Always Be On Your Guard Quotes

Always be on your guard ~ Sapphire - The Eye Of Tucana

Wall Street can be a dangerous place for investors. You have no choice but to do business there, but you must always be on your guard. The standard behavior of Wall Streeters is to pursue maximization of self-interest; the orientation is usually short term. This must be acknowledged, accepted, and dealt with. If you transact business with Wall Street with these caveats in mind, you can prosper. If you depend on Wall Street to help you, investment success may remain elusive. ~ Seth Klarman

we all make vows, Jimmy. And there is something very beautiful and touching and noble about wanting good impulses to be permanent and true forever," she said. "Most of us stand up and vow to love, honor and cherish someone. And we truly mean it, at the time. But two or twelve or twenty years down the road, the lawyers are negotiating the property settlement."
"You and George didn't go back on your promises."
She laughed. "Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and - well, the rest is none of your business."
"But people change," he said quietly.
"Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever. Okay. Okay! I'm figuring something out now." She sat up straight, eyes focused somewhere outside the room, and Jimmy reali ~ Mary Doria Russell

Would we get on well together, do you think?" she asked dubiously, daring to play with the knot of his necktie, loosening the gray watered-silk fabric with her fingertips. "We're opposites in nearly every regard."
Inclining his head, Marcus nuzzled the tender inside of her wrist, his lips brushing the blue-tinted veins that lay like fine lacework beneath the skin. "I am coming to believe that taking a wife who is exactly like myself would be the worst conceivable decision I could make."
"Perhaps you're right," Lillian mused, letting her fingertips curl into the gleaming close-cut hair at the side of his head. "You need a wife who won't let you have your way all the time. One who…" She paused with a little shiver as his tongue touched a delicate spot near her inner elbow. "Who," she continued, struggling to gather her thoughts, "would be willing to take you down a notch when you become too pompous…"
"I am never pompous," Marcus said, drawing the edge of her gown away from the vulnerable curve of her throat.
Her breath hitched as he began to kiss the wing of her collarbone. "What would you call it when you carry on as if you always know best, and anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot?"
"Most of the time, the people who disagree with me do happen to be idiots. I can't help that. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Death was more like what we went through in the park: two people walking side by side in the mist, rubbing against trees and bushes, and not a word between them. It was something emptier than the name itself and yet right and peaceful, dignified, if you like. It was not a continuation of life, but a leap in the dark and no possibility of ever coming back, not even as a grain of dust. And that was right and beautiful, I said to myself, because why would one want to come back. To taste it once is to taste it forever - life or death. Whichever way the coin flips is right, so long as you hold no stakes. Sure, it's tough to choke on your own spittle - it's disagreeable more than anything else. And besides, one doesn't always die choking to death. Sometimes one goes off in his sleep, peaceful and quiet as a lamb. The Lord comes and gathers you up into the fold, as they say. Anyway, you stop breathing. And why the hell should one want to go on breathing forever? Anything that would have to be done interminably would be torture. The poor human bastards that we are, we ought to be glad that somebody devised a way out. We don't quibble about going to sleep. A third of our lives we snore away like drunken rats. What about that? Is that tragic? Well then, say three-thirds of drunken rat-like sleep. Jesus, if we had any sense we'd be dancing with glee at the thought of it! We could all die in bed tomorrow, without pain, without suffering - if we had the sense to take advantage of our reme ~ Henry Miller

KEEP YOUR EYES ON ME ! Waves of adversity are washing over you, and you feel tempted to give up. As your circumstances consume more and more of your attention, you are losing sight of Me. Yet I am with you always, holding you by your right hand. I am fully aware of your situation, and I will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear. Your gravest danger is worrying about tomorrow. If you try to carry tomorrow's burdens today, you will stagger under the load and eventually fall flat. You must discipline yourself to live within the boundaries of today. It is in the present moment that I walk close to you, helping you carry your burdens. Keep your focus on My Presence in the present. ~ Sarah Young

My mom believed that you make your own luck. Over the stove she had hung these old, maroon painted letters that spell out, "MANIFEST." The idea being if you thought and dreamed about the way you wanted your life to be
if you just envisioned it long enough, it would come into being.
But as hard as I had manifested Astrid Heyman with her hand in mine, her blue eyes gazing into mine, her lips whispering something wild and funny and outrageous in my ear, she had remained totally unaware of my existence. Truly, to even dream of dreaming about Astrid, for a guy like me, in my relatively low position on the social ladder of Cheyenne Mountain High, was idiotic. And with her a senior and me a junior? Forget it.
Astrid was just lit up with beauty: shining blonde ringlets, June sky blue eyes, slightly furrowed brow, always biting back a smile, champion diver on the swim team. Olympic level.
Hell, Astrid was Olympic level in every possible way. ~ Emmy Laybourne

What makes you so happy? You are always smiling. What is your key to being so happy?

Let's be clear--I'm not always happy. There are days I want to jump off a cliff. But saying that, even on my bad days, I make a conscious decision to be happy. You have to make that decision every day, many times a day. I want to be happy, so I am. ~ Derek Hough

Dolphins... Yeah, dolphins... A lot of people like dogs, cats, and - for some reason I've never been able to fathim - even snakes and toads. But dolphins? Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY loves bloody dolphins. Don't they? Goes way back, to the ancient Greeks, when shipwrecked sailors would wash up on beaches yammering out crazy stories of how they was staring down a watery grave, when out of nowhere, flipper shows up and pushes them safely back to the shore. Heartarming - and say what you will about aquatic mammal public relations, but that was one ispired move, because here we are two thousand years later and everybody still loves them bloody dolphins. What you don't hear are the other stories, the ones where flipper's watching poor Artemides doggy paddling away and inhaling the warm, salty waters of the Adriatic... and flipper things, "Yeah, sure I could save him, but sod that for a can of sardines" and instead of pushing Artemides back to shore, flipper pushes the poor sod out to sea... in the immortal words of Sir Johnny of the Cash, "Just to watch him die..." See, moral is, if you're gonna be a bastard, be like a dolphin - think big picture, protect your image and above all, leave no trace. Because in the bloodshot, bleary eyes of the world, once you're a bastard, you're always a bastard. ~ Simon Oliver

But not because I hate being pitied. I do, but it's more than that. When people pity, it's like they honestly don't realize the exact same thing's coming for them. And I feel embarrassed and uncomfortable and have to pity them, because, like, do you not realize it's always someone's turn? You haven't noticed everyone gets a few blows that seem so big you can't survive them? And then here is this person looking at you and dramatically murmuring, I'm sorry for your loss. And you have to look at them and hope your eyes aren't saying, Don't be too sorry. You're next. You have to spend all this energy making your face say, Yes it's horrible, and extremely rare. I can't believe I was the person who lost my father. You certainly won't lost anyone. You'll die first, out of everyone you love, on the eve of your hundredth birthday. ~ Emily Henry

Hey! Can you hear me? I'm talking to the American asshole who just told my daughter she was going to die. She says you put something inside her head, some sort of explosive. If that's true, you better hope that thing doesn't go off because if it does, you might as well kill yourself. I know what you're thinking. There's a good chance Moscow will do the same thing and kill me. There's always a possibility the Chinese or Koreans will kill me, but I wouldn't bet on that. You see, I'm not the easiest person to be with. I can be a bit of a dick sometimes, just ask my daughter. My point is if people keep me around, it's not because of my charming personality, it's because I have legs that bend the wrong way, and that's kind of useful if you also happen to have Themis. So on the off chance that I make it through this, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I don't give a shit who this robot belongs to an hour from now. I will fucking kill you. I will mow down whatever place you work at and the house you live in. I will kill everyone you've ever known, your high-school teacher, people you play softball with. I will march down Washington Avenue and turn DC into a fucking sandbox. I will end you and everything you hold dear. There. Will. Be. No United States when I'm done with you, and there is nothing, not a goddamn thing, you can do to stop me. Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME, MOTHERFUCKER? ANSWER ME! ~ Sylvain Neuvel

Must we always be warned, and can we only fall on our knees when some one is there to tell us that God is passing by? If you have loved profoundly you have needed no one to tell you that your soul was a thing as great in itself as the world; that the stars, the flowers, the waves of night and sea were not solitary; that it was on the threshold of appearances that everything began, but nothing ended, and that the very lips you kissed belonged to a creature who was loftier, much purer, and much more beautiful than the one whom your arms enfolded. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

Sara watched in awe. As agile as the dealers in the club were, she had never seen any of them handle cards with such ease. That, coupled with his extraordinary mind for numbers, would make him an invincible opponent. "Why don't you ever play?" she asked. "I've never seen you in a casual game with Lord Raiford or your other friends. Is it because you know you would always win?"
Derek shrugged. "That's one reason," he said without conceit. "The other is that I don't enjoy it."
"You don't?"
"I never did."
"But how can you be so good at something and not enjoy it?"
"Now there's a question," he said, and laughed softly, setting aside the cards. Leading her to the hazard table, he took her by the hips and lifted her up. She sat on the edge of the table, her knees pushed apart as he stood between them. Derek leaned forward, his mouth a warm, gentle brand. "It's not like your writing, sweet. When you sit at your desk, you put your heart and mind into your work, and it gives you satisfaction. But cards are just patterns. Once you learn the patterns, it's automatic. You can't enjoy something if it doesn't demand a little of your heart."
Sara caressed his black hair. "Do I have a little of your heart? ~ Lisa Kleypas

Another example of how a metaphor can create new meaning for us came about by accident. An Iranian student, shortly after his arrival in Berkeley, took a seminar on metaphor from one of us. Among the wondrous things that he found in Berkeley was an expression that he heard over and over and understood as a beautifully sane metaphor. The expression was "the solution of my problems" - which he took to be a large volume of liquid, bubbling and smoking, containing all of your problems, either dissolved or in the form of precipitates, with catalysts constantly dissolving some problems (for the time being) and precipitating out others. He was terribly disillusioned to find that the residents of Berkeley had no such chemical metaphor in mind. And well he might be, for the chemical metaphor is both beautiful and insightful. It gives us a view of problems as things that never disappear utterly and that cannot be solved once and for all. All of your problems are always present, only they may be dissolved and in solution, or they may be in solid form. The best you can hope for is to find a catalyst that will make one problem dissolve without making another one precipitate out. [...] The CHEMICAL metaphor gives us a new view of human problems. It is appropriate to the experience of finding that problems which we once thought were "solved" turn up again and again. The CHEMICAL metaphor says that problems are not the kind of things that can be made to disappear forever. To treat them as th ~ George Lakoff

My friend, still seemingly perplexed, asked me "So if it's not about genitals, what is it about trans women's bodies that you find so attractive?"
I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes.
When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness.
I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person.
I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway.
I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her that who she was and what she wanted was impossible.
When I look into a trans woman's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators.
In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognised as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world.
In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fuelled on male homophobic h ~ Julia Serano

And what nags me about this is that the source of my anxiety was exactly what Kierkegaard says the source of anxiety is, and what he praised in direct proportion to the volume any person possesses: possibility. The awareness that life is a series of choices any one of which could be either aggrandizing or disastrous. That this happens to be true I have no trouble signing on to. Any who has lived past the age of ten knows that even piddling actions can wind up having big consequences, and that even when you are super-conscious of your behaviors you can't know how things are going to turn out in the short- or the long-run. That's the drama of it all. On the one hand, your very existence means you can and will change things in your life and others. On the other hand, you aren't God, so everything is always going to be drenched in uncertainty and doubt. ~ Daniel Smith

Never settle for an ordinary lover, never settle for less than you deserve, you are so worthy of being loved so passionately and madly.
You deserve to be loved as whole with all your imperfections and flaws, you deserve someone who puts you first as if you were the only thing that matters, you deserve someone who will always choose to stay when you are on your lowest and you deserve someone who will always choose to love you even when you are not so lovable.. ~ Samiha Totanji

People were like dogs and this was why they took pity on them
dogs alone all the hours of their days and always waiting. Always waiting for company. Dogs who, for all of their devotion, knew only the love of one or two or three people from the beginning of their lives till the end
dogs who, once those one or two had dwindled and vanished from the rooms they lived in, were never to be known again.
You passed like a dog through those empty houses, you passed through empty rooms ... there was always the possibility of companionship but rarely the real event. For most of the hours of your life no one knew or observed you at all. You did what you thought you had to; you went on eating, sleeping, raising your voice at intruders out of a sense of duty. But all the while you were hoping, faithfully but with no evidence, that it turned out, in the end, you were a prince among men. ~ Lydia Millet

Why do you care, anyway?" I say. "You can be either cruel instructor or concerned boyfriend." I tense up at the word "boyfriend." I didn't mean to use it so flippantly, but it's too late now. "You can't play both parts at the same time."

"I am not cruel." He scowls at me "I was protecting you this morning. How do you think Peter and his idiot friends would have reacted if they discovered that you and I were..." He sighs. "You would never win. They would always call you ranking a result of my favoritism rather than your skill."

I open my mouth to object, but I can't. A few smart remarks come to mind, but I dismiss them. He's right. My cheeks warm, and I cool them with my hands.

"You didn't have to insult me to prove something to them," I say finally.

"And you didn't have to run off to your brother just because I hurt you," he says. He rubs at the back of his neck.

"Besides- it worked, didn't it?"

"At my expense."

"I didn't think it would affect you this way." Then he looks down and shrugs. "Sometimes I forget that I can hurt you. That you are capable of being hurt."

I slide my hands into my pockets and rock back on my heels. A strange feeling goes through me- a sweet, aching weakness. He did what he did because he believed in my strength.

At home it was Caleb who was strong, because he could forget himself, because all the characteristics my parents valued came naturally to him. ~ Veronica Roth

What did you think when I first told you about the animals I found?"
He seemed confused. It obviously wasn't what he'd expected. "Violet, I was seven years old. I thought it was badass. I think I was probably even jealous."
She made a face at him. "Didn't you think it was creepy? Or that I was weird?"
"Yeah," he agreed enthusiastically. "That's why I was so jealous. I wanted to be the one finding dead bodies. You were like an animal detective or something. You were only weird 'cause you were a girl." He grinned. "But I learned to overlook that since you always took me on such cool adventures."
Violet released a breath, smiling. She knew he was telling the truth, which only made it funnier to hear him saying the words out loud. Of course, what little boy didn't want to go scavenging through the woods and digging in the dirt?
She tried again. "Did you ever tell anyone? Does your mom know?"
He lifted her hand to his mouth and rubbed her knuckles across his lower lip, his gaze locked with hers. "No," he promised. "I swore I wouldn't, not even her. I think she knows something, or at least she thinks you have the worst luck ever, since you found all those dead girls." He lowered his voice. "She was really worried about you after the shooting last year. You're like a daughter to her." He leaned close. "Of course, that makes it kind of creepy when I do things like this."
He kissed her. It was intimate. Not soft or sweet this time, it was deep and pa ~ Kimberly Derting

There were days so clear and skies so brilliant blue, with white clouds scudding across them like ships under full sail, and she felt she could lift right off the ground. One moment she was ambling down a path, and the next thing she knew, the wind would take hold of her, like a hand pushing against her back. Her feet would start running without her even willing it, even knowing it. And she would run faster and faster across the prairie, until her heart jumped like a rabbit and her breath came in deep gasps and her feet barely skimmed the ground.
It felt good to spend herself this way. The air tasted fresh and delicious; it smelled like damp earth, grass, and flowers. And her body felt strong, supple, and hungry for more of everything life could serve up.
She ran and felt like one of the animals, as though her feet were growing up out of the earth. And she knew what they knew, that sometimes you ran just because you could, because of the way the rush of air felt on your face and how your legs reached out, eating up longer and longer patches of ground.
She ran until the blood pounded in her ears, so loud that she couldn't hear the voices that said, You're not good enough, You're not old enough, You're not beautiful or smart or loveable, and you will always be alone.
She ran because there were ghosts chasing her, shadows that pursued her, heartaches she was leaving behind. She was running for her life, and those phantoms couldn't catch her, not here, not any ~ Pamela Todd

The only justice is love. Just let it go. You don't have to explain. This is not about being right. There is something true inside the song you can't stop listening to. You don't feel at home anywhere, but you feel at home when Aaron sings that song. Someone calling you a criminal does not make you a criminal, just as someone calling you a hero does not make you a hero. Nobody gets to name you. Find your identity in the one true place. If someone gives you something, and then takes it back - that's okay. If someone says something or sees something, and then they don't - that's okay. Do not be like some broken lawyer making the same argument over and over again, always reaching for rewind. Guilt and regret, those are awful places. You know that. So don't live there. Do not despair. Do not be afraid. Grace is the interesting thing. Hope.
And God must be a pretty big fan of today, because you keep waking up to it. You have made known your request for a hundred different yesterdays, but the sun keeps rising on this thing that has never been known. Yesterday is dead and over. Wrapped in grace. You are still alive, and today is the most interesting day. Today is the best place to live.
These things deserve your attention: your family, your friends, the people you will meet today, the strangers with their stories. They say 'We are all in this together.' It is absolutely true. ~ Jamie Tworkowski

You should always aim to be your own mouse, Lieam. In fact ... you already are. You are not so quick to jump into danger as Saxon and not as pensive of mind as Kenzie. They rely on each other too much. Saxon knows he can afford to be reckless since Kenzie acts as his conscience. And Kenzie can linger in his thoughts and plans, because he knows Saxon can defend him. I tested Kenzie earlier. I wanted to see if he would be swayed by my advice. It took Saxon's coaxing to make up the greyfur's mind. Be compleete with in yourself young redfur ... you will never disappoint. Even in solitude. ~ David Petersen

‪This‬ letter, is what I needed to read today.
Let's share ‪Hope‬.
We trust you.

"Dear Future Me, I hope that today you are the person you always set out to be. I hope you accomplished everything that they said you could never do. How many lives do you change in a day? Do you speak out for what is right, or sit there regretting your silence? I hope you are what I'm not. I hope you speak out with such a voice that everyone around you can hear it even when you aren't speaking. I want you to have power in the way you speak- giving light into someone's world filled with darkness. I hope you live as if you are the only one capable of making a difference, and embracing that ability in the best way possible. You don't need to have your name written in the text of a history book, but you need to live to make your words give life to the ones who thought they didn't deserve one.

When you read this letter, I hope you are somewhere where all of you previous goals can be made accomplishments. I hope you still remember your past, and pass on your story to those who need to hear it most- to show them that they are not alone. I hope you achieved that brighter, happier life you used to daydream about when you were younger. I hope all of your dreams became your reality, and I hope that eventually your nightmares dissolved into the depths of your past- never haunting you again. I hope that you one day took off the mask that hid the truth. That you broke down the ~ Wnq Writers

This is how it should have been that first night down on the sand," he whispered. "This is our beginning Ivy. I want to make it official. I want there to be no doubt, 'cause I'm gonna do stupid shit all the time." I giggled, and his white teeth flashed. "I'm gonna leave the toilet seat up. I'm gonna be overprotective, probably bossy, and my temper is always gonna run hot." "I don't care," I told him, sliding my hands up to rest on his chest. "Tell me you'll be my girl, and I swear I'll love you with everything I got." "I'm always gonna be stubborn. I'm not gonna take your shit. My makeup will be all over the bathroom, and I still don't have a major. Oh, and I want to keep Prada. You have to like her, too." "I already told Rim to get your adoption paperwork ready for that rat." Then in lower tones, he said, "She's grown on me." I smiled. He totally loved Prada. "So what's my answer?" He tightened his arms around my waist. I pretended to think it over. A girl should never sound too eager-even if she was practically peeing herself with glee. "Blondie," Braeden growled. "I'm already yours, B. I have been for a long time. ~ Cambria Hebert

You will be on your way because you will have discovered that you can always find a capable helping hand at the end of your own sleeve. ~ Zig Ziglar

He backpedaled hard. "Whatever you've planned is fine with me, Erica. I appreciate your efforts; I always do." True enough. She may be a domineering harpy on occasion, but she was his domineering harpy, and didn't everyone need a bit of domineering harpy in their lives? They made things run much smoother. Nothing provided motivation quite like having her tiny, spike-heeled shoe up his ass. ~ Eden Winters

Primarily, which is very notable and curious, I observe that men of business rarely know the meaning of the word 'rich'. At least, if they know, they do not in their reasoning allow for the fact, that it is a relative word, implying its opposite 'poor' as positively as the word 'north' implies its opposite 'south'. Men nearly always speak and write as if riches were absolute, and it were possible, by following certain scientific precepts, for everybody to be rich. Whereas riches are a power like that electricity, acting only through inequalities or negations of itself. The force of the guinea you have in your pockets depends wholly on the default of a guinea in your neighbour's pocket. If he did not want it, it would be of no use to you; the degree of power it possesses depends accurately upon the need or desire he has for it, - and the art of making yourself rich, in the ordinary mercantile economist's sense, is therefore equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbour poor. ~ John Ruskin

Damn you to tell," she hissed.
With each struggle, the wires of her wimple poked his chest, causing him a surprising amount of pain. He was about to yank the horrid thing off when she came to an abrupt halt at Father Morrell's rebuke. "I am shocked, my lady.You have always been a girl of common sense.To use such language, on Christmas, and in the chapel!"
Bronwyn bit down hard on her bottom lip, her fury inflamed further. She forced herself to stand still and succumb to the proceedings. Ranulf may be keeping her here now,but that didn't mean she couldn't escape before night fell.
"And you,Lord Anscombe," Father Morrell huffed, "this is most irregular. How am I to know this lady comes willingly to this marriage carried upon your shoulder?"
"Father,you have one duty in front of you at this moment,and that is to wed me to this woman. The salvation of our souls can wait until tomorrow. ~ Michele Sinclair

When we entered a classroom we always tossed our caps on the floor, to free our hands; as soon as we crossed the threshold we would throw them under the bench so hard that they struck the wall and raised a cloud of dust; this was "the way it should be done."

But the new boy either failed to notice this maneuver or was too shy to perform it himself, for he was still holding his cap on his lap at the end of the prayer. It was a head-gear of composite nature, combining elements of the busby, the lancer cap, the round hat, the otter-skin cap and the cotton nightcap--one of those wretched things whose mute ugliness has great depths of expression, like an idiot's face. Egg-shaped and stiffened by whalebone, it began with three rounded bands, followed by alternating diamond-shaped patches of velvet and rabbit fur separated by a red stripe, and finally there was a kind of bag terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon covered with complicated braid. A network of gold wire was attached to the top of this polygon by a long, extremely thin cord, forming a kind of tassel. The cap was new; its visor was shiny.

"Stand up," said the teacher.

He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to laugh.

He bent down and picked it up. A boy beside him knocked it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once again.

"Will you please put your helmet away?" said the teacher, a witty man. ~ Gustave Flaubert

You struggle because you're locating all of the magic in your life outside of yourself. When you are loved, then you are lovable. When you are left behind, you are unlovable. When you "arrive" at some point of success and fame as a writer, you will be worthy. Until then, you are worthless.

As long as you imagine that the outside world will one day deliver to you the external rewards you need to feel happy, you will always perceive your survival as exhausting and perceive your life as a long slog to nowhere. Instead, you have to savor the tiny struggles of the day: The cold glass of water after a long run. The hot bath after hours of digging through the dirt. The satisfaction of writing a good sentence, a good paragraph. You MUST feel these things, because these aren't small rewards on the path to some big reward; these tiny things are everything. Savoring these things requires tuning in to your feelings, and it requires loving yourself instead of shoving your nose into your own question marks hour after hour, day after day.

You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, ho ~ Heather Havrilesky

Develop a healthy relationship with food. If you're hungry, eat. If you're full, don't eat. Eat vegetables to be good to your body, but eat ice cream to be good to your soul.

Take pictures of yourself frequently. Chronicle your life. Selfies are completely underrated. Even if the pictures are unflattering, keep them anyway. There will always be mountains and cities and buildings, but you will never look the same way as you did in that one moment in time.

Your worth does not depend on how desirable someone finds you. Spend less time in front of the mirror and more time with people who make you feel beautiful.

Close doors. Don't hold onto things that no longer brings you happiness and do not help you grow as a person. It is okay to walk away from toxic relationships. You are not weak for letting go.

Forgive yourself. We all have something in our pasts that we are ashamed of, but they only weigh us down if we allow them to. Make amends with the old you and work every day to become the person that you've always wanted to be. ~ Tina Tran

Every star knows you step on some toes to get where you're going - and some more after you get there. Nobody means to hurt anybody else, it just happens. You always keep saying in the back of your mind that one day you will be able to right all the wrongs. That someday almost never comes. ~ Jayne Mansfield

You can't always be fine. No one's always fine. And I know you're used to being on your own, and I know I should have been a better friend so that you didn't have to get used to being on your own, but I'm here now, and I wish you'd talk to me. ~ Jennifer Niven

I once met a traveler who told me he would live to see the end of time. He laid out all his vitamins before me and told me he slept seven hours every night, no more or less. All the life you want, he said. It's all within the palm of your hand now. He said he would outlast all the wars and all the diseases, long enough to remember everything, and long enough to forget everything. He'd be the last man still standing when the sun decides to collapse upon itself and history ends. He said he had found the safest place on earth, where he could stay until the gateway to the beyond opened before him. A thousand generations from today. I pictured him there, atop a remote and snowy mountain. The heavens opening and God congratulating him for his perseverance. Asking him to join Him and watch as the sun burns down to a dull orange cinder and everything around it breaks is orbit and goes tumbling tumbling away, everything that once seemed permanent pulled apart so effortlessly, like a ball of yarn. A life into divinity.
But I knew it was a lie. I've always known it was a lie. You can not hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that's left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has. ~ Drew Magary

I've lived an amazing life. There's no reason to focus on the bad. They teach you that in racing school. Keep your eye where you want your front tire to be. You don't want to be stuck in the rut? Then don't look at the rut. Always look at where you want to go. ~ Francesco Quinn