• “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on you’ll be traveling the road between who you think you are and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.”

—Edward Renaldi (Mia’s father), The Princess Diaries

"If you care about what other people thing, you will always be their prisoner." -James Frey

• “You must write every single day of your life. You must lurk in libraries to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. May you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

—Ray Bradbury

• “The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.”

-David Russell

• “I don’t believe in heaven and hell. I don’t know if I believe in God. All I know is that as an individual, I won’t allow this life — the only thing I know to exist — to be wasted.”

-George Clooney

• "You know what luck is? Luck is believing you’re lucky, that’s all.”

- Stanley Kowalski

• “We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny.”

— Steven Pressfield

• "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying 'I will try again tomorrow'"

-Mary Anne Radmacher

• “Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it… . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”

—Erica Jong, from How to Save Your Own Life

• “I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”

—Gilda Radner

• “Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself; I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”

—Groucho Marx

• "I can never stand still. I must explore and experiment. I am never satisfied with my work. I resent the limitations of my own imagination."

-WALT DISNEY

• “I just love it so much. When I get passionate I’ll give you everything until I collapse. That’s not in any ‘look at me, I’m a saint’ kind of way. It’s very selfish in a way. I’m doing this really awesome exploration and it’s like a drug, because I completely disappear.”

—Ellen Page

• As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.

“ —Banana Yoshimoto

• “If you feel like a failure in any area of your life, then you are in need of some self-forgiveness.”

— Yancy Lael, Glowing

• "That's the best revenge of all: happiness. Nothing drives people crazier than seeing someone have a good fucking life."

-Chuck Palahniuk

• “If it’s both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it.”

—Erada

• “The thing is you have to fight the whole time. You can’t stop. Otherwise you just end up somewhere, bobbing in the middle of a life you never wanted.”

—Alexander Maksik, You Deserve Nothing

• "As the years go on, you see changes in yourself, but you’ve got to face that - everyone goes through it… Either you have to face up to it and tell yourself you’re not going to be eighteen all your life, or be prepared for a terrible shock when you see the wrinkles and white hair. Getting older doesn’t frighten me, but I wish I didn’t have to because I like life a lot."

-Audrey Hepburn

• “When nobody else celebrates you, learn to celebrate yourself. When nobody else compliments you, then compliment yourself. It’s not up to other people to keep you encouraged. It’s up to you. Encouragement should come from the inside.”

— Joel Osteen

• "You have to be tougher. You have to learn the way to beat your path through, to make yourself felt, and make yourself necessary."

-Grace Coddington

• “In the end, everything is a gag.”

-Charlie Chaplin

• Onwards and upwards, and never give your failures a second thought.

GEORGE LOIS

• "I’m not looking for someone to save me. Life rafts might keep you afloat but they rarely get you anywhere and I’ve got places I want to go."

-Andrea Gibson

• “I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.”

—Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

• The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

• Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.

DAG HAMMARSKJOLD

• Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

• "You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could’ve, would’ve happened… or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on."

-TUPAC SHAKUR

• "It’s hard to think about growing up when you’re right in the middle of doing it. It’s hard to know what you want. Sometimes there are so many voices in your head it’s difficult to know which of them is yours."

-KEVIN BROOKS

• "Terrible things happen in the world, and they’re things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave folks that love them all alone. Cry until it’s out of you again. But see that you get on. That’s your job in a hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what."

-THE SHINING

• "What you love is a sign from your higher self of what you are to do."

-SANAYA ROMAN

• "Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

-STEVE JOBS

• "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you’ve got to be kind."

-KURT VONNEGUT

• "Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell."

-JOAN CRAWFORD

You gotta learn to leave the table when Love is no longer being served” —Nina Simone

• "I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good, either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be."

- Roald Dahl

• “Get scared. It will do you good. Smoke a bit, stare blankly at some ceilings, beat your head against some walls, refuse to see some people, paint and write. Get scared some more. Allow your little mind to do nothing but function. Stay inside, go out - I don’t care what you’ll do; but stay scared as hell. You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”

—Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1951-1959

• “I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.”

—Joshua Graham

• “I have lost and loved and won and cried myself to the person I am today.”

—Charlotte Eriksson, Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps

• “I can’t emphasize enough the importance of solo adventures. Everything from eating lunch by yourself to strolling in the park alone all help to shape your sense of independence. If you’re never by yourself how will you ever know yourself.”

—(via witchwooman)

“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” —Junot Díaz,