Life can only be understood backwards - but it must be lived forwards.

Popularity's a weird thing. You can't really define it, and it's not cool to talk about, but you know it when you see it. Like a lazy eye, or porn. - Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore - John Lennon

—I don't want to lose you—Then why are you the one that keeps letting go? - Alexandra Bracken, The Darkest Minds

If you fuel your journey on the opinions of others, you are going to run out of gas. - Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

We are born to love as we are born to die, and between the heartbeats of those two great mysteries lies all the tangled undergrowth of our tiny lives. There is nowhere to go but through. And so we walk on, lost, and lost again, in the mapless wilderness of love. - Tim Farrington, The Monk Downstairs

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying. - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Few if any seemed to have grasped the Principle of Reality - new knowledge leads always to yet more awesome mysteries. Greater physiological knowledge of the brain makes the existence of the soul less possible yet more probable by the nature of the search.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring. - Marilyn Monroe

If I love you, is that a fact or a weapon? - Margaret Atwood, Power Politics

E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go. - Randall Munroe, xkcd: volume 0

Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache. - Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath. - L.M. Montgomery

Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The love of books is among the choicest gifts of the gods. - Arthur Conan Doyle

The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire. - Brian Tracy

A respectable appearance is sufficient to make people more interested in your soul - Karl Lagerfeld

Though my work may be menial, though my contribution may be small, I can perform it with dignity and offer it with unselfishness. My talents may not be great, but I can use them to bless the lives of others.... The goodness of the world in which we live is the accumulated goodness of many small and seemingly inconsequential acts. - Gordon B. Hinckley

There are two kinds of people I don't trust: people who don't drink and people who collect stickers. - Chelsea Handler, My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands