Written by: Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief
Sometimes, a quote or poem can come along that can change the trajectory of one’s life. Maybe about grief, love, friendship and life, words of wisdom can forever impact and alter one’s experience on Earth.
I’ve collected some of my favorite quotes — from coping with loss to making the most of every second alive — to share as possible inspiration for the next time things get hard.
“I was often full of rage and despair. I was always lonely. In spite of all that I was and am in love with life.” — Jeanette Winterson, “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?”
“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” — Mary Oliver, “Invitation”
“Here is the world to which I am condemned, in which, despite myself, I must somehow live.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The House of the Dead”
“‘You’ll always be sad about this,’ she said softly. ‘But it doesn’t mean you made the wrong choice. It’s just something that you have to carry.’” — Celeste Ng, “Little Fires Everywhere”
“Isn’t all that rage so ugly? And isn’t it mine, still? Good god, isn’t it mine?” — Ashe Vernon, “Buried”
“How odd, I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.” — David Foster Wallace, “The Pale King”
“She died at 7:07 a.m. PST. It is three hours earlier in Hawaii. Does that mean in Hawaii she hasn’t died yet? But the plane ride to Hawaii is five hours long. This time gap can never be overcome. The difference is called grieving.” — Victoria Chang, “Obit”
“And that I did not give to anyone the responsibility for my life. It is mine. I made it. And can do what I want to with it. Live it. Give it back, someday, without bitterness, to the wild and weedy dunes.” — Mary Oliver, “Staying Alive”
“No one ever tells you that bravery feels like fear.” — Mary Kate Teske
“I want to talk about what happened without mentioning how much it hurt. There has to be a way. To care for the wounds without reopening them. To name the pain without inviting it back into me.” — Lora Mathis, “If There’s A Way Out I’ll Take it”
“Nobody taught me how to want. But now I want. I remain lying down with eyes open, looking at the ceiling. Inside is the darkness. A pulsating ‘I’ is taking shape.” — Clarice Lispector, “Água Viva”
“This morning I woke up so in love with you I didn’t know what to do with my body, which was far from yours … I don’t know how this happened. I just woke up one morning and you were the blood in all my poems.” — Clementine Von Radics, “In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive”
“I needed to think everything she’d done was out of love. Because I could understand that. I could forgive it. It made me think that maybe one day I might be able to forgive myself.” — Carol Rifka Brunt, “Tell the Wolves I’m Home”
“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.” — Neale Donald Walsch, “Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends”
“I’m not much but I’m all I have.” — Philip K. Dick, “Martian Time-Slip”
“I started talking to the stars in the sky instead. / I said, ‘Tell me about the big bang.’ / The stars said, ‘It hurts to become.’” — Andrea Gibson, “The Madness Vase”
“But I want to be better than the lessons they taught me. I want my love to be greater than my hate, my mercy to be stronger than my vengeance.” — Amy Engel, “The Book of Ivy”
Contact the author at howleditorinchief@mail.wou.edu
