Quotes About Reflection

Life isn't simply made of the things we do, but the things we don't do too. And every moment of our life is a . . . kind of turning.

Moments ago she had been in the garden with Ash and Nora and Plato, a garden humming with life and love, and now she was here.

I realized that if getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered

Your life will have 30,000 days in it. Make sure you remember some of them.

she'd studied enough existential philosophy to believe loneliness was a fundamental part of being a human in an essentially meaningless universe

Fill-o . . . fill-o-wosso-fee . . .' 'Philosophy?

three-parts

An annoying thing about depression is that thinking about life is inevitable. Depression makes thinkers out of all of us

they are born, they make some friends, eat a few meals, they get married or they don't get married, have a child or two, or not, drink a few thousand glasses of wine, have sexual intercourse a few times, discover a lump somewhere, feel a bit of regret, wonder where all the time went, know they should have done it differently, realize they would have done it the same, and then they die.

In T.S. Eliot's phrase from his Four Quartets, I was 'distracted from distraction by distraction'.

Bücher sind Bäume, die träumen.

Writing, then, is a kind of seeing. A way to see your insecurities more clearly. A way to shine a light on doubts and dreams and realise what they are actually about. It can dissolve a whole puddle of worries in the bright light of truth.

Each twig has travelled only one journey. But there are still other twigs. And there are also other todays. Other lives that would have been different if you'd taken different directions earlier in your life. This is a tree of life.

Equidistante. Não alinhada a uma margem nem à outra. Era assim que ela havia se sentido na maior parte da vida. Presa bem no meio. Lutando, se debatendo, simplesmente tentando sobreviver sem saber para onde ir. Nem com que caminho se comprometer sem arrependimentos.

an anchor fixes you in one place. And I am still not fixed. Could I just keep sailing through life for ever feeling like this? A boat has to stop eventually. It has to reach a port, a harbour, a destination, known or unknown. It has to get somewhere, and stop there, or what is the point of the boat?

While the Midnight Library stands, Nora, you will be preserved from death. Now, you have to decide how you want to live.

She imagined what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made, every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed. She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature.

Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should. There is a power and a beauty in unproved conjectures, unkissed lips, and unpicked flowers.

Life is "understood backward; but it must be lived forward" (Søren Kierkegaard)

How to be kinder to yourself about yourself Think of people you have loved. Think of the deepest relationships you have ever had. Think of the joy you felt when seeing those people. Think of how that joy had nothing to do with their looks except that they looked like themselves and you were pleased to see them. Be your own friend. Be pleased to recognize the person behind your face.

Reading isn't important because it helps to get you a job. It's important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you're given.

But as things made their decline from ripeness, they could taste wonderful, I realized.

She imagined that when she eventually arrived at her deathbed, she would feel more regret about her unborn children than her unwritten books.

Imagine all the time we had was bottled up, like wine, and handed over to us. How would we make that bottle last? By sipping slowly, appreciating the taste, or by gulping?