Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time Quotes

“It was a dream you had in your twenties, Liv!” she said, cutting me off. “It wasn’t just a dream!” I shouted. “It was my whole identity. And I just abandoned it. And now I’m lost. I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do.” “Dreams change, Liv. People change.” I took her comment as an insult. “What does that mean?” She sighed. “It means you’re already living the dream. But you’re so stuck in the past that you can’t see it.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Time. That’s the problem. There’s never enough. We’re running out.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“There is no such thing as a perfect life. There are only perfect moments.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Sometimes, you just have to sit quietly with your grief and give it room to breathe. You have to acknowledge that it is a part of you, and that it probably always will be.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“That was the thing I’d only recently come to understand: that we aren’t born with one life, but with two. The life we live before we understand loss, and the one we finally live once we realize that, despite our many efforts, our life will ultimately end.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“To anyone who has a goal she keeps putting off. Stop waiting. There is no perfect time. No perfect circumstance. The time will pass anyway. Don’t put your dream off anymore. You owe it to yourself to write your own story.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Andrew saw right through my bullshit. I was like a human Tootsie Pop; he always knew when I was hiding something else in my core.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“That was the thing I was learning about death. Once you acknowledged that it was coming, you didn’t have time to feel afraid anymore.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“These are the days that must happen to you . . . —Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“For too many years, I’d taken for granted so many aspects of my life while on a quest to check off the few boxes I’d yet to complete. It was like that scattering of blank squares had left a blankness in me. It wasn’t until I began to chase them down that I realized that I could still have a full life, even if they remained empty. That I could be content, yet still have dreams. You have a damn good life, Olivia Strauss. That I could simultaneously exist in both those spaces and be happy.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Lastly: To anyone who has a goal she keeps putting off. Stop waiting. There is no perfect time. No perfect circumstance. The time will pass anyway. Don’t put your dream off anymore. You owe it to yourself to write your own story.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“I guess that’s one thing you learn with age: the fact that our bodies and our hearts are capable of taking on so much. Birth. Death. All the events that unfold in between.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Remember when we were in college, back when everything felt so fun? When the whole world felt possible?” I sighed. “When did life stop feeling like that?”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“We’d known each other for only a few months, but already it had felt like years. College is unique in that way. Time is compressed. Friendships are fast-tracked. One minute, you’re strangers; the next, you eat greasy takeout together every night and shower in the same hallway.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Why do you hang out with those women?” Marian asked. “You don’t even like them. Didn’t you tell me that more than one has a stick figure family stuck on the back of her car?” “It’s complicated,” I said. “We live on the same block.” “Three drug dealers live on my block,” Marian offered. “Should I start inviting them over for potlucks?”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Once we got through the week, the month, the school year, the holidays, the nonsense, the stress, we’d find time to do the things we longed to do. But then we never did. Life, it turned out, could wait.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Adulthood is funny. Once you hit a certain age, everyone stops talking about their pasts. I hardly knew where the women on our street had gone to college. I didn’t know their maiden names.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“I’ve been a list maker my whole adult life. Lists have always made me feel in control, like I could easily manage any earthly calamity so long as I organized the solution into the appropriate number of bullet points.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Well, when we’re young, we live more authentically. But as we get older and become closer to our deaths, our perception changes. We live in a more fearful state.” I felt everyone staring at me. “It’s ironic because it’s when we’re older—when we’re approaching death and running out of time to live—that we should embrace life. However, most of us do the opposite.” I set my book on the table. I didn’t want to speak anymore.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“I want to get out of my own way and finally learn to live my fucking life again.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“Life. It never just happened in the moment; it was always three steps ahead.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“You know, it’s okay to be happy and to still have things about your life that you want to change.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time

“But that’s the thing I’ve only recently come to understand about birthdays. They’re not about presents or streamers. They’re not about parties or pictures or petite pastel candles on your cake. They’re about having a brief sense of hope. For that one day, we’re able to close the door on our mistakes and cling to the false idea that we’ll approach the next year wiser. We make wishes. We blow out candles. We tell ourselves this will be our year.”
― Angela Brown, Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time