#is

It is the most ambitious and driven among us who are the most sorely in need of having our reckless hopes dampened through immersive dousings in the darkness which religions have explored. This is a particular priority for secular Americans, perhaps the most anxious and disappointed people on earth, for their nation infuses them with the most extreme hopes about what they may be able to achieve in their working lives and relationships. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#americans #anxiety #atheism #disappointment #drive

There's a mess inside you: You clean the outside. ↗

— Anonymous

#self-awareness #v- #self-awareness

Without awareness, we are not truly alive. ↗

— James F.T. Bugental

#self-awareness #self-awareness

Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some smaller countries are neutral. ↗

— Robert Orben

#pessimism

When you've been struck by lightning as many times as I have, you start to expect the worst pretty much all the time. ↗

— Jennifer Bosworth

#lightning #pessimism #pessimism

But it's like no matter how much energy you pour into getting to the station on time, or getting on the right train, there's still no guarantee that anybody's gonna be there for you to pick you up when you get there. ↗

— Nancy Oliver

#friends #pessimism #rely #pessimism

Stain my eyes as I may, on all sides all is black. ↗

— Helen Hunt Jackson

#pessimism #sad #sadness #pessimism

Personally, I felt pretty safe. Librarians are like priests. You can tell them you want information on just about any subject and they never look at you weird. It's like a rule or something. I figured even in a small town like this, my question wouldn't be the strangest one the librarian had heard. I didn't know if librarians had any sort of official privacy code, but I was counting on confidence. They're not big talkers. It comes from being forced to be quiet all the time. ↗

— Eileen Cook

#librarians #librarians

Boys are like elastic bands. It doesn't mean that boys are made of elastic, which is a plus because nobody wants a boyfriend made out of rubber. On the other hand, if they were made out of rubber, you could save yourself a lot of time and effort and heartache by just rustling one up out of a car tire. Boys are different from girls. Girls like to be cozy all the time but boys don't. First of all, they like to get all close to you like a coiled-up rubber band, but after a while, they get fed up with being too coiled and need to stretch away to their full stretchiness. Then, after a bit of on-their-own strategy, they ping back to be close to you. So in conclusion on the boy front, you have to play hard to get and also let them be elastic bands. ↗

— Louise Rennison

#georgia-nicolson #girls #louise-rennison #strategy

Fantasy is not antirational, but pararational; not realistic but surrealistic, a heightening of reality. In Freud's terminology, it employs primary not secondary process thinking. It employs archetypes which, as Jung warned us, are dangerous things. Fantasy is nearer to poetry, to mysticism, and to insanity than naturalistic fiction is. It is a wilderness, and those who go there should not feel too safe. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#mysticism