Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.

Pablo Neruda 

“There’s this weird quality of being suspicious and cynical about everything and simultaneously, unwittingly, being utterly open and receptive and gullible that was part of youth, or at least part of my youth.”
—Emily Gould, And the Heart Says…Whatever

I would say to young people a number of things, and I have only one minute. I would say let them remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Let them be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power, and that we do, everyone, our share to redeem the world, in spite of all absurdities, and all the frustrations, and all the disappointment. And above all, remember that the meaning of life is to live life as if it were a work of art.

You’re not a machine. When you’re young, start working on this great work of art called your own existence. One, remember the importance of self-discipline. Second, study the great sources of wisdom, don’t read the best-sellers. And, third, remember that life is a celebration, or can be a celebration. There’s much of entertainment in our life. And entertainment is destroying much of our initiative and weakens our imagination. What’s really important is life as a celebration.

In a very deep sense I would say that the addiction from which so many people suffer, is due to the fact that man cannot live such a shallow life, stale; he needs exultation, he needs moments of celebration.

One of the most important things is to teach man how to celebrate life.

— Abraham Joshua Heschel 

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours’ - Stephen Roberts

The elusive nature of love… it can be such a fleeting thing. You see it there and it’s just fluttering and it’s gone. - Mick Jagger

Confound you handsome young fellows! You think of having it all your own way in the world. You don’t understand women. They don’t admire you half so much as you admire yourselves.

— George Eliot, Middlemarch

If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don’t want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it, too. 

— The Perks of Being a Wallflower 

"This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall…this is how magic is done..by hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering that it’s a feather bed…there’s no other way to do it…"

 ~Terence McKenna 

“A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.”
— Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

You're the best I can do; but I'm sorry, you are just not good enough. 

Inception

I was six when I saw everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all that,” Teddy said. “It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was only a very tiny child then, and she drank her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.

— J.D. Salinger - Nine Stories

The essence of the suicides consisted not of sadness or mystery but simple selfishness. The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind. 

— The Virgin Suicides

“We are the product of 4.5 billion years of fortuitous, slow biological evolution. There is no reason to think that the evolutionary process has stopped. Man is a transitional animal. He is not the climax of creation.”

Carl Sagan

When you make the finding yourself - even if you’re the last person on Earth to see the light - you’ll never forget it. - Carl Sagan