Stop being who you were and become who you are.

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not."

--James Joyce

"Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My mother."
--Ann Taylor

“Home is the result of intersecting lives. It is the secondary color created by individuals in relationships… Yes, home is the landscape of people, places, and things upon which we live out life—but it is mostly about people. That is why home can be a suburban neighborhood, or a struggling farm, or a ship at sea, or a war-torn nation. After all, home is where hearts are.”

--Austin Sailsbury in Kinfolk Magazine, Volume V: In Search of Home

“Your body is the house you grew up in, how dare you try to burn it to the ground.”

--Sierra Demulder

“Love blurs your vision; but after it recedes, you can see more clearly than ever. It’s like the tide going out, revealing whatever’s been thrown away and sunk: broken bottles, old gloves, rusting pop cans, nibbled fishbodies, bones. This is the kind of thing you see if you sit in the darkness with open eyes, not knowing the future.”

--Margaret Atwood, 'Cat’s Eye'

“Going barefoot is the gentlest way of walking and can symbolize a way of living — being authentic, vulnerable, sensitive to our surroundings. It’s the feeling of enjoying warm sand beneath our toes, or carefully making our way over sharp rocks in the darkness. It’s a way of living that has the lightest impact, removing the barrier between us and nature.”

--Adele Coombs, 'Barefoot Dreaming'

“This is why it hurts the way it hurts. You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache. You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.”

--Iain Thomas

“I am very particular about what I like and the way things fit. I think that is the difference between people who are stylish and who aren’t - being very particular.”

--Binki Shapiro for StyleLikeU

“If you had a person in your life treating you the way you treat yourself, you would have gotten rid of them a long time ago.”

--Cheri Huber, 'There Is Nothing Wrong With You'

“That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose. People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Don’t expect to get anything back, don’t expect recognition for your efforts, don’t expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life. Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.”

--Paulo Coehlo

The most important thing in life is your family.

If you don't know your family's history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.

My family is really boring. They have a coffee table book called 'Pictures We Took Just to Use Up the Rest of the Film.'

The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't, but in the end they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself.

Home is where you can say anything you like 'cause nobody listens to you anyway.

I’m so homesick now for someone that I never knew. I’m so homesick now for someplace I will never be.

Home is where they catch you when you fall.

But as for today all I want is to be home.

"There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

--Jane Austen

Home is where your history begins. Home is where they catch you when you fall.

I think what you notice most when you haven't been home in a while is how much the trees have grown around your memories.

Before you decide what you want to be, know where you want to be.

I never realize how much I like being home until I've been somewhere totally different for awhile.

"Who needs a map when there's only one passable road to the future? When you're headed in the only direction that makes any sense to you at all? You don't need a map to find your home."

--Jill A. Davis

What happened to us, you know? I don't know who I am anymore or how I got here. I miss who I used to be. I wanna have a home again, you know? And real friends. You know, the kind of friendships we used to believe in. I miss that, and I miss you. I guess I just miss all of it.

In a world where most things were a clutter, having a peaceful home was vital to her sanity. It was her refuge, her nest, where she could hide from the problems outside her door. At least in her home she was in control, there, unlike in the rest of her life, she allowed in only those whom she wanted, she could decide how long they should stay, and where in her home they could be. Not like a heart, which let people in without permission, held them in a special place she never had any say in, and then yearned for them to remain there longer than planned.

Andrew: "You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff, that idea of home is gone..."

Sam: "I still feel at home in my house."

Andrew: "You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."

--'Garden State'

What is family? They were the people who claimed you. In good, in bad, in parts or in whole, they were the ones who showed up, who stayed in there, regardless.

I watched my mother do what she did best, and realized there would never be a way to cut myself from her entirely. No matter how strong or weak I was, she was a part of me, as crucial as my own heart. I would never be strong enough, in all my life, to do without her.

"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

--Leo Tolstoy