(because I love quotes too much for my own good)

I’ve fallen into this habit of now having a weekly quote. Which is my favorite thing ever. It ends up all over my hands and notebooks and planner and homework assignments. I love it. I’m going to be the cool aunt that has a quote for everything when advising my niece or nephew about any personal struggles they’re having; I am so excited.

Here are a bunch; hopefully, they’ll help you as much as they’ve helped me–

“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

“What are men to rocks and mountains?” -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” -John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute / with sixty seconds worth of distance run, / yours is the Earth and everything in it, / and you will be a man, my son!” -Rudyard Kipling, “If”

“Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.” -Kurt Vonnegut

“One day, I just woke up and realized that I can’t touch yesterday. So, why the heck was I letting it touch me?” -Steve Maraboli

“No one is you and that is your power.” -Dave Grohl

“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint’, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” -Vincent Van Gogh

"I have flowed, become stagnant, festered, I have fallen from above. Mass, rhythmic, in harmony with my millions of drops, I have rained. I have been earth with the earths. Foaming, humid, I have slept a faceless face down. I have. Had. Lived. Done. Been. All the words that grow before the tip of the tongue, before I reach it. I am a body who has enjoyed creation." -Hélène Cixous

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” –Miguel Ángel Ruiz

“Stay true in the dark, and humble in the spotlight.” -Harold B. Lee

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” -Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“How wild it was, to let it be.” -Cheryl Strayed

“1. You must let the pain visit. 2. You must allow it teach you 3. You must not allow it overstay.” –Ijeoma Umebinyuo

“And the rest is rust and stardust.” -Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world." -Kate Chopin, The Awakening

P.S. It’s midnight, and I don’t want to go through and check if these quotes are 100% accurately credited to the right people (since I do just stumble upon them on the Internet and then hoard them as my own), so I mean, take with a very, teeny tiny grain of salt. But, I’m like 99% sure it’s a-okay. Love you, buddy. You’re a superstar.