i am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. no one knows me or loves me completely. i only have myself.

• simone de beauvoir

so therefore i dedicate myself to myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my suffrances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger because i cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being.

• jack kerouac

you are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. something not everyone knows how to love.

• warsan shire

if you start out depressed, everything’s kind of a pleasant surprise.

• say anything (1989)

however my life unspools itself, i was created to bear it.

• esmé weijun wang

there's little point in being human, however, if you can't embrace a magnificent melancholy.

• nick acheson