Quotes
Tidbits that resonated with me over the years.
2013
Garth Stein
in The Art of Racing in the Rain
To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am.
People speak of a will to live. They rarely speak of a will to die. Because people are afraid of death. Death is dark and unknown and frightening. But not for me. It is not the end.
2014
Kurt Vonnegut
in Cat’s Cradle
God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, “Sit up!”
“See all I’ve made,” said God, “the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars.”
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look
around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly
couldn’t have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to
think of all the mud that didn’t even get to sit up and
look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
2015
u/l3gion3D
You see it all the time. In everything we do, we concern ourselves with our image, how we’re perceived by one another, fearing the judgement of our peers. We adapt to the personality of others, we bargain off bits and pieces of our personality to make ourselves more likable. Become people pleasers, tell people what they want to hear, go out of your way to make people that you don’t even like happy.
No more, not for me, I say. It took time, but I reclaimed my life from this fear. Fear of judgement, fear of displeasing others, fear of not fitting in.
I asked myself, who do I want to be? What do I want from life? Why do I want to please everyone? Slowly but surely, I came to a grounded identity. I started to figure out who I am, who I really am. It took a lot of deep thought and a lot of time, but once I did, I could finally let go of all the petty bullshit holding me back. I don’t try to adapt to the personality of anyone anymore, I’m just me, plain and simple.
Once you stop caring about what unimportant people think of you, you can more easily enjoy the little things in life, such as a good soup. Damn, I fucking love a good soup.
Mark Twain
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.
2016
u/disturbedtophat
I realized that my fears have been holding me back my entire life. Fear of social embarrassment, fear of being wrong, fear of being stupid or unattractive, and most notably fear of death. I have lived my life in fear of the world around me, and it dawned on me that the only way to have a truly fulfilling life is to grab it by the fucking balls and achieve your dreams. The default state of everything is nothingness, and so when we are able to experience the miraculous beauty of conscious existence we have to treasure it as much as possible. Everything that you experience in this world is a precious gift from the universe, and when it is my time to go I want to feel as though I have made the most of this wonderful gift. I want to feel content in the knowledge that my life and my beliefs and my existence will dissipate throughout my family, friends, and anyone I have ever had any influence on. And at the end of the day I felt a newfound confidence, as well as a significantly improved appreciation for life and its beauty.
2017
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Unknown
From a Facebook post
There was once in my freshman year I did something weird around this girl in my club and she gave me the most judgmental glare, so I apologized for it. Honestly the only thing I regret to this day about that situation is saying sorry for being who I am. During my college years at Cal I’ve come to the realization that everyone is a little bit weird behind the fronts they project. Those who try too hard to embody their masks are just missing out on themselves! It’s important to humbly embrace your character because that’s what makes you most interesting. And the people who don’t want to accept you for you should truly be insignificant in your life cause like what purpose do they even serve?
u/Ddesh
Nietzsche said that in a meaningless universe, you have to create your own meaning, your own meaningful universe. Everyone is an artist in that way. And, since the world is meaningless but people find meaning all the time in their daily lives, we’re actually quite good at it. It’s not living a lie because there’s no meaningful ‘truth’ to define the ‘lie’ against. It’s just living well.
u/mylasttie
It’s stupid to be afraid of others’ opinions. Fear weakens and paralyzes you. If you let it, it can grow worse and worse every day until there is nothing left of you, but a shell of yourself. Listen to your inner voice and go with it. Some people may call you crazy, but some may even think you‘re a legend.
Unknown Redditor
The older I get the more I realize I was wrong about so many things. You too will realize you are wrong about almost everything the longer you stick around. Just that process of learning you were wrong in the past is quite interesting, IMHO. Usually it’s very gradual and not sudden or dramatic, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
You believe you have figured out a pretty accurate mental model of what “life” is, and that you are mostly not wrong. Why are you so sure of this? Did you not believe life was different when you were 5 or 15? What is to say your current view won’t change? Do you honestly think it is more likely that you will never change your mind if you live another say 50 years, given that both internal and external change is pretty constant?
When I was very depressed and sad, someone told me the best attitude to have is just to breathe and ask yourself, “I wonder what will happen next?” And pay attention. A truck goes by, you hear a bird. It starts to rain. Simple things happen all the time that you don’t predict, if you pay attention. Sometimes bad, sometimes good, sometimes neutral.
Have you tried really paying attention to life? Seriously, don’t form a hypothesis or predetermination. Clear your mind. Open your senses and just collect data. Just keep asking yourself, “I wonder what will happen next?” I doubt you can do this for a month or even a week and not be surprised by something.
I’m here because I recognize that life still has some surprises for me, and I want to keep finding out the answer to “I wonder what will happen next?”
Will North Korea and South Korea reunify? Will we reach Mars in my lifetime? Will the EU collapse? Will we save the whales?
You never know. Death is coming for you, there is no need to hurry it along. Just wait and see.
Charlie Kaufman
in Synecdoche, New York
Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.
2018
Alan Watts
A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts.
So… he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions.
By thoughts I mean specifically, chatter in the skull.
Perpetual and compulsive repetition of words, of reckoning and calculating. I’m not saying that thinking is bad.
Like everything else,
It’s useful in moderation.
A good servant, but a bad master.
And all so-called civilized peoples have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive.
Because through excessive thinking they have lost touch with reality.
2019
Unknown Redditor
I am learning that one of the biggest enemies against creativity is doubt. It paralyzes the whole process. Start making stuff and don’t overanalyze it. Is my art bad? What will people think about me? Who gives a shit. It doesn’t matter. Have an idea and act upon it. Make things and stop caring.
Paul Kalanithi
in When Breath Becomes Air
I realized that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all people face at some point, usually arise in a medical context.
What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?
I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see it eye-to-eye, unblinking.
I had thought that a life spent in the space between the two would grant me not merely a stage for compassionate action but an elevation of my own being: getting as far away from petty materialism, from self-important trivia, getting right there, to the heart of the matter, to truly life-and-death decisions and struggles… surely a kind of transcendence would be found there?
As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives — everyone dies eventually — but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness.
The physician’s duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face, and make sense of, their own existence.
2020
Bojack Horseman
I think there are people that help you become the person that you end up being, and you can be grateful for them, even if they were never meant to be in your life forever.
u/GSnow
I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter.” I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.
As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks.
Airi’s Mentor
If you draw something complicated and fail, you learn only defeat. You need to master something simpler before you attempt that. Set yourself up for success.
Gege Akutami
in Jujutsu Kaisen
Nagi Yoshino: Kids your age tend to take everything too seriously. School is just a tiny aquarium. There’s a whole ocean out there, and other aquariums, too. Pick the one you want.
2021
Bell Hooks
in All About Love
Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.
Tsubasa Yamaguchi
in Blue Period
When hard workers do what they love, they are unstoppable.
u/ConvenienceStoreDiet
It’s kind of like a mix of grieving a death (it is after all the loss of a relationship) and going through withdrawals from a chemical addiction you had with someone you loved. Not that it’s a bad thing.
seen by u/Purnzy55 spray-painted on a sidewalk
Worrying is a waste of your imagination.
Vision
in WandaVision
But what is grief, if not love persevering?
2022
Despa
in Ousama Ranking
Being alone is the spice of success.
