Quotes About Choice

Who would I be if I didn't? Who would I be if I did?

I'll never know, and neither will you of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore.

Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.

Nella vita ci sono un'alba e un tramonto ogni giorno. E tu puoi scegliere di essere presente, puoi metterti sulla strada della bellezza.

You are the agent of power in your sex life, even if what you want is to relinquish your power and agency while you're having sex. You can take that power back at any moment. Which means, of course, that you always had it.

The question isn't whether you should stay or go. The question is: How would your life be transformed if you choose to love this time with all your intelligence?

There's a poem by Adrienne Rich I first read twenty years ago called "Splittings" that I thought of when I read your letter. The last two lines of the poem are: "I choose to love this time fore once / with all my intelligence.

I looked north, in its direction—the very thought of that bridge a beacon to me. I looked south, to where I'd been, to the wild land that had schooled and scorched me, and considered my options. There was only one, I knew. There was always only one. To keep walking.

I could only choose between the bull that would take me back and the bull that would take me forward. And so I walked on.

I stopped at the door where the racks of Snapples were kept. I put my hand to the glass near the bottles of lemonade—there was both yellow and pink. They were like diamonds or pornography. I could look, but I couldn't touch.

The question isn't whether you should stay or go. The question is: How would your life be transformed if you chose to love this time with all your intelligence?

One is the life you'll have; the other is the one you won't. Switch them around in your head and see how it feels. Which affects you on a visceral level? Which won't let you go? Which is ruled by fear? Which is ruled by desire? Which makes you want to close your eyes and jump and which makes you want to turn and run?

No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.

The sketches of your real life and your sister life are right there before you and you get to decide what to do. One is the life you'll have; the other is the one you won't. Switch them around in your head and see how it feels. Which affects you on a visceral level? Which won't let you go? Which is ruled by fear? Which is ruled by desire? Which makes you want to close your eyes and jump and which makes you want to turn and run?

You don't need a reason to leave.

Not regretting it later is the reason I've done at least three-quarters of the best things in my life.

I choose to love this time for once with all my intelligence

That we must help ourselves. That after destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don't need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough.

certain point we get to decide who it is we allow to influence us.

we must help ourselves. That after destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives. We can choose to fling our kids into the grass or we can take deep breaths and walk up and down the hall.

I'll never know, and neither will you of the life you don't choose.

The point is, Johnny, you get to say. You get to define the terms of your life. You get to negotiate and articulate the complexities and contradictions of your feelings for this woman. You get to describe the particular kind of oh-shit-I-didn't-mean-to-fall-in-love-but-I-sorta-did love you appear to have for her.

Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.