“I was used to being the person in a relationship who, comparatively, had more of her shit together. I took care of things for the both of us. What would it be like if, for a change, I let somebody else take care of me?”— Shannon Keating, buzzfeednews.com
“People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality; so tha…”— Joseph Campbell, facebook.com
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”— Alan W Watts, amazon.com
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter if you can understand the other fully. It doesn’t matter if you agree with the other’s choices. It doesn’t matter if you are exactly on the same page. Because in each one of those persons, there will always be something you can admire and respect them for. That’s the one…”— Thomas Despin, thomasdespin.com
“Turn a latex glove inside out— that’s what it looks like. Every part of me aches its belligerence in your direction.”— Alexandria Hall, narrativemagazine.com
“But maybe a face that needs holding. Or some laundry that needs folding, like that other night when I faced you, pulled your shirt over your arms and heard you say, everyone deserves this. And I didn’t know if you meant a shirt or arms or just someone to pull it off of you. Someone to touch your fre…”— Kimberly Grey, narrativemagazine.com
“Is that what makes art/ so desirable? What makes the under-wine flesh tasteful?”— Luther Hughes, theadroitjournal.org
“It’s messy, but so are the best burritos and the best sex while eating burritos and running with scissors is the only way to make danger understand”— Bob Hicok, narrativemagazine.com
“Once, someone told me I have a small heart. Whenever I weep I press the moment like a garlic clove— I want to feel, good God I want to feel, to see how everything alive becomes a landscape.”— Bryce Emley, narrativemagazine.com
“We don’t choose our stories. Our stories choose us, and if we don’t write them, if we ignore them, we are somehow diminished. But at the same time, I don’t feel that being a writer gives any of us the right to just let it rip. To disregard the feelings of the people surrounding us. So I take care. P…”— Honor Moore, danishapiro.com
“On nights when you feel like your mouth Is filled with scar tissue when your fists are heavier than your clay heart, remember the broken that does not need replacement remember the lungs that pound air in a body too tired to kiss the sun tell yourself you are still working on it say healing, say tak…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“Hold that white flag close to your heart And pluck the orange from the sun – it is setting Let it set on your palms Let your shaking bones beat like djembe drums Let your surrender fall to the ground So it can hold this tiny blue earth together. There is an ocean inside of you and Its waves come in…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“I see smoke each time I look in the mirror Perhaps this is God’s way of keeping me safe He knows I’m tired of seeing dead birds in rusting cages. Last night, I called the wind and asked How she taught the dove to fly ‘the sky is a map if you know how to look’ She said. And I looked at my skin, marke…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“most people fear the fire there’s the burning the suffocation the losing who wouldn’t be afraid of the fire? You. when you reach that dark alley and decided to make a left when you skipped morning coffee because you’ve had too much wine when you felt so heavy-hearted but scuffled upon approaching yo…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“What happened to the writer is not what matters; what matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.”— Beth Kephart, amazon.com
“Do you know, yet, what you're writing about? Do you know what is at stake?”— Beth Kephart, amazon.com
“True memoir is written, like all literature, in an attempt to find not only a self but a world.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com
“We carry our wounds and perhaps even worse, our capacity to wound, forward with us.”— Patricia Hampl, amazon.com