Talk about your joys.

“No matter how often I think I can’t stand it anymore, I always do. There is no alternative. I don’t fall, I don’t foam at the mouth, faint, collapse or die. It’s the same for all of us. You can’t get out of the inside of your own head. Something keeps you going. Something always does.”

--Janice Galloway, 'The Trick Is to Keep Breathing'

“Talking about our problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit, talk about your joys.”

--Rita Schiano

“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is there’s no ground.”

--Chogyam Trungpa

"And I say to my heart: rave on."

--Mary Oliver

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”

--Steve Jobs

"Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path."

--Steve Jobs

“To acquire knowledge should not be our first aim, but rather to rid ourselves of ignorance – which is false-knowledge.”

--Wei Wu Wei

“Let me be, was all I wanted. Be what I am, no matter how I am.”

--Henry Miller, 'Stand Still Like the Hummingbird'

“The thing I’m most afraid of is me. Of not knowing what I’m going to do. Of not knowing what I’m doing right now.”

--Haruki Murakami

“What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.”

--Sylvia Plath

“It’s a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can’t eat for eight hours; he can’t drink for eight hours; he can’t make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.”

--William Faulkner

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

--Harper Lee, 'To Kill A Mockingbird'

“It takes time to live. Like any work of art, life needs to be thought about.”

--Albert Camus

“Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.”

--Eckhart Tolle

“To hell with them. Nothing hurts if you don’t let it.”

--Ernest Hemingway

“We would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”

--Ernest Hemingway

"Knowing people is overrated. Understanding people is underrated."

--@sacca

“People inspire you, or they drain you — pick them wisely.”

--Hans F. Hansen

“I don’t want people to matter to me too much. Sometimes it hurts too much to think about them. Ones you love who don’t love you, ones who are dead or hate you, ones who you think about but never get to be with. I like people but when I get too close, it fucks me up and I can’t get things done.”

--Henry Rollins

“Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being.”

--Albert Schweitzer

“There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to find the other ones who don’t think you’re strange, who understand your jokes, your smile, the way you talk. There are only so many of us born at a time and we only have so long to find each other before we die. But we have to try.”

--I Wrote This For You

“A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other’s individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension — seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence. This means recognizing that we both have an important part to play in helping each other become more fully who we are….A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion.”

--John Welwood

You have to make all of it up.

All quotes from I Wrote This For You

May you do the things you want to and always remember what it felt like when you were doing them.

Most importantly, if you can at all avoid it, don't be normal. Strive, burn and do everything you can to avoid being the industry standard. Even the highest industry standard. Be greater than anything anyone else has ever dreamed of you. Don't settle for pats on the back, salary increases, a nod-and-a-smile. Instead, rage against the tepidness of the mundane with every fiber of whatever makes you, you. Change this place.

I've tried to put you down on paper so many times. But you keep getting up.

You have until the hour you die to do everything you've ever really wanted to do and say everything you've ever really wanted to say. It sounds less fair when you get older.

One day, you realise that there are some people you'll never see again. At least, not in the same way.

You keep trying to tell the truth about who you are but you keep changing, every time someone listens.

If you open up too much, people can fall in and hurt themselves.

And yet, when you get here, you are not given instructions. No one tells you that heart A is meant to slot into heart B. There are no diagrams about how you are meant to live each day or directions on how to assemble some semblance of happiness. You are not even told what colours to paint your feelings or, given a purpose and a reason for your life. You have to make all of it up. You have to make all of it, yourself.

I have a list in my head of all the feelings I still want to feel before I die. And you have ticked so many things off that list.

Stop thinking about what they're thinking about you.

If you like a whole bunch of things and I like a whole bunch of things, maybe one of the things that we both like, can be each other.

The human heart is made from the only substance in the universe that can become stronger, after it's been broken.

Those who walk away from you in the dark should be forgotten in the light.

And if you want to know the feeling I'm talking about, run your own fingers slowly through your hair, and pretend they're someone else's.

I can look at anything and think of you.

All quotes from I Wrote This For You

Understand that, the prisons you've built are of your own design.

Understand that, you should be the person you wanted to be when you woke up this morning.

Understand that, the world desperately wants to love you, if you'll let it.

Understand that, you deserve that love, even if you don't feel like it.

Understand that, love can hit a planet like a comet.

Understand that, the rain can unrain, if you want it to.

On other planets, they look up and wish upon you.

Because on other planets, you live on a star.

They'll tell you that you're the ground. Remember that you hold up the sky.

Don't settle for someone who doesn't give you things to say. Forever is a long time to make small talk.

When you can, let me know how long you're willing to miss me for.

I just wish you still made me nervous.

This one is about how music gets ruined by the people you're no longer with.

I keep thinking you already know. I keep thinking I've sent you letters that were only ever written in my mind.

Should any child be reading this in a history book, you should know that we loved. I hope that hasn't changed.

Today happened because you're here. The days seem to leave when you do.

If you think I can tell you what's going on inside my heart, you know even less about it than you think.

You die when you stop feeling. I will live forever.

And maybe something's missing in your mind. Maybe you don't work the same way everyone else does. Maybe you're just different. That would be good news.

When I am more than you can take, just give me back.

The world you love spins so fast, all I can do is throw words at it. And hope they become pictures.

You reach a certain age where you learn how to walk through a crowded party without stepping on anyone's feet. You reach a certain age where you learn how to wear the skin you've been given. You reach a certain age where you can look at your relationships to other people completely objectively. Apparently.

Nothing is faster than the speed of thought. I can look at anything and think of you.

I do not know how it ends. Just that I miss you, right before it does.

Be in love with your life.

"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well."

--Oliver Goldsmith

"It’s up to you to pump up your own heart. Get it real big. Then let everyone in."

--Kimya Dawson

“I always feel like I’m struggling to become someone else. Like I’m trying to find a new place, grab hold of a new life, a new personality. I guess it’s part of growing up, yet it’s also an attempt to reinvent myself. By becoming a different me, I could free myself of everything. I seriously believed I could escape myself- as long as I made the effort. But I always hit a dead end. No matter where I go, I still end up me. What’s missing never changes. The scenery may change, but I’m still the same old incomplete person. The same missing elements torture me with a hunger that I can never satisfy. I guess that lack itself is as close as I’ll come to define myself.”

--Haruki Murakami

“Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.”

--Audrey Niffenegger

“The fortunate people - the truly fortunate - are not so much those who succeed in life as those who succeed in living. There are some who do both; many who do neither, and some who do either one, but not the other. Success in life, so called, can be overdone, but hardly success in living. It seems possible to succeed too much in various lines of attainment, legitimate and sincerely profitable in themselves, but success in living involves getting the most out of life, not in a day or a year or a decade, but in a lifetime. That involves living wisely, and you can’t live too wisely.

--Edward Sanford Martin, 'Too Much Success', 1908

“I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.”

--Audrey Hepburn

“I want you for mine & mine forever. You & you only. I’l gladly give my heart for yours & at any time you wish we’ll make the exchange.”

--William Glass Meggs to his future wife, Miss Nellie Lang, April 1899

“… but, that’s what it’s all about. A toothless smile. A middle finger. A freshly gooey slice of Napoleon pizza and the bigger jeans you have to buy. The lingerie to feel sexy in and the moments you think, Sono solo, I am alone. It is imperfect. It is a combination of the tears you drown in each night and the wide-eyed, gasping-for-air, tears-rolling-down-your-cheek laughter you share with friends in the afternoon. It is life. It is wonderful. It all feels so right. Attraversiamo.”

--Elizabeth Gilbert, 'Eat Pray Love'

“I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”

--L.M. Montgomery

“Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity. Love like there’s no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.”

--Max Lucado

“You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains. You say that you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot when the sun shines. You say that you love the wind, but you close your windows when wind blows. This is why I am afraid, you say that you love me too.”

--William Shakespeare

“On the other side

I can see us waiting for

all we know we’ll be.”

--Tyler Knott Gregson

“‘You know, you’re a little complicated after all.”

“Oh no,” she assured him hastily. “No, I’m not really - I’m just a - I’m just a whole lot of different simple people.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'Tender Is the Night'

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause, you who read this, and think for a long moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.”

--Charles Dickens, 'Great Expectations'

“You spend 99% of your life looking for the other 1%. But it’s worth it.”

--I Wrote This For You

“Be in love with your life. Every detail of it.”

--Jack Kerouac

“Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”

--Jhumpa Lahiri

“Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.”

--Diana Ross

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Great Gatsby'

“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I’m gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”

--Salman Rushdie

So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog

of non-definitive acts,

something other than the desperation.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party.

Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party

and seduced you

and left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.

You want a better story. Who wouldn't?

--Richard Siken, Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.”

--Oprah Winfrey

“Luxury has changed a lot. In the past it was eating in a three-star restaurant. Now it’s eating home-grown vegetables in a garden or somewhere on a mountain, or going to a small cottage where you find handmade cheese, and just having a taste of that in open air, that’s luxury now. In fashion it’s a bit the same. In the past, haute couture was luxury. And now finding a sweater in hand-spun cashmere somewhere in the hills of Nepal is far more exciting and luxurious.”

--Dries Van Noten

“My soul is impatient with itself, as with a bothersome child; its restlessness keeps growing and is forever the same. Everything interests me, but nothing holds me. I attend to everything, dreaming all the while. I’m two, and both keep their distance — Siamese twins that aren’t attached.”

--Fernando Pessoa

“I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn’t mean anything? What then?”

--Neil Gaiman, 'Coraline'

January has issues with her mother, February is always talking about things he wants to do while March does them, April eats sweets and May pays for them, June is the oldest but not the wisest and July always has an opinion on everything. August never stops trying do the right thing, even if he doesn’t always know what that is. September once saw something so sad, she never stopped crying. October holds the lift for anyone, vice-presidents and street-sweepers alike (for his memory, not for theirs) and November makes fun of him for this. December is tired but always hopeful. He has never once stopped believing.

Monday’s obviously a bastard, quite literally as dad can’t remember what or who he was doing. Tuesday’s temperamental but ok as long as you stay on her good side. Wednesday doesn’t say much and Thursday sometimes hums just to break the silence. They’re in love. Friday’s always wasted and she and Saturday hold each other tightly until their delirium fades.

But Sunday, Sunday knows she’s the end. But she closes her eyes, and she pretends with all the strength in her tiny heart that really, she’s the dawn.

--I Wrote This For You

Time grabs you by the hand and pulls you fast.

I guess I should say thank you, for cutting all my strings. But if it's all the same to you, I wish you'd left my wings.

You think bravery is to fight and courage is to die. But the bravest ones stand in front of those who would and say "We will not fight. Because courage is to live."

Where you are, right here and now, this is how bad stories end. But it's also how the best stories, begin.

Because you're looking for a date, not love. Because you're more interested in who you go to bed with than who you wake up next to. Because you tick boxes in your head instead of crossing lines in your heart.

Time grabs you by the hand and pulls you fast. Sometimes faster. And we don't notice at first because we're all still shocked at being alive.

I'll understand your silence. Because sometimes, you'll have to understand mine.

Life is chaos.

This isn't torture. Torture happens in small, dark rooms in countries with names you struggle to spell. This is just mildly unpleasant. This isn't heroism. Heroism happens in churches that are also schools, performed by teachers with no names and no place to stay. This is just a good deed for the day. This isn't loss. Loss happens on fields filled with poppies, in hospitals buzzing with flies, in distant deserts and late at night when there's no good reason for the phone to ring. This is just longing. This isn't important. Important happens on bended knees and is breathed on last breaths with hands clutched tight, hearts tighter. This is just a distraction.

If it doesn't happen magically over night, you might want to try doing it manually, every day.

If our arms aren't strong enough, we'll rip the roof off with our hearts. If the road is dark, our dreams will light the way. If there isn't space in the back, we'll make space in our hopes. Pack a bag with everything you want to keep and leave the rest behind. Because I'm coming to pick you up.

You buy things and you keep them clean. You take care of them. Keep them in a special pocket. Away from keys and coins. Away from other things that should be kept clean and taken care of as well. Then they get scratched. And scratched again. And again. And again. And again. Soon, you don't care about them anymore. You don't keep them in a special pocket. You throw them in the bag with everything else. They've surpassed their form and become nothing but function. People are like that. You meet them and keep them clean. In a special pocket. And then you start to scratch them. Not on purpose. Sometimes you just drop them by accident or forget which pocket they're in. But after the first scratch, it's all downhill from there. You see past their form. They become function. They are a purpose. Only their essence remains.

Don't be afraid of the world. We're just all the people you could've been.

I don't know if you felt that or not. But it felt like two people kissing after hours of thinking about it. It felt like two people talking after nights of silence. It felt like two people touching after weeks of being numb. It felt like two people facing each other after months of looking away. It felt like two people in love after years of being alone. And it felt like two people meeting each other, after an entire lifetime of not meeting each other.

And you keep whispering the same story to yourself "I'll be unhappy now because that'll make me happy later. Because that's how a story works." So your happiness will always happen later, never now. Life isn't a story. Life is chaos.

I won't compose prose every morning you open your eyes next to me (I won't compare you to a summer's day). I won't kiss the tears from your cheeks whenever you cry. I won't remember every appointment. I won't keep the sheen on my armour. I won't know what to say sometimes. I won't get your order right. I'll be late. I'll fuck-up. But I'll write something for you when you least expect it (in summer or winter). But I'll hold you as tight as I can whenever I can. But I'll burst through the door as soon as I remember. But I'll polish it until it shines again. But I'll say something anyway. But I'll go back and make it right. But I'll get there. But I'll try.

Something has moved and bumped the cradle of everything. The world is out of sync. Birds fly backwards and the fish swim through the air. Hours pass like seconds and seconds pass like hours. The light fades before the sun leaves. The stars shine before the night falls. I am here early. You are here late.

Oh shut up. Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you hurt, you heal. After darkness, there is always light and you get reminded of this every morning but still you choose to believe that the night will last forever. Nothing lasts forever. Not the good or the bad. So you might as well smile while you're here.

If you've got the time, we can play a game. It’s easy. We just see if I’m the same shape as the space you have inside you. If everything fits, we both win. If it doesn’t, don’t force it. That's how you get splinters in your heart.

There's not enough soil in the earth for how deep I want to be buried. There's not enough water in the oceans for how slowly I want to sink. There's not enough fire in the sun for how brightly I want to burn. There aren't enough words in my head to say all the things I can't. There's not enough blood in my body for all I need to bleed. There's aren't enough couches in the world for how long I want to sleep. There's not enough life in me, for all I want to live. All I've had enough of, is you.

People aren't pictures.

Which is why when you feel that it'll take everything you have and you think that it'll take a lifetime to accomplish, you need to remember that that's exactly what you have.

The heart is a muscle like any other and the best exercise you can do for it is called picking yourself up off the floor.

It's when you hold eye contact for that second too long or maybe the way you laugh. It sets off a flash and our memories take a picture of who we are at that point when we first know "This is love." And we clutch that picture to our hearts because we expect each other to always be the people in that picture. But people change. People aren't pictures. And you can either take a new picture or throw the old one away.

So you look for patterns because that's what humans do to try and make sense of things. In hope of some divine order. And you look in movies and songs and the things that you read for symbols, points and swirls that match your own. But the only real pattern there is, is the one you make when you hold up a mirror. And reflect.

So yes, we could kiss. I could kiss you and you could kiss me. There's no science, plane ticket or clock stopping us. But if we kiss, it will end the world. And I've ended the world before. No one survived. Least of all me.

There are so many people reading these words now that if you put your hand against the screen, I can promise you, no matter what time it is, no matter where you are, someone else who feels the same is doing it too.

You are more than welcome to copy me and the things I do. I'll be busy doing new things while you do that.

You think you’re waiting for help. For someone to tell you what the right thing to do is. Even though, at the back of your mind, you already know what that is. So all you’re really waiting for, is a time when you’re forced to do it.

Life is really just a series of things that happen.

They want me. I want you. And you want someone else. But none of us want to turn around.

It takes millions of years for the continents to drift. And butterflies live a lot less than that. You can live all your life in a day. Or spread it out and live slow.

When I sit near you, my hands suddenly become alien things and I don't know where to put them or what they usually do, like this is the first time I've ever had hands and maybe they go in my pockets and maybe they don't.

Forget about your lists and do what you can because that's all you can do. Phone up the people you miss and tell them you love them. Hug those close to you as hard as you can. Because you are always only a drunk driver's stupidity, a nervous shopkeeper's mistake, a doctor's best attempts and an old age away from forever.

There is magic even here, in gridlock, in loneliness, in too much work, in late nights gone on too long, in shopping trolleys with broken wheels, in boredom, in tax returns, the same magic that made a man write about a princess that slept until she was kissed, long golden hair draped over a balcony and fingers pricked with needles. There is magic even here, in potholes along back-country roads, in not having the right change (you pat your pockets), arriving late and missing the last train home, the same magic that caused a woman in France to think that God spoke to her, that made another sit down at the front of a bus and refuse to move, that lead a man to think that maybe the world wasn't flat and the moon could be walked upon by human feet. There is magic. Even here. In office cubicles.

You are not too old. You are not too young. You are not too poor. You are not too sick. You are not any of the things that stop you from doing what must be done. You are right here. You, are just right.

When you finally understand what it meant, the truth will leave your lips. Not as words. But a sound at the back of your throat.

Each week, you trade 5 days for 2. That doesn't sound right to me.

Fine. Maybe I'm the puzzle. But you're still the pieces.

And if you can't say yes, answer anyway. Because I'd rather live with the answer than die with the question.

Others are going to start doing the things you talk about doing. The right time to start, is right now.

No storm is so bad that you can't learn something from it. You can grow in a storm. You can thrive. Rain cleans the air.

Not until you understand that to want is not to need and that love is meant for people, not things.

I was so busy missing you, I missed someone else standing right in front of me. Now I’m missing them instead.

Similar to tricycles, summer, winter, autumn, spring, bruised knees, your first kiss and there is no Santa Clause, life is really just a series of things that happen. Sometimes to you.

Everyone gets things backwards sometimes.

And there are thousands in the crowd outside everyday. And everyone's there. And they love me. And I don't care. Because they're not you.

All the hardest, coldest people you meet were once as soft as water. And that's the tragedy of living.

You think that you're fundamentally "you". That even without three meals a day, the people around you and the things you've been exposed to, you would still be the same person with the same ideas, morals, values and attitude towards life. But you wouldn't be. You would be "them". The great "them" that seem so stupid and alien and far away in other countries. And they're reading this right now, wondering if they could be you.

I always thought that I was sick and you were the cure. But everyone gets things backwards sometimes.

Being enlightened doesn't mean being happy. It means you're ok even when things aren't.

Unfortunately, you don't get what you deserve. You get what you think you deserve.

You'd think it would be easy for them to mark with red the cigarette that killed you so that you wouldn't smoke it, the drink that does you in with a label cautioning you not to, the kiss that ends the world with flashing lights that spell out the words "Stay Away."

If I were you, I'd be beautiful.

You're at the top of my list of meaningful decisions I need to make.

But nothing is wasted. There's no song you can listen to, no person you can speak to, no moment it takes to see things as they are that doesn't teach you something. You need everything you know.

Did you think I would forget how to love? It's like riding a bike. Everyone falls off and scrapes their knees sometimes.

You are the best parts of all the songs I love.

To find you and love you for all that you are. That's the reason I was sent to Earth.

We help people when big things happen to them, when you see them getting hit by a car, when a brother or a sister or a father or a mother dies, we're there for them because we can see that death kills more than the person it takes. And yet, the people around us who die a little all the time, moment by moment, who require the least help, the smallest sacrifice, are the ones we ignore completely.

Not the first one in the morning or the one on the TV, the well-meaning phone call on a Monday night one or some you find on the radio - The voice that whispers between your ears before you fall asleep, that's the one you pay attention to.

These things take time to remember. But you weren't always like this. I knew you before.

You are so full of the things that you don't have that you don't have space for the things you do.

So if you love me but you don't need me, you don't love me.

So may you find in each other what you came here for. And trust that this is love because it is (love is trust). And tangled lives you may lead but into each other, never apart, till you cannot distinguish between being and being together.

Small people only want one thing from you: Someone else to be as small as they are. Stay big.

If it was easy, everyone would do it. But it's not. Which is why it's up to you.

READ THIS: BEST MAN'S SPEECH... SO SWEET!

Context: My brother, Andrew, is bald. Port Elizabeth is a small town in South Africa where we grew up.

I’d just like to say how incredibly beautiful the bride’s maids look today. And I’d also like to specifically point out how beautiful the married couple look, especially Alicia, from her dress to her hair, and Andrew as well, from his suit to his… to his suit.

First off, I should probably be mentioning that this is in fact my second time as best man for Andrew and Alicia, the first time being at the commitment ceremony we held in Port Elizabeth. I thought they would’ve learnt their lesson as well but apparently not.

Which leads me to suspect that maybe my mike wasn’t on last time or maybe no one was really paying attention.

Anyway, I’d still like to start out here like I started out then by saying that today is the ultimate expression of love and to celebrate that love with Andrew and Alicia, I’d like to invite you to lean over and hug the person nearest you. Today’s a special day and everyone deserves a hug.

Now slowly start to caress their neck and lick their ear.

That’ll be the last joke I carry across from then but not the last story.

In the beginning…

Andrew’s basic approach to life can be summed up by an experience he had when he was young, driving with my father. He refused to stop trying to play with the car cigarette lighter and eventually my father pushed the lighter in and when it was glowing hot, took it out, showed it to him and said “Look Andrew. Hot.”

And of course, Andrew went “tshhhhhh” (sticking his finger straight into it)

Which just goes to show that experience is the best teacher as to the best of my knowledge, Andrew has never purposely stuck his finger into a cigarette lighter since then.

This is just one example of my father teaching valuable lessons to young children.

When it was my turn to learn a valuable lesson, my father called me over and told me he wanted to see how strong I was. So naturally I, excitedly, asked him how I could do this. He said “Put your fist in front of your face like this and try and keep it there, I’m going to try pull it away” Bearing in my mind that I was probably around 8 at the time, I managed to knock myself onto the floor when he let go. 20 years later, if thinks I’m going to do something stupid, he still says “Or you could put your fist in front of your face.”

That story didn’t feature the groom but it does give you an idea of prestige and the fine stock he comes from. It also allows me to say that Andrew is not putting his fist in front of his face and Alicia, I can promise you that you aren’t either. Instead, you have put your hearts in front of your faces, and as long as neither of you let go, no one will end up on the floor, crying for their mother.

And that is the worst metaphor anyone’s ever used in a wedding speech.

Another example of Andrew’s character shone through when, one day, Andrew and John, who’s sitting over there at table 9, were delivering all the left-over booze from their last high school dance to John’s father’s liquor store. I wanted to go with but there wasn’t any space in the car. So I said “I’ll ride on the roof.” Keep in mind, we grew up in Port Elizabeth, so this seemed like a perfectly valid idea to me at the time.

The trick to riding on the roof of a car is to dig your fingers into the gap between the door and the windows on either side and to anticipate which way the driver is going to turn. We came to a four-way stop and I expected my brother either to stop or to go straight through it, bearing in mind how young and stupid we were at the time. Andrew, turned right. I, carried on forwards.
I remember making eye contact with a young woman who had stopped at the stop street and noticing that the ground was coming up to meet me rapidly and I remember thinking to myself that this is going to hurt. It did. After I’d finished sliding across the gravel, bumped into the pavement and rolled into the stop sign, bleeding with great vigor, the young woman got out of her car and, instead of immediately offering me first aid, said “I hope you’ve learned your lesson” which was a justifiable thing to say but I of course unleashed a verbal tirade upon her that would’ve made a sailor blush.

Several minutes later, John in the passenger seat, turned to Andrew and said “I don’t think your brother’s on the roof anymore.”

He took me home and put me in the shower and managed to get me bandaged up eventually. We told my mother I’d fallen off a skateboard and we kept that lie going for around 15 years, up until she heard me tell this story for the first time at the commitment ceremony a few months ago.

Which just goes to show that Andrew’s the type of guy who’ll let you ride on the roof of his car and then bandage you up and lie for 15 years for you, when you fall off.

To keep with tradition, I’ll now share another story that she doesn’t know about.

The first word I learned to spell was my name, Iain. And as children do, I liked to practice writing my name, normally with crayons or black marker pen, on various items throughout our home and it took me a while to figure out how they always knew it was me but I did eventually, which is why the second word I learned how to spell was Andrew, which I practiced in toothpaste on the back of my father’s favourite chair.

So, for his suffering, he deserves to marry a woman as beautiful and wonderful as Alicia.
Andrew and I had a life filled with many remarkable adventures growing up. And now he’s embarking on the greatest adventure of all, with Alica. And that, my friends, is beautiful.

Andrew, it’s an honour to have served with you and I couldn’t wish for a better brother, Alicia is a very lucky woman and the only person as lucky as her today, is you, because of how truly wonderful and beautiful she is in every sense of the word and I look forward to calling her my sister.

There’s time for one last story and this is the latest story I have in my Big Book Of Andrew and it’s fitting that I close on it.

Someone came up to me after the commitment ceremony we had in Port Elizabeth and said “Iain, you can see by the way Andrew spoke about Alicia that they really love each other.” And I said “I know.” And they said “No, like really –really- love each other” and I said again “I know.”

Enjoy your happy life together because it will be blessed, beautiful and full of love. This, I, and anyone who looks at you, know.

Things change.

Things change the way you feel. And things change.

To know you like your tongue knows the back of your teeth. That's all I want.

Everything you like, I will find some reason to dislike and if we find we like the same thing, I will insist that you like it less than me or for the wrong reasons, like you don’t really understand the things you like. Because that makes me feel better about who I am. What I am.

I was wondering if you had a second. To talk about anything at all.

You can be as logical, rational and objective as you want, it's not going to change the way you feel. Put it this way; you telling me that lunch is in an hour doesn't make me less hungry.

You make me feel like a moth that's reached the moon.

You and me, we're clever. People, on the other hand, are stupid.

One day, you will be given back every pen you've ever lost.

If nothing else, one day you can look someone straight in the eyes and say, "But I lived through it. And it made me who I am today."

It does not count if you believe in yourself when it's easy to believe in yourself. It does not count if you believe the world can be a better place when the future looks bright. It does not count if you think you're going to make it when the finish line is right in front of you. It counts when it's hard to believe in yourself, when it looks like the world's going to end and you've still got a long way to go. That's when it counts. That's when it matters the most.

Which is why you make me feel like a moth that's reached the moon.

You'll be as shocked as I was to discover that their last words weren't, "Did everybody like me? Did I like the right music? Were enough people attracted to me? How did people feel about my decisions? You don't think I upset anyone do you?"

I hope they make you happy. That's what I'll say.

I won't keep circling the ocean forever, hoping I'll spot your island on the horizon, uncolonised and flying an old, tattered flag. You on the shore with the sand between your toes.

If you enjoy the title of your job more than your job, you're in the wrong job.

This is real.

I couldn't convince you that the blue you see is the same blue that I see. But maybe that's how lovers know they're meant to love; they see the same blue. And they both know it.

So if all we have is that glance in the window. If all we have is till this train stops. If all we have is till the sun comes up, till your lift picks you up. And If all we have is till the day I die. I'm ok with what we have.

But really, all we want, and I speak for the entire human race here, is contact. Someone to let us know that we aren't alone. That the world isn't a dream and you and I really are happening at the same time, even if it's not in the same place. That this is real. You're really there. I'm really here. We're real. This is real.

I honestly couldn't care less if you like the same bands or you've read the same books. Tell me one original thing, tell me one true, real thing that brings me to my fucking knees that I've never heard before and I'm yours.

I can feel your eyes on these words as I write each one.

You need to stop being so concerned with collecting beautiful things and start being more concerned with making things beautiful.

I began thousands of years ago on a cave wall somewhere in Africa. I painted the idea of you before symbols could make sounds in our heads. And each time I come back, I'm the same. This is not the first time you've read this. I've told you a thousand times over a thousand years. I am no more the first me that's ever been than you are the first you. And we certainly won't be the last.

Let's pretend we're artists and everything we feel is something new to be proud of. Let's take our imaginary friends on a double date and ditch them in a movie and hope they get along while we kiss outside on the sidewalk. Let's take the dreams you mumbled in your sleep and paint a child's nursery. And if we don't finish today, we've always got tomorrow.

I let the clock face the mirror so that each second takes me closer towards you. Instead of further away.

It only hurt the first time so you'd know how much it didn't hurt the second time.

I need you to give me the chance to take you for granted.

If you found anything of value here or in others, it's only because you'd seen it before inside yourself.

I'll tell you the truth so close to your lips it'll taste like a lie. There's a tongue in my mouth. It matters. This fucking matters. The only thing that works is the truth and you are the hardest truth to tell. So kiss like you give a damn.

I would set up shop inside your heart and charge the world to love you.

You want me to be made of the same thin paper as you. But it'd feel like I was kissing cardboard.

And I can feel your eyes on these words as I write each one. And I know you read it. And it's the tips of your fingers that pushes back on each key. And your hand on the mouse. And your back in that chair. And I just want you to know, that I know.

I’m all out of midnight phone calls and flowers sent to your door. I’m out of throwing letters off fire escapes and drawing a cathedral in the sand. I’m out of spray-painting your name on freeway overpasses. I’m low on cute names given between blankets and 9am. I’ve got no dramatic displays of public affection left. And now everyone else I ever love is going to think me boring. Because I used it all up on you.

We all fall sometimes.

You’ll either make the choice yourself or the universe will make it for you. So there’s really nothing to worry about.

You spill yourself in red, blue, green, white, silver, forgetting which colour is your own. ... They're all your own. You're not losing yourself. You're finding yourself in others.

Don't swim too near the surface. The sun will burn your skin. Don't swim too near the floor. The cold will cool your heart. Float in the middle and you will be fine.

You used to eat all the chips first, while they were still warm but then you were too full to enjoy the burger. Then you ate the burger first but by the time you finished, the chips were cold. Now you eat half the chips first, then the burger, then the rest of the chips. Maybe you should stop thinking about it so much and just enjoy the meal.

You are well within your rights to stand up, interrupt everyone around you and say "This is not who I am. This is not what I want. I'm sorry, but you've mistaken me for somebody else."

I pass too close to you in a lift and you say "sorry" under your breath. What are you sorry about? The potential for human contact?

There is little either you or I can create that will ever compete with the sky.

Don't leave the party because you think there's a better party. But you'll never know unless you go.

You always write down the things you need to do, rather than the things you've already done. You've got it backwards.

I saw your face online the other day, and I had no idea who you were, but you had something about your eyes that made me click. I keep track of what you’re up to (thanks for updating so often) and I care about you, even if I’m afraid to actually say anything (I’m a little shy). Your life seems so interesting, even though you’re not a celebrity or anything. It’s just nice to watch someone else’s life from a distance, even though sometimes I wish I could get on a plane, get a job at a store near you and try and accidentally meet you somehow. I know that sounds creepy, but you deserve someone special in your life, you more than anyone else I know.

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place.

If you find yourself inside yourself, scratching at the edges and clawing at the walls, breathe more. Think less. Your shadow is only a shadow. And stay away from mirrors. They will only confuse you.

Random acts of kindness are the only acts of kindness worth a damn. Surprise someone today. Surprise yourself. Constantly.

An infinite amount of worlds presents an infinite amount of possibilities. Anything is not only possible, it’s probable. So right now, somewhere in the depths of space, on a planet exactly like ours, a person exactly like you stood up and learned to fly.

Trust those around you. We all share the same basic human condition. We all want. We all need. We all love. We all hurt. So trust them. Even when you’re falling. We all fall sometimes.

You were tired and weary, your eyes heavy. I’d have given anything to be able to just pick you up and carry you home. I’d have run the whole way. But I couldn’t. The sun is up and you’re still there, finishing what you started. My arms will be ready.

Believe in a god. Believe in a song. Believe in a friend. Believe in a warm bed. Believe in tomorrow. Believe in love. Believe in everything. Believe in nothing. Believe in whatever you want. But always believe in yourself.

You had this expression on your face, like you weren't quite sure you were supposed to be on Earth.

Untie yourself. Get rid of the knots. Forgive your father. Forgive your mother. Forgive your brothers. Forgive your sisters. Forgive your children. Forgive your lover. Forgive your teachers. Forgive your heroes. Forgive a late ride. Forgive cold food. Forgive working late. Forgive being 5 cents short. Forgive those who have wronged you. Forgive those who will wrong you. The last knot is always the hardest. It’s also the most important. Forgive yourself. And then you are free.

Blooming like a late night with fast cars and back seats. You mistook nature for human nature and didn’t even care.

You dreamed me one night. Now I'm dreaming you back.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..."
--Jack Kerouac, 'On The Road'

You are the luckiest person alive.

You have a roof over your head. Food in your stomach. People who know your name and use it. A blanket. A pillow. A sun that rises and sets. You are the luckiest person alive.

Slip behind. Slip over. Slip under. Slip around. Or you can spend your whole life just trying to get through.

When you're at that point, when you feel it's all pointless... It's not. The trick is to just keep doing it, that's how you succeed in the end. It's the secret to life, do anything often enough, and for long enough, and you get good at it. So keep on. Keep writing. Keep painting. Keep singing. Keep dancing. Keep fighting. Keep. On.

Live like nature. Explode slowly, day by day, from the center outwards. You won’t notice how brightly you burn or how big you’ve grown until you look back. And then you will be amazed.

There was more love in that sentence than a thousand bed time stories.

I like to think that somewhere out there, on a planet exactly like ours, two people exactly like you and me made totally different choices and that, somewhere, we're still together. That's enough for me.

I fell in love with the way you wrote. How you took the time to say exactly what you meant instead of leaving everything to those inane moments when we’d meet in the street, making strange noises with our mouths in the hope that they’d somehow convey how we felt. You and I were always better written down than standing up.

I always wanted you. Even when I had you. I could drink from you forever and never be any less thirsty than I was that first day. The day I realized how parched I'd always been.

Once, years ago, I looked up by mistake and fell into your eyes. I’m still falling. Sometimes, it feels like flying.

All your work. All your play. None of it compares to one night spent next to the warm body of someone you love. You need to learn this sooner rather than later.

You told me that there were two of me, in me. The me I pretended to be. And the real me. You asked me to guess which one you loved more. You kissed me before I could answer and in that moment, I knew.

Science and art. Washing dishes and adding numbers. Driving taxis and sailing ships. Find what you love. It doesn’t matter what it is or how much money you’ll make or what people will think of you. Just find it and hold on tightly.

You called me over when I was young and told me you wanted to see how strong I was. I was eager to impress you so I obliged. You told me to put my hand in front of my face and try to keep it there, while you tried to pull it away. I thought I was doing so well as I strained against your arm. Until you let go. And I hit myself so hard I ended up on the ground with a bleeding nose. You helped me up, after you’d finished laughing, and said “Let that be a lesson. Trust no one. Not even me.” Despite what had happened, there was more love in that sentence than a thousand bed time stories.

When hurt turns red and a piece of your heart is missing. When the cold bites deep and you’ve got that feeling like you just got out of surgery. When the only way to stay sane is to concentrate on anything else but how you feel. When you count the tiles in the ceiling. When you push the earphones closer. When the first day of winter arrives. When you remember every nuance of every word of every time. When all this happens. Embrace it. Feel every feeling. Cry every tear. Sob every sob. Because this is what it feels like to have loved.

All you need is time.

"Time travel is like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double, and end up kissing complete strangers."
--'Doctor Who'

What is wrong will be right. What is pain will be joy. What is sick will be healthy. What is rough will be smooth. And what is lost will be found. All you need is time.

If you don't know whether you're coming or going maybe it's time to just stop.

You are already dead in my time. But you are still here. You are the whispering wind that sends goose bumps down my spine and the sensation of water as my foot breaks the surface. You are a lover's fingers on my cheek and a drunkard’s elbow in a crowded bar. You are the grass beneath my toes and the sky above my head. So I smile. Because you are in that too.

Times will be tough like old leather and gravel roads occasionally. Times will be easy, like Sunday morning, every now and then.

Some will make a moment feel like forever. But the people who really change your life are the ones that make forever, feel like a moment.

A heart is there to make you bleed. To pass the time. To help you sleep. A heart is there to touch and feel. To mend. And to heal.

The hardest thing you will ever have to do, is wait.

Take your time and craft the things you do. Love them. Love the process. God is in the details. And you can be an artist in everything you do.

Everything that needs to happen, will happen, in the time that it takes to happen, the way it was meant to happen. You need to trust in that.

Put one in front of the other one. Focus on that and everything else will fall into place. One step at a time. You get there in the end.

If winning is getting up one more time than you fall down. If strength is more than muscle. If time teaches us patience. And knowledge gives us grace. Then we will go forward. Remembering the past. But never yearning for it. There is so much more to look forward to.

You can measure time in wrinkles, bursts of clarity and insight, warm beds, waiting in line at the bank or the distance between two kisses. It stretches and shrinks and sometimes even bends. That's why your heart will always keep better time than a clock.

I still find each day too short for all the friends I want to see.

It was quite a compliment to me, as a matter of fact, to have such a person choose me for their best friend.

It's not about the light. It's about meeting people in the tunnel.

"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see."
--John Burroughs