putting stars in my coffee, and sugar in the sky. I imagine going fishing in clouds, and watching the sun hide behind lakes. I'm too busy dancing with my imagination to even tip toe with reality for a second. They say I'm going mad. They're right.

"The Selected Essays" by Jean-Paul Sartre

Every word has consequences.
Every silence, too.

"Hunger Makes Me" by Jess Zimmerman

The low-maintenance woman, the ideal woman, has no appetite. This is not to say that she refuses food, sex, romance, emotional effort; to refuse is petulant, which is ironically more demanding. The woman without appetite politely finishes what's on her plate, and declines seconds. She is satisfied and satisfiable.

A man's appetite can be hearty, but a woman with an appetite is always voracious: her hunger always overreaches, because it is not supposed to exist. If she wants food, she is a glutton. If she wants sex, she is a slut. If she wants emotional care-taking, she is a high-maintenance bitch or, worse, an “attention whore”: an amalgam of sex-hunger and care-hunger, greedy not only to be fucked and paid but, most unforgivably of all, to be noticed.

Nikita Gill

You are no one's
other half.

You are a whole,
an enough,
a complete being
in and of yourself.

Falling in love
with someone
should never ever
change that about you.

Two wholes make a whole.
Don't let society's silly sayings
tell you anything
otherwise.

"The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.
First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.
Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.
Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.
Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.

David Budbill

Tomorrow we are bones and ash,
the roots of weeds poking through our skulls.
Today, simple clothes,
empty mind, full stomach,
alive, aware, right here, right now.
Drunk on music, who needs wine?
Come on, Sweetheart, let's go dancing
while we've still got feet.

"The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac" by Mary Oliver

[...]
I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you're in it all the same.

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
[...]

Nicole Addison

If you love something, don't rush it.
Allow yourself to feel it.
Embrace it.
Let its essence touch your heart, and
light up your world in the most wondrous of ways.
To love is a beautiful feeling,
so allow for this experience to unfold for you.

Sylvia Plath

I want to taste and glory in each day,
and never be afraid to experience pain;
and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling,
or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out.
To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn:
this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.

Stephen Levine

Our suffering is caused by
holding on to how things
might have been,
should have been,
could have been.

Emily Mcdowell

"Finding yourself"

is not really how it works.

You aren't a ten dollar bill 

in last winter's coat pocket. 

You are also not lost. 

Your true self is right there, buried 

under cultural conditioning, other 

people's opinions, and inaccurate 

conclusions you drew as a kid that 

became your beliefs about who you are.

"Finding yourself" is actually 

returning to yourself.

An unlearning, an excavation, 

a remembering of who you were 

before the world got its hands on you.

(https://emilymcdowell.com/)