Sometimes motion is the only thing that keeps us alive.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.

If you look back only at your mistakes, you’d think you were an idiot. If you look back only at your wiser choices, you’d think you were infallible. But if you look back on everything, you realize you’re a human being who has been through a lot, grown a lot, is always still learning, and improving as time goes by.

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? / And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

things to not dwell on:

“I’m not used to being loved. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

The universe, I’d learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.