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.

We're all just walking each other home.

All quotes by Ram Dass

“Either you do it like it’s a big weight on you or you do it as part of the dance.”

“I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion — and where it isn’t, that’s where my work lies.”

“We're all just walking each other home.”

“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”

“We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.”

“As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.”

“The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.”

“The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.”

“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”

“Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.”

“I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love.”

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.”

You have nothing to prove to anybody.

"Can You imagine? For example, what the trees do not only do in lightening storms or the watery dark of a summer's night or under the white nets of winter but now, and now, and now - whenever we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine they don't dance, from the root up, wishing to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly more shade - surely you can't imagine they just stand there loving every minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings of the years slowly and without a sound thickening, and nothing different unless the wind, and then only in its own mood, comes to visit, surely you can't imagine patience, and happiness, like that."

--Mary Oliver

"And if these pictures have anything to say to future generations, it's this; I was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture."

--'One Hour Photo'

“I have less time, less tolerance for bullshit, more interest in good taste, more confidence in my own judgement. The culture with which I surround myself is a reflection of my personality and the circumstances of my life, which is in part how it should be.”

--Nick Hornsby

“I’ve tried so many times to think of a new way to say it— and it’s still I love you— love you— love you.”

--Zelda Fitzgerald

“I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me.”

--F. Scott Fitzgerald

“When she walked she carried herself like a ballet-dancer, not slumped down on her hips but held up in the small of her back.”

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

“No one wants to admit we’re addicted to music. That’s just not possible. No one’s addicted to music and television and radio. We just need more of it, more channels, a larger screen, more volume. We can’t bear to be without it, but no, nobody’s addicted. We could turn it off anytime we wanted.”

--Chuck Palahniuk, 'Lullaby'

“I was wise enough to never grow up while fooling most people into believing I had.”

--Margaret Mead

“Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you."

--Annie Dillard

"The bitter taste of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of the low price is gone."

--Unknown

“Real style is never right or wrong. It’s a matter of being yourself—on purpose.”

--G. Bruce Boyer, Gary Cooper: Enduring Style

"If you can't walk the red carpet in your own home, where then?"

--Carolyne Roehm

“Time wounds all heels.”

--Jane Ace

"Create your own visual style. Let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others."

--Orson Welles

"Real success is finding your lifework, in the work that you love."

--David McCullough

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.”

--Tyler Durden, 'Fight Club'

“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”

--Maya Angelou

"There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one."

--Kazuo Ishiguro

"Write drunk; edit sober."

--Ernest Hemingway

“She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking that made you wonder whether she really saw out of her own eyes. They would look on and on after every one else’s eyes in the world would have stopped looking.”

--Ernest Hemingway, 'The Sun Also Rises'

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”

--Marcel Proust

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

--E.E. Cummings

“The picture you have in your mind of what you’re about will come true. It’s kind of a thing you kinda have to keep to your own self because it’s a fragile feeling and you put it out there, somebody’ll kill it. So, it’s best to keep that all inside.”

--Bob Dylan

"Perhaps love is the process of gently leading you back to yourself."

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“It may be normal, darling; but I’d rather be natural.”

--Truman Capote

“When you eventually see through the veils to how things really are, you will keep saying again and again, this is certainly not like we thought it was.”

--Rumi

I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer.

"The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change her future by merely changing her attitude."

--Oprah Winfrey

“O! It’s nice to get up in the morning. But it’s nicer to stay in bed.”

--Harry Lauder

“I have had a holiday, and I'd like to take it up professionally."

--Kylie Minogue

"Between the wish and the thing the world lies waiting."

--Cormac McCarthy

“Fashion isn’t just frocks. It’s how we do our houses, our gardens - it’s what we eat and drink.”

--Grace Coddington

“If you are all wrapped up in yourself, you are overdressed.”

--Kate Halverson

“I believe part of the process of figuring yourself out is a way of connecting the dots between the fabulous and influential people around us all, like some sort of hidden constellation—you only have to know where to look.”

--Ashley Olsen

“Long hair minimizes the need for barbers; socks can be done without; one leather jacket solves the coat problem for many years; suspenders are superfluous.”

--Albert Einstein

“All I’ve ever done is dream. That, and only that, has been the meaning of my existence. The only thing I’ve ever really cared about is my inner life. My greatest griefs faded to nothing the moment I opened the window onto my inner self and lost myself in watching. I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness…”

--Fernando Pessoa

“I got my feet on the ground and I don’t go to sleep to dream.”

--Fiona Apple

“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.”

--Sara Teasdale

“I may not have been sure about what really did interest me, but I was absolutely sure about what didn’t.”

--Albert Camus

“I am still so naive; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?”

--Sylvia Plath

“How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself.”

--Anais Nin

“That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”

--John Green

"Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting."

--John Green

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.”

--Marlene Dietrich

“I wouldn't mind living my life capturing the moments of others.”

--Unknown

“If he wrote it he could get rid of it. He had gotten rid of many things by writing about them.”

--Ernest Hemingway, 'Fathers and Sons'

“It pains me to realize I’ll never get to actually live in these well written worlds, but at least I can stay for a little while.”

--Unknown

“I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.”

--Markus Zusak

“Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.”

--Neil Gaiman

“Anyone who knows me, should learn to know me again;

For I am like the Moon,

you will see me with new face everyday.”

--Rumi

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”

--Rumi

“Appreciate how rare and full of potential your situation is in this world, then take joy in it, and use it to your best advantage.”

--Dalai Lama

“As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.”

--Joan Baez

“Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

--Marcus Aurelius

“It is not about how others are or how society is. The most important thing is to ask yourself, “What should I do?” and “What can I do?” One who stands up with moral courage and conviction can change society and create waves of transformation around the world.”

--Daisaku Ikeda

“So I dressed with remaining ceramics, furniture and objects; so I placed a message in each, a small story, at times ironic and obviously wordless, but audible to those who believe in poetry.”

--Piero Fornasetti

always panting, forever distracted

in the sleepiness of night I feel like I can say anything. you feel good drunk in the dark. you feel good in my dreams. you are still swelling and ghosting while I am waiting for you. I’ve tried to gather greater amounts of strength than fifths of vodka or offering clumsy poems to lonely people.

God, it’s so sad when the people don’t feel like poems anymore.

In high school I scrambled after them, waited and watched, fell in love with people who had no idea it was in me to be so brave. And what a dangerous thing it is to want someone against all the odds, right? How I listened tentatively to every person who poured secrets in hallways they didn’t know I was listening in. I could count on all your hands the strangers I’ve wanted to kiss.

But this isn’t about them. It’s about the things you’ve said to me in secret when you were younger, waiting for this world to gobble you up, spit your love out like sunflower seeds in summer when the days go on and on forever. How I like the way you move in your sleep. I like the way you touch the ends of my hair sometimes when you’re thinking about things I’m trying my hardest to figure out without asking. I’ve never wanted someone so much all of the time. Tell me this could chip the moon, this could send shivers down the spine of all those saps we ever loved before. Is it lonely to chase after things that you can only get so close to? tossing wishes into wells, these are the things that break days. guilt and moments you can’t have when you want them most, this is the stuff in jazz music and hope, the stuff that makes poets and fills notebooks. Tell me, could the chaos ever accept you too?

--Ashli Wood

Give up to grace.

"Some of my best moments on earth have been spent with my dogs."

--Oprah Winfrey

“Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.”

--Allen Ginsberg

“We all basically have a lot of magic; it’s only those of us who choose to accept it that really understand it. It’s there for everyone.”

--Stevie Nicks

“Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”

--Rumi

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

--Ernest Hemingway

“The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure….you are above everything distressing.”

--Spinoza

“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.”

--Voltaire

“Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.”

--Iris Murdoch

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”

--Vladimir Nabokov, 'Lolita'

"I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings, and I've never been too impressed."

--Bob Dylan

“You can’t give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside - so be it. But at least you know you’ve tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of one hundred years outside of it.”

--Robert Plant

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.”

--Jim Morrison

“You think you’re lost without any place left to go, like you need one of those kisses long and slow. At first glance it’s not what it seems, but there’s some things that I just know, like you take two sugars with a splash of cream. Take a guess where I stand. Pick a number from one to two. Take a look at the back of your hand. Just like you know it, you know me too.”

--Dwight Yoakum, 'The Back of Your Hand'

“The goal in life is to discover that you’ve always been where you were supposed to be.”

--Aldous Huxley

“The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her.”

--Marcelene Cox

“You’re thinking too much. Just let it flow.”

--E. Paluszak

“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel— as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them—wherever you go.”

--Anthony Bourdain

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”

--Alan Alda

“When you are here and now, sitting totally, not jumping ahead, the miracle has happened. To be in the moment is the miracle.”

--Osho

“In my soul, I am still that small child who did not care about anything else but the beautiful colors of a rainbow.”

--Papiha Ghosh

“I promise myself that I will enjoy every minute of the day that is given me to live.”

--Thich Nhat Hanh

“All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there. You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave until it gets to shore.”

--Rumi

“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

--Tallulah Bankhead

“The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing.”

--Jaggi Vasudev

“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”

--Willa Cather

“Everyone has ocean’s to fly, if they have the heart to do it. Is it reckless? Maybe. But what do dreams know of boundaries?”

--Amelia Earhart

“The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.”

--Henry David Thoreau

“Gastronomical perfection can be reached in these combinations: one person dining alone, usually upon a couch or a hill side; two people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good restaurant; six people, of no matter what sex or age, dining in a good home.”

--M.F.K. Fisher, 'An Alphabet for Gourmets'

“..But the moment I got back in my car I knew I would never see him again, ever. It suddenly seemed obvious to me that the whole world, especially Los Angeles, was designed to protect me from these people I was meeting. There was no law against knowing them, but it wouldn’t happen. LA isn’t a walking city, or a subway city, so if someone isn’t in my house or my car we’ll never be together, not even for a moment. And just to be absolutely sure of that, when I leave my car my iPhone escorts me, letting everyone else in the post office know that I’m not really with them, I’m with my own people, who are so hilarious that I can’t help smiling to myself as I text them back.”

--Miranda July, 'It Chooses You'

sometimes

you have to take

a step or

two

back,

re-treat

take

a month

off

don’t

do anything

don’t

want to

do anything

peace is

paramount

pace is

paramount

whatever

you want

you aren’t going to

get

it by

trying too

hard.

--Charles Bukowski