Kim Quindlen

“What is the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable?” –John Green

“I’m always impressed if a buddy brings a new girl around and she can just walk around and socialize without needing to be standing next to him or clinging to him the entire time. If she just goes off on her own and introduces herself to people, I immediately like her.”

You’ve grown secure in your own insecurity. Feeling self-conscious is not a state of mind that magically fades away as we morph into adults. On the contrary, often our twenties are some of the most uncertain, insecure, and hesitant years of our lives. But learning how to accept your sense of discomfort and then continue working hard and chasing after you want anyway is one of the surest signs that you are truly coming into your own.

We romanticize breakups in order to survive. We want the pain and the aching to have meaning, so that it didn’t all happen for nothing. We need a way to wrap our brains around all the heartache. So we think about the movies we’ve seen, the books we’ve read, the sad One Republic songs they play during the montage that follows a breakup scene at the end of a dramatic television episode. And we want to be those people, those characters.

Make eye contact with people you’re interacting with. We tend to avoid it when we’re feeling particularly insecure, so forcing yourself to lock eyes with whoever you’re speaking to will often convince your brain that you’re feeling more comfortable with yourself than you actually are.

The first time you don’t get ‘ready’ to hang out them and you still feel totally comfortable in your own skin.

I hope that they love you all the more for your jaded edges, that they want to know how you got each little cut and bruise so that they can ensure your story is no longer being carried on your shoulders alone.

We think a good life means becoming immune to judgment, to harsh words from others, to insecurity, to self-doubt, to shame, to criticism. But really, a good life is about realizing that you’re human. That you’re never truly safe from your fear of being an outsider, a failure, an outcast. And that, while you can never fully avoid these uncomfortable feelings, that you can still keep going, keep doing, and keep creating in spite of them.

Some days will suck, and that’s okay, because it’s the worst days, not the best ones, that inspire people to work harder and to be better.

The moments in which we do the deepest reflection of ourselves and our lives do not occur when we are happy.

“That my sister was the pretty one but that I was the more approachable one.”

She understands how amazing it can feel to fall in love. But having a close friend by her side has helped her to develop a level of self-confidence that allows her to be receptive to love while still shielding her heart from unnecessary hurt.

The idea that there is just one perfect person out there who exists solely to be with you, instead of several potential partners you could possibly make a life with.

Falling in love means wanting to be with them every second of every day. Staying in love means learning how to continue to be your own person, even if you’re part of a greater whole.

They are not writing your story for you. They are writing it with you, giving you the chance to twine your path with theirs, so that everything is twice as interesting, twice as thrilling, twice as challenging, twice as incredible. Twice as everything.

Find someone who makes you want to choose to love them. Sometimes we’re conditioned to think that it should be easy, that our hearts will do all the work, that loving them will be simple because aren’t we just so lucky to have found it?! But really, love is hard. Love is really, really hard.

Figure out who you are when you’re on your own. So when someone does come around, you can form a completely new world together, instead of simply falling into theirs.

“I don’t want to do things. I want to not do things.”