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“‘What happens when people open their hearts?’ ‘They get better.’”

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well”

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

“Words are so powerful. They can crush a heart, or heal it. They can shame a soul or liberate it. They can shatter dreams or energize them. They can obstruct connection or invite it. They can create defenses, or melt them. We have to use our words wisely.”

“We suffer from the delusion that the entire universe is held in order by the categories of human thought, fearing that if we do not hold to them with the utmost tenacity, everything will vanish into chaos.”

“Governments, hospitals, insurance companies, and schools assume that marriage (and subsequently the nuclear family) is the primary unit of care. But of course love—and the care it necessitates—is much more far-reaching and unwieldy than that. What if you could share health-care benefits with your sister and her son? Or take paid leave to be with a close friend who had an operation? In a country with epidemic rates of loneliness, expanding our sense of what counts as meaningful love—and acknowledging and supporting relationships in all their forms—could have enormous benefits. Energy spent striving to prop up the insular institution of marriage could instead be spent working to support family stability in whatever form it takes.”

“People say that you can’t choose your family, but that’s not the case in my book. In the gay community, we literally use the phrase “chosen family.” Even if it’s not who you expected, there will be people there for you who love you unconditionally. They’re always out there. So many friends helped me get to where I am today.”

“You asked me what family is And I think of family as community I think of the spaces where you don’t have to shrink yourself Where you don’t have to pretend or to perform You can fully show up and be vulnerable And in silence, completely empty and That’s completely enough You show up, as you are, without judgment, without ridicule Without fear or violence, or policing, or containment And you can be there and you’re filled all the way up So we get to choose our families We are not limited by biology We get to make ourselves And we get to make our families”

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

“I think if I’ve learned anything about friendship, it’s to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you. Don’t walk away, don’t be distracted, don’t be too busy or tired, don’t take them for granted. Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.”

"You are the best friend that I have ever had, you are always there, ALWAYS, and to say the least.. that is so amazing. Whenever I am having a hard day, you are there.. whenever the day is going pretty good, yep, you are there!! I love that about you.. and it's not only that, you are there with a smile and a kind heart, and you listen to me. You may not always agree with me but you listen with a patient, kind ear, and I love that too.. I guess what I am trying to say is that I love you. I love you so much, deeply. Thank you for being there for me when nobody else in their right mind would be near me, it says a lot about you.. you are so great and just a really great friend. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.."