- "I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform."
- "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff."
- “There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing—for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmon knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens… The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up.”
- “I’m human. I’m vulnerable. I’m hopelessly in love with love. I make mistakes. I’m chasing dreams. I’m taking risks. I am alive.”
- "Because, sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been. And remember the person you were meant to be. The person you wanted to be. The person you are."
- "And once you lose yourself, you have two choices: find the person you used to be... or lose that person completely."
- "There are wars inside of me because of you. Wars that should not exist, wars I should not fight in, all for love. If I win, I will lose myself and if I lose myself, I lose you. I want to fight for me now."
- "I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me."
- "I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am"
- "This is what i believe. "That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.""
- "I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists. One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood."
- "I have inside me the winds, the deserts, the oceans, the stars, and everything created in the universe. We were all made by the same hand, and we have the same soul."
- “I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.”
- I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.
- "Sometimes, I sit alone under the stars and think of the galaxies inside my heart, and truly wonder if anyone will ever want to make sense of all that I am."
feb 6 2015 ∞
may 25 2021 +