the reasons

“Just be fucking honest about how you feel about people while you’re alive.”

“I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And I’m going to figure out what that is.”

“And remember this, that if you’ve been hated, you’ve also been loved.”

“Ask her what she craved, and she’d get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom.”

“Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness.”

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

“You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy.”

“If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.”

“Yes, be patient with me. My heart is heavy.”

“Finding your passion isn’t just about careers and money. It’s about finding your authentic self. The one you’ve buried beneath other people’s needs.”

“Ultimately, the universe doesn’t care about us. Time doesn’t care about us. That’s why we have to care about each other.”

“We invented phonetic writing so we could put our sounds down on paper and, by glancing at a page, hear someone speaking in our head—an invention that became so widespread in the last few thousand years that we hardly ever stop to consider how astonishing it is.”

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”