The Heart Principle Quotes

“No one should need a diagnosis in order to be compassionate to themself.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“All I can do is go forward, and to do that, I must stop chasing perfection. It doesn't exist. I can never please everyone. It's hard enough just pleasing myself. Instead, I must focus on giving what I have, not what people want, because that is all I can give.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I do wonder if she’s acting just like I am. How much of what people say is genuine and how much is politeness? Is anyone really living their life or are we all reading lines from a giant script written by other people?”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“For that’s the only place where true perfection exists—the blank page. Nothing I actually do can compete with the boundless potential of what I could do. But if I allow the fear of imperfection to trap me in perpetual beginnings, I’ll never create anything again.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“The only good thing this broken heart of mine can feel is love for you.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“The thing with feelings is they pass. Hearts aren’t designed to feel anything too intensely for too long, be it joy, sorrow, or anger. Everything passes in time. All colors fade.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean we need to throw it away.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“People like me better when I make them feel good about themselves.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I walk home in a sort of trance. It’s not until passing pedestrians give me double takes and odd looks that I realize I’m crying. I don’t try to stop. I let the tears fall. I cry for the girl I used to be. I cry for me. It’s a foreign experience. Self-pity is not an indulgence that I allow myself. This doesn’t feel like pity, though. It feels like self-compassion, and the realization makes me cry harder. No one should need a diagnosis in order to be compassionate to themself.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Smiles are real when they reach your eyes.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Tough love is brutally honest and hurts you to help you. Tough love cuts you when you're already bruised and berates you when you don't heal faster.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“As a society, we need to have compassion for all people affected by illness and disability—and that means those who receive care as well as those who give care. We all matter, and no one should feel like they can’t ask for help when they need it. If someone says they’re hurting, please listen. Please take them seriously. Please be kind. If you’re hurting, please be kind to yourself.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“It’s not winning the race that’s important. It’s this moment right here, when I’m lying in the mud staring up at the dark sky with rain falling in my eyes. It’s facing the pain, facing failure, facing myself, and finding a way to make it to the end.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I'd like you to watch what you're doing and saying, and if it's something that doesn't feel right and true to who you are, if it's something that exhausts you or makes you unhappy, take a look at why you are doing it. And if there isn't a good reason... try not doing it.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“They’d tell me to quit indulging myself and snap out of it. Tough love is our way. Being tough on myself isn’t working now, though. I can’t try harder than I already am.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“A slow me is much better than a sick me”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“It’s like pricking yourself with a needle. Do it once, and you’re okay. You can ignore that it even happened. Prick yourself repeatedly without giving yourself time to heal, and soon you’re injured and bleeding.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I can't brush it aside just because I don't understand it. I can't place judgement on it. Pain is pain. I know what it's like to hurt and for others not to understand.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Hearts aren’t designed to feel anything too intensely for too long, be it joy, sorrow, or anger. Everything passes in time. All colors fade.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Perhaps this is what I’ve always needed without really knowing it, to love myself without shame and without reservation.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I see, and for the first time in my adult life, I don’t care that I’m making a scene. I haven’t hurt anyone. I shouldn’t be ashamed. I shouldn’t need to apologize. This is me.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Anna’s pain is real. I can’t brush it aside just because I don’t understand it. I can’t place judgment on it. Pain is pain.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“Nothing I actually do can compete with the boundless potential of what I could do. But if I allow the fear of imperfection to trap me in perpetual beginnings, I’ll never create anything again.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“He matters more to me than the voices in my head.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“This yearning for her, this craving, it's sunk so deep into me that it's part of me now. This is how Quan is now. He's crazy about this one girl.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I want to be the person she thought I was, a confident motherfucker who wouldn't give a shit about any of this. But I do give a shit. I want to be enough —for her, for me, for the people in my life.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“How much of what people say is genuine and how much is politeness? Is anyone really living their life or are we all reading lines from a giant script written by other people?”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“That’s how it must be when someone’s standards are so impossibly high and their capacity for empathy so limited ; they are cruel to others, and cruelest to themselves.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“t’s not winning the race that’s important. It’s this moment right here, when I’m lying in the mud staring up at the dark sky with rain falling in my eyes. It’s facing the pain, facing failure, facing myself, and finding a way to make it to the end.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle

“I don't life that Priscilla blaming herself when she did all that she could, all that anyone could, really. But I guess that's how it must be when someone's standards are so impossibly high and their capacity for empathy so limited. They are cruel to others, and cruelest to themselves.”
― Helen Hoang, The Heart Principle