Thoughts for a Better World

“I remember sounds like that from my childhood, laughter for no cause, simply because the world is beautiful, something like that.”

“I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world,”

“If I have learned one thing from experience, it is this: never underestimate how extraordinarily difficult it is to understand a situation from another person’s point of view.”

“I wish you were here to talk to sometimes.”

“Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.”

The minute you start caring about what other people think, is the minute you stop being yourself.

“This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find … themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. … they mean to develop intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated. Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? … Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?” Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.”

“You need people in your life that are further along than you, people that are more experienced, people that are out of your league. You need to be exposed to new levels so that you can go to new levels.”

“I want the cottage. I want the green grass and the tomato plants. I want the peace in you; the front porch rocking chair lullaby; our cricket legs rubbing together under the covers. We can’t have it all. I know that, but humor me. We can’t have it all, but we can have most of it.”

“No one warns you about the amount of mourning in growth.”

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

“The way out of the dehumanizing effects of modern capitalism and industrialism is not to change the system but to read good books.”

“And I knew it. That’s the worst part: I knew it.”