Twenty-Two Quotes

“The best of times can also bring the hardest of changes, and the high you're on now may soon dip into an aching of uncertainty and questions you can't answer yet.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“Had we but world enough and time.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“A vocation today is more often like a road trip, with no set course or destination. All you have are the combined limits and opportunities of the car you are driving, the gas in your tank, and the many roads unrolling before you that will lead to innumerable places exciting and new. Of course, you may end up taking a roundabout course to get somewhere, but what makes the road trip worthwhile may be the very time spent on the scenic route. So ease off the gas pedal a bit and take some time to choose your soundtrack. Stop for photos at the lookouts.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“I love liberal arts colleges because they require you to sample every dish at the banquet table of knowledge, and I had a smorgasbord.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“I can't give you all the answers, but I hope I can help you ask some good questions. I think asking, the very act of it, is our lifeblood. Wonder and courage pump through us as we question, giving breath to our beings, strength to our bones. Some days it's tempting to live in concrete planes of black and white, but the world is full of color, and growing up is learning how to navigate the hues and the infinite gradients of grey.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“Once upon a time, I believed that who I was today didn't matter as much as who I would become. That what mattered most was whether I achieved the goals I set for myself, the goals I felt called to. I believed that hitting the sands of some tropical shore was what made the sailing trip worthwhile. But God wasn't waiting for me to get somewhere. He saw my life, the entire span of it, from birth to death, all at once. And he loved me as I was and as I am and also as I will be, in some eternal moment outside of time.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“I envy this new adventure you're stepping into. I envy it in the way I would envy a friend setting off to sail the Pacific. I know there will be sea-green days of sickness, ink-black nights of storms, and salt-encrusted everything. There will be exhaustion and disorientation. and loss, and so much open ocean you could go blind from all the blue. But I envy that what's staring you straight in the face is nothing but that open ocean. The setting that will bring your miseries will also carry new worlds of delight: the bronze sun above, the wind whipping your hair, adventure stowed like treasure beneath your mainsail. Nothing but you and your boat and the possibility of a sea that will shape you and teach you ten thousand things you never knew about yourself, and would never have known, had you not left the comfort of the familiar wood dock.

Change is fraught with uncertainty and fear. But it's an exhilarating fear, don't you think?”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning

“It's the second of September, and everything is changing -- the pace of the streets, the weight of the air -- as nature turns its colors in gold anticipation. Summer has yawned its last afternoon, our espadrilles have been traded for argyle, and everyone is walking with a briskness in their step. Fall is my favorite season. It feels like life is moving, the world is tilting, the hemisphere is bowing its annual curtsy to meet the coming chill.

I think I love fall because I love new beginnings.”
― Allison Trowbridge, Twenty-Two: Letters to a Young Woman Searching for Meaning