Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

Bravery, Joan suspected, is almost always a lie. Courage is all we have.

I want to spend my energy thinking not of how my actions might be frowned upon by a man in the sky, but how my actions affect every living and non-living thing around me. Life is God. My life is tied to yours, and to everyone’s on this planet. How does that not instantly make us more in debt to one another? And also offer us the comfort that we are not alone?”

But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

“Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.”