“Why were the things that were closest so often the hardest to see?” ~Claire Keegan
Rome, Italy
“So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.” ~Haruki Murakami
St. Louis, Missouri
“Wherever you are is called Here,/And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,/Must ask permission to know it, and be known.” ~David Wagoner
Malibu, California
“I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know. Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land.” ~Tove Jansson
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
“How do we see what’s there besides ‘good’ or ‘bad’? The word gazing comes to mind – a kind of open and sustained looking.” ~Lynda Barry
Paris, France
“People are mostly layers of violence and tenderness wrapped like bulbs, and it is difficult to say what makes them onions or hyacinths.’ ~Eudora Welty
St. Louis, Missouri
“Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.” ~Seamus Heaney
Scottsdale, AZ
“We cannot live a full and meaningful life if we are not in touch with what we feel or what we want.” ~Paul Wachtel
Rome, Italy
“If I was going to live – if I was going to stay alive another day – I realized I had to let the world in. I had to be part of something real, and to do that I had to let people see me as I was.” ~Paul Murray
Boston, Massachusetts
“[E]verybody is dealing with how much of their own aliveness they can bear and how much they need to anesthetize themselves.” ~ Adam Phillips