Eva > Eva's Quotes

“Without the dark there isn’t light. Without the pain there is no relief. And I remind myself that I’m lucky to be able to feel such great sorrow, and also such great happiness. I can grab on to each moment of joy and live in those moments because I have seen the bright contrast from dark to light and back again. I am privileged to be able to recognize that the sound of laughter is a blessing and a song, and to realize that the bright hours spent with my family and friends are extraordinary treasures to be saved, because those same moments are a medicine, a balm. Those moments are a promise that life is worth fighting for, and that promise is what pulls me through when depression distorts reality and tries to convince me otherwise.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“It was freezing, but the cold effortlessly numbed my feet and aching hands. I walked quietly, barefoot, to the end of the block, leaving my shoes behind to remind me how to find my way home. I stood at the end of the street, catching snow in my mouth, and laughed softly to myself as I realized that without my insomnia and anxiety and pain I’d never have been awake to see the city that never sleeps asleep and blanketed up for winter. I smiled and felt silly, but in the best possible way. As I turned and looked back toward the hotel I noticed that my footprints leading out into the city were mismatched. One side was glistening, small and white. The other was misshapen from my limp and each heel was pooled with spots of bright red blood. It struck me as a metaphor for my life. One side light and magical. Always seeing the good. Lucky. The other side bloodied, stumbling. Never quite able to keep up. It was like the Jesus-beach-footprint-in-the-sand poem, except with less Jesus and more bleeding. It was my life, there in white and red. And I was grateful for it. “Um, miss?” It was the man from the front desk leaning tentatively out of the front door with a concerned look on his face. “Coming,” I said. I felt a bit foolish and considered trying to clarify but then thought better of it. There was no way to explain to this stranger how my mental illness had just gifted me with a magical moment. I realized it would have sounded a bit crazy, but that made sense. After all, I was a bit crazy. And I didn’t even have to pretend to be good at it. I was a damn natural.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Do you know about the spoons? Because you should. The Spoon Theory was created by a friend of mine, Christine Miserandino, to explain the limits you have when you live with chronic illness. Most healthy people have a seemingly infinite number of spoons at their disposal, each one representing the energy needed to do a task. You get up in the morning. That’s a spoon. You take a shower. That’s a spoon. You work, and play, and clean, and love, and hate, and that’s lots of damn spoons … but if you are young and healthy you still have spoons left over as you fall asleep and wait for the new supply of spoons to be delivered in the morning. But if you are sick or in pain, your exhaustion changes you and the number of spoons you have. Autoimmune disease or chronic pain like I have with my arthritis cuts down on your spoons. Depression or anxiety takes away even more. Maybe you only have six spoons to use that day. Sometimes you have even fewer. And you look at the things you need to do and realize that you don’t have enough spoons to do them all. If you clean the house you won’t have any spoons left to exercise. You can visit a friend but you won’t have enough spoons to drive yourself back home. You can accomplish everything a normal person does for hours but then you hit a wall and fall into bed thinking, “I wish I could stop breathing for an hour because it’s exhausting, all this inhaling and exhaling.” And then your husband sees you lying on the bed and raises his eyebrow seductively and you say, “No. I can’t have sex with you today because there aren’t enough spoons,” and he looks at you strangely because that sounds kinky, and not in a good way. And you know you should explain the Spoon Theory so he won’t get mad but you don’t have the energy to explain properly because you used your last spoon of the morning picking up his dry cleaning so instead you just defensively yell: “I SPENT ALL MY SPOONS ON YOUR LAUNDRY,” and he says, “What the … You can’t pay for dry cleaning with spoons. What is wrong with you?” Now you’re mad because this is his fault too but you’re too tired to fight out loud and so you have the argument in your mind, but it doesn’t go well because you’re too tired to defend yourself even in your head, and the critical internal voices take over and you’re too tired not to believe them. Then you get more depressed and the next day you wake up with even fewer spoons and so you try to make spoons out of caffeine and willpower but that never really works. The only thing that does work is realizing that your lack of spoons is not your fault, and to remind yourself of that fact over and over as you compare your fucked-up life to everyone else’s just-as-fucked-up-but-not-as-noticeably-to-outsiders lives. Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don’t see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he’s fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he’s dead. So technically I’m better than Galileo because all I’ve done is take a shower and already I’ve accomplished more than him today. If we were having a competition I’d have beaten him in daily accomplishments every damn day of my life. But I’m not gloating because Galileo can’t control his current spoon supply any more than I can, and if Galileo couldn’t figure out how to keep his dwindling spoon supply I think it’s pretty unfair of me to judge myself for mine. I’ve learned to use my spoons wisely. To say no. To push myself, but not too hard. To try to enjoy the amazingness of life while teetering at the edge of terror and fatigue.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“I wish someone had told me this simple but confusing truth: Even when everything’s going your way you can still be sad. Or anxious. Or uncomfortably numb. Because you can’t always control your brain or your emotions even when things are perfect.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“Wat was trouwens onkruid? Een plant die niemand plantte? Een zaadje ontsnapt aan de jas van een reiziger, iets wat er niet thuishoorde? Was het iets wat beter groeide dan wat er had moeten staan? Was het niet gewoon een woord, onkruid, met een sliert aan vooroordelen? Onkruid, onding. Onnuttig. Ongewenst.”
― Janet Fitch

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

“She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realise, to make someone you care about laugh.”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

“Third, nobody ever really listens to anybody else's complaints, anyhow, because we're all too focused on our own holy struggle, so basically you're just talking to a brick wall.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“She smiled sweetly at everyone and always acted like a total cooperator - but then she shaped her own world exactly to her liking while nobody was looking.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

“And, just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then, in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“I've never had a coconut chilli Martini before,' I tell him. 'That's the thing with getting older. You run out of new things to try.' 'Oh, I don't know,' he says, still the optimist. 'I have lived beside one ocean or another most of my life and I have yet to see the same wave twice. It's the mana, you see. It's everywhere. It's never still. It keeps the world new. The whole planet is a coconut chilli Martini.”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

“Many of us have every material thing we need, so the job of marketing is now to tie the economy to our emotions, to make us feel like we need more by making us want things we never needed before. We are made to feel poor on thirty thousand pounds a year. To feel poorly travelled if we have been to only ten other countries. To feel old if we have a wrinkle. To feel ugly if we aren't photoshopped and filtered.”
― Matt Haig, How to Stop Time

“Van toen af aan heb ik gedacht dat we huilen omdat ons lichaam iets probeert te verwerken wat ons hart en verstand te veel is.”
― Saroo Brierley, A Long Way Home

“I didn't know if I should hug him, and he didn't seem to know if he should hug me, so we just sort of stood there not touching, which to be honest is my preferred form of greeting.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“I definitely felt attracted to some people, and I liked the idea of being with someone, but the actual mechanics of it didn't much suit my talents. Like, parts of typical romantic relationships that made me anxious included 1. Kissing; 2. Having to say the right things to avoid hurt feelings; 3. Saying more wrong things while trying to apologize; 4. Being at a movie theater and feeling obligated to hold hands even after your hands become sweaty and the sweat starts mixing together; and 5. The part where they say, "What are you thinking about?" And they want you to be, like, "I'm thinking about you, darling," but you're actually thinking about how cows literally could not survive if it weren't for the bacteria in their guts, and how that sort of means that cows do not exist as independent life-forms, but that's not really something you can say out loud, so you're ultimately forced to choose between lying and seeming weird.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“Zijn gedachten waren waarschijnlijk zo in beslag genomen door de agenda van de dag en de wens om niet te laat te komen, dat de omgeving niet meer dan een groene vlek was geweest met een heuvel als achtergrond. Het leven was heel anders als je er doorheen wandelde.”
― Rachel Joyce

“Tegenwoordig haalde ik meer herinneringen uit mijn geheugenbank dan ik erin stopte.
Ooit kwam misschien de dag dat ik niets anders meer had dan mijn herinneringen en moest kiezen of ik de overhand gaf aan mijn romantische kant en me erin zou onderdompelen, of aan mijn cynische kant en zou twijfelen aan hun betrouwbaarheid.”
― Graeme Simsion, The Best of Adam Sharp

“En natuurlijk is dat makkelijker gezegd dan geloofd. Je bent depressief en voelt je een last voor de mensen om je heen. Dat lijkt logisch en zwart-wit. Maar dat betekent niet dat alles zwart is.' Ze strijkt met haar hand over het tafelblad. 'Net als bij een schaakbord; de andere helft van het bord is wit. Want je kunt het ook omdraaien: blijkbaar willen mensen ondanks jouw "lastigheid" ontzettend veel moeite voor je doen. Dat zegt iets over jou, over wie je bent en vooral ook over hoeveel jij op jouw beurt aan hen teruggeeft.' Ze staat op en zet haar kopje op het aanrecht. 'Jij staat nu jammer genoeg op zwart, en dat is ontzettend vervelend, maar probeer toch om je heen te kijken. Te kijken of er ook andere kanten zitten aan de dingen die je nu door de depressie gelooft. Want hoe gek het ook klinkt, als je op zwart staat, dan zijn alle vlakjes om je heen wit.”
― Myrthe van der Meer, Up

“De evolutionair psychologen zouden best eens gelijk kunnen hebben. Misschien zijn wij mensen inderdaad te ver doorgeëvolueerd en is de prijs die we betalen voor onze intelligentie, waardoor we de eerste soort zijn die zich volledig bewust is van de kosmos, het vermogen om een heel universum aan duisternis te voelen.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“Depressie is ook kleiner dan jij. Zij is altijd kleiner dan jij, zelfs al lijkt ze onmetelijk. Ze zit binnen in jou, niet andersom. Als een donkere wolk die overtrekt, maar - als dat de metafoor is- dan ben jij de lucht. Jij was er eerder. En een luchtloze wolk bestaat niet, maar een wolkeloze lucht wel.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“But as he stood, rubbing his eyes in the early morning light, he started to feel scared. He had fallen asleep so full of courage and wild ideas, but was awakened by fears leaping around inside his chest; a feeling that, most of all, he wanted to go back to safety, to his bed, to his village in Orissa, and to his family.”
― Per J. Andersson, The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love

“But unfortunately the depth of the lows is the price you pay for the height of the highs.”
― Adam Kay, This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Peter turned his attention to Gus, asking, "You know how we make a Scotch and water in this home?"
"No, sir," Gus said.
"We pour Scotch into a glass and then call to mind thoughts of water, and then we mix the actual Scotch with the abstracted idea of water.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Modern life seems set up so that we can avoid loneliness at all costs, but maybe it’s worthwhile to face it occasionally. The further we push aloneness away, the less are we able to cope with it, and the more terrifying it gets.”
― Michael Finkel, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit

“I am not a daredevil. I am not an adrenaline junkie. In fact, I wouldn't even call myself mildy athletic, seeing as the last time I ran was for a taxi home on a Friday night after a few too many at The Black Boar. I've generally been known to tuck away in my little cottage with a good book and go to the library and wander through the labyrinths of shelves or make a cup of tea and spend a lazy day gazing at a computer screen. Even on my days off.”
― Colleen Coleman, For Once in My Life

“Social anxiety is a completely normal experience. We are social animals. We want to be accepted by our peer groups and we do not want to be rejected. If people do not have any social anxiety, something is seriously wrong with them.”
― Jessica Pan, Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously