Justine

“But one person’s more-sad doesn’t cancel out another person’s less-sad. The fact that an earthquake took out a whole city block”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“You see yourself the way you think the world sees you, so you value yourself only when you are accomplishing and producing and finishing and succeeding. If you can’t value yourself, then there’s no reason to get up every morning, and if there’s no reason to get up, then . . . what? You feel untethered, as if someone has turned off gravity and you’ve been spun into infinite space, a black hole that demands, WHAT’S THE POINT OF YOU?”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“In certain moments—driving on the 405 freeway through the brown, flower-flecked hills of the Sepulveda Pass; preparing to dive into the ginlike waters of the pool at the Rosebowl Aquatic Center, where the San Gabriel Valley heat roils off the concrete and my skin gets too tan and my hair bleaches out and some part of me morphs back into the sun-dried child I was in the very beginning—I have to ask myself why it all feels so familiar. Is it a sign that I have truly transformed, that I have become not just a Californian but, in a general sense, Californian? Or is it simply a resetting of the bones of the Californian I’ve always been?”
― Meghan Daum, The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion

“I offer my dreams as a source of love to the world. In their fulfillment I will bring a message of light to all that I touch.”
― Sonia Choquette, Your Heart's Desire: Instructions for Creating the Life You Really Want