I’m an outsider by choice, she said, but I’m hoping that won’t be my choice forever.
Brian Andreas, Trusting Soul : Collected Stories & Drawings
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
Herman Melville
Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.
John Steinbeck
There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.
Jim Butcher, White Night
Some places are like family. They annoy us to no end, especially during the holidays, but we keep comingback for more because we know, deep in our hearts, that our destinies are intertwined.
Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
Something within me is waking from long sleep, and I want to live and move again. Some zest is returning to me, some immense gratefulness for those who love me, some strong wish to love them also. I am full of thanks for life. I have not told myself to be thankful. I am just so.
Alan Paton
Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.
Fred Rogers
We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
Isaac Newton
It is not enough merely to seek greatness for ourselves, we must help others discover greatness within themselves. We need to reach down and reach out, and give back and lift others.
First Lady Michelle Obama
Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.
Andrew Boy
So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.
Sylvia Plath (via marquis-in-spades-at)
Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It is a conjuction. Connective tissue.
Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World
I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.
Tennessee Williams
A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity when, for a few brief seconds, the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh, it’s as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.
Colin Firth, A Single Man
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lines, lyrics and literary fragments that call for a pause