My Oxford Year Quotes

“But the hardest thing is staying. The hardest thing is living with dying. Loving with dying. The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“It turns out, the act of making a choice, of choosing a path, doesn't mean the other path disappears. It just means that it will forever run parallel to the one you're on. It means you have to live with knowing what you gave up.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Our memories of places, much like people, are subject to our own adaptation process. Once the active living is done, and they pass into memory, we assume control of the narrative. We adapt it, sometimes without meaning to. This is, perhaps, the one advantage of death: when people die, they can live on in our memory as we choose, but places continue to exist, to change.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Now, we don't always get to choose what happens in life, don't we all know. However, we can choose what we do with what we're given.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“When you feel more than you can say, when words fail you, when syntax and grammar and well-constructed expressions are choked from your mind and all that's left is raw feeling, a few broken words come forth. I'd like to believe those words, when everything's stripped away, might be the key to it all. The meaning of life. I'd like to think it's possible to remain so devoted to someone's memory that fifty-nine years later, when all the noise of life is muted, the lats gasp passing over your lips is that person's name.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Maybe, once you come to realize that there are no answers, you learn to live with the questions.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“It occurs to me now, that being called upon to do something because you're good at it is not the same thing as having a calling.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“I came to Oxford looking for a Once-in-a-Lifetime Experience. I chose to experience a lifetime.
I know that one day he will lose to the waterfall, slip behind its turbulent curtain forever, lost to me like something out of a fairy tale. But in our story, there's no villain, no witch, no fairy godmother, no moral imperative or cautionary conclusion. No happily-ever-after.
It just is. It's life.
The water keeps flowing as we come and go.
We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone and are loved by someone, you might find forever after.
Whatever and wherever it is.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Losing someone is hard enough. But death without the process of dying is an abomination. It takes nine months to create life; it feels unnatural, a sin against nature, that the reverse shouldn't also have its time. Time to let go of the known as we take hold of the unknown.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“He always said that waiting for me to learn how to talk was like waiting for his long-lost friend to arrive.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“We already have each other's back. To protect, not stab. That's universal sisterhood, no matter which country you come from.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“To truly experience a poem, you need to feel it. A poem is alive, it has a voice. It is a person. Who are they? Why are they? Hearing her words, as she speaks to you, you think and feel certain things. Just as, hearing my words now, you think and feel certain things. Reading poetry is a conversation of feeling between two people. It shouldn’t answer anything, it should only create more questions, like any good conversation. What did she make you feel? That’s what I wanted you to examine.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“If you don't open yourself up to life, how can you ever be surprised?”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone, and are loved by someone, you might find forever after. Whatever and wherever that is.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Become the woman who stands up to this bullshit. Become the woman who challenges the patriarchal playbook.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all the things I cannot change. Love that doesn’t follow a plan.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Losing someone is hard enough. But death without the process of dying is an abomination.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“When you feel more than you can say, when words fail you, when syntax and grammar and well-constructed expressions are choked from your mind and all that's left is raw feeling, a few broken words come forth. I'd like to believe those words, when everything's stripped away, might be the key to it all.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“I know that one day he will lose to the waterfall, slip behind its turbulent curtain forever, lost to me like something out of a fairy tale. But in our story, there's no villain, no witch, no fairy godmother, no moral imperative or cautionary conclusion. No happily-ever-after. It just is. It's life. The water keeps flowing as we come and go. We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone, and are loved by someone, you might find forever after. Whatever and wherever that is.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“knowing when to let go. release onself. there's nothing worse than being caught, trapped in indecisiveness.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness, Yours still, you mine; remember all the best Of our past moments, and forget the rest; And so, to where I wait, come gently on.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“I thought the hardest thing I'd have to do was leave him in June.
But the hardest thing is staying. The hardest thing is living with dying. Loving with dying. The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn't follow a plan.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“If you know how a book is going to end, why keep on with it?”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom. —Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“We’ve a saying in the English faculty. Sex is literature, literature is sex.”

“Metaphorically?”

“Elementally. If you’re reading something, and you ask yourself, is this about sex, the answer’s yes. It’s always yes. Because everything is sex and sex is everything. It’s love, and lust, and intimacy, yes, but it’s also power, and violence, and domination. Hell, it’s creation. Genesis. The beginning of everything.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“We were never forever. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone and are loved by someone, you might fight forever after.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one's life. One sees shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon's head, and one suffers, because it does not return one to stone. -- Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson (December 28, 1898) in the beginning of the book”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“Frankly, I'm kind of in love with this life.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face . . . William Butler Yeats, “When You Are Old,” 1891”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year