Amanda

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

“Does your need seem big to you? Then make sure God knows how big it looks to your eyes, and He will treat it as such. He will never belittle it, however trivial. He will not laugh at it, or at us. He never forgets how large our problems look to us.”
― Corrie ten Boom, Don't Wrestle, Just Nestle

“When Joy looked at humans, she saw animals so detached from the food chain that their own boredom was eating them alive. None of their instincts made sense to them; they were primates adorning themselves with skins and shiny things, all swagger and posturing with no idea what it's for. They were grotesque and ridiculous, and she loved them so, so much. They were all doing their best, and their best was just an appalling disaster. That was why she loved the nursing home; the residents were humans stripped of all their pumped-up self-regard, scared and forced to put their whole trust in someone else for the first time since childhood. How could you hate humanity after seeing them in that state, helpless and afraid, watching their strength trickle away? Even the worst of them, when reduced to that, become something that just needs to be fed and bathed and comforted. They begin that way, and they end that way, and you can't really get too mad about the stuff they do in the middle.”
― Jason Pargin, If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe

“Stories aren't fiction. Stories are fabric. They're the white sheets we drape over our ghosts so we can see them.”
― Sarah Addison Allen, Other Birds