There’s something different about you. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me want to change every bad thing about myself.
—K.A. Robinson in Torn
Life isn’t smooth, but it’s the bumps that help us find out who we are. And it’s handling the bumps that gives us courage.
—Sarah Morgan in Once a Ferrara Wife…
The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.
—Ogden Nash
I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.
—Carl Sandburg
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
—Robert Frost
When I’m with him, I can feel myself getting better. It’s like he’s picking up broken pieces of me and putting me back together, and I don’t even know he’s doing it. We never talk about it. We don’t go to therapy. He just loves me and that’s enough.
—Ilona Andrews in Magic Bleeds
There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We’d be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think ‘it will be okay if it can just be like this forever’ but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.
—Nina LaCour in Hold Still
Things start out as hopes and end up as habits.
—Lillian Hellman
I want this day to be my fresh start. I want this to be the day I step out of my comfort zone and go somewhere new.
—Jessi Kirby in Golden
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
—Anne Frank
It takes so little to change everything. If you really thought about it, it would scare you to death.
—Sarah Dessen in The Moon and More
Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smells to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to that miserable place you go every day.
—Matthew Quick in Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
You have to make it happen.
—Denis Diderot
Disappointment is part of life. Just like change.
—Sarah Dessen in The Moon and More
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
—H.H. Williams