Jillian > Jillian's Quotes

“There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it.”
― Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

“What came first—the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?”
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

“We can and should complain about certain horrors of the modern world, but when it comes to the treatment of mental illness, the advances made in the last hundred years have been far more significant than the space program, nuclear fission, or even The Wire, for so many fortunate people.”
― Rob Delaney, Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

“As a Facebook summer intern once told me, “In my school’s computer science department, there are more Daves than girls.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In for Graduates

“So please ask yourself: What would I do if I weren’t afraid? And then go do it.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In for Graduates

“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“There’s not much you can do with the fact that, statistically, the least black band on Earth is Belle & Sebastian, or that the flash in a snapshot makes a person look seven years older, except to say huh, and maybe repeat it at a dinner party.”
― Christian Rudder, Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves

“The era of data is here; we are now recorded. That, like all change, is frightening, but between the gunmetal gray of the government and the hot pink of product offers we just can’t refuse, there is an open and ungarish way. To use data to know yet not manipulate, to explore but not to pry, to protect but not to smother, to see yet never expose, and, above all, to repay that priceless gift we bequeath to the world when we share our lives so that other lives might be better—and to fulfill for everyone that oldest of human hopes, from Gilgamesh to Ramses to today: that our names be remembered, not only in stone but as part of memory itself.”
― Christian Rudder, Dataclysm: Love, Sex, Race, and Identity--What Our Online Lives Tell Us about Our Offline Selves

“...I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“I highly recommend inviting the worst-case scenario into your life. I met Ellen when I was 168 pounds and she loved me. She didn’t see that I was heavy; she only saw the person inside. My two greatest fears, being fat and being gay, when realized, led to my greatest joy. It’s ironic, really, when all I’ve ever wanted is to be loved for my true self, and yet I tried so hard to present myself as anything other than who I am. And I didn’t just one day wake up and be true to myself. Ellen saw a glimpse of my inner being from underneath the flesh and bone, reached in, and pulled me out.”
― Portia de Rossi, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain

“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have? What if I was a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I'd done other than because it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go back in time I wouldn't do anything differently than I had done? What if I'd actually wanted to fuck every one of those men? What if heroin taught me something? What if yes was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do all those things everyone thought I shouldn't have done was what also had got me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“And she did not have to ask if this were right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect.”
― Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt

“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”
― Portia Nelson, There's a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery