“Inside Of All Of Us There Is The Need And The Desire To Be Heard, To Have Our Innermost Thoughts,

“One of the gifts of being a writer is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.”

— Anne Lamott

“I’m not fascinated by people who smile all the time. What I find interesting is the way people look when they are lost in thought, when their face becomes angry or serious, when they bite their lip, the way they glance, the way they look down when they walk, when they are alone and smoking a cigarette, when they smirk, the way they half smile, the way they try and hold back tears, the way when their face says they want to say something but can’t, the way they look at someone they want or love… I love the way people look when they do these things. It’s… beautiful.”

— Clemence Poésy

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1944–1947

“Do you know how much thinking and feeling I’ve done? It’s terrible. And nothing’s come of it.”

— Andrei Platonov, Happy Moscow.

“I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.”

— John Keats

Whoever first said that poetry is dead failed to provide the autopsy. If poetry is dead, what a rowdy and glorious ghost. Poetry haunts. Poetry permeates the walls we put up. Poetry startles us awake and into our own aliveness. Poetry rustles the hairs on the backs of our necks and chases us into more compassionate rooms. Though it is difficult to change a stubborn mind, poetry can change our hearts in an instant.

Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, from How Poetry Can Change Your Heart

“There are two reasons why we don’t trust people. First - we don’t know them. Second - we know them.”

— Unknown