"The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex. What’s important is leading an examined life." 
- Yvon Chouinard, 180 Degrees South (via AWTW)

❝ If you can love the wrong one so much, just imagine how much you can love the right one. ❞

—— Comment on a Humans Of New York post 

Some people are born with tornados in their lives,
but constellations in their eyes.
Other people are born with stars at their feet,
but their souls are lost at sea.
            -Perspectives, Nikita Gill

"Intimacy is not who you let touch you. Intimacy is who you text at 3am about your dreams and fears. Intimacy is giving someone your attention, when ten other people are asking for it. Intimacy is the person always in the back of your mind, no matter how distracted you are."

How odd, I can have all this inside me
and to you it’s just words.

-David Foster Wallace , The Pale King 

"The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you. You will make vows: 'I'm going to write for an hour every day,' and then you won't do it. You will think: 'I suck, I'm such a failure. I'm washed-up.' Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn't take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness (which comes from a place of kind and encouraging and motherly love). The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck.

When I was writing Eat, Pray, Love, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: 'That's actually not my problem.' The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows." — Elizabeth Gilbert

In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word ’fall’ is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. They cannot manage and they cannot stand – they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have that integrity to stand alone.

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it: he simply gives. And when a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it – no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone; they are together so much so that they are almost one. But their oneness does not destroy their individuality, in fact, it enhances it: they become more individual.

Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. How can you dominate the person you love? Just think over it. Domination is a sort of hatred, anger, enmity. How can you think of dominating a person you love? You would love to see the person totally free, independent; you will give him more individuality. That’s why I call it the greatest paradox: they are together so much so that they are almost one, but still in that oneness they are individuals. Their individualities are not effaced – they have become more enhanced. The other has enriched them as far as their freedom is concerned.

Immature people falling in love destroy each other’s freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

- Osho

2014 VMA - Artists.MTV - Beyonce - MTV VMA Video Vanguard (Medley) - Music - More Music Videos

“Seduction is about intelligence and wit. Someone who makes me laugh has every chance to seduce me.” -Riccardo Tisci 

"Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance." -Anna Quindlen, Every Last One  

"I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone."

"No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."

"When in doubt, go for the dick joke."

-Robin Williams (1952-2014)

Be silly. Be honest. Be kind.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson 

On The Run Tour: Beyoncé 2014

"There are two types of waiting. There’s the the waiting you do for something you know is coming, sooner or later—like waiting for the 6:28 train, or the school bus, or a party where a certain handsome boy might be. And then there’s the waiting for something you don’t know is coming. You don’t even know what it is exactly, but you’re hoping for it. You’re imagining it and living your life for it. That’s the kind of waiting that makes a fist in your heart." (via My Mind, it wanders)

YALL Fest

I'm so excited for this:

YALLFest 2014 Authors

Kwame Alexander- The Crossover

Jennifer Armentrout - Don’t Look Back  

Leigh Bardugo – The Grisha Trilogy

Pseudonymous Bosch – The Secret Series

Alexandra Bracken – The Darkest Minds series

Ann Brashares - The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Libba Bray – Gemma Doyle Trilogy

Coe Booth - Bronxwood, Kinda Like Brothers

Kiera Cass - The Selection Trilogy

Ally Condie – Matched Trilogy

James Dashner - The Maze Runner series, The Mortality Doctrine series

John Parke Davis - Map to Everywhere

Melissa De La Cruz – Blue Bloods Series, The Ring and the Crown, Stolen, Vampires of Manhattan

Matt De La Pena - Mexican Whiteboy, The Living

Sarah Dessen - Along for the Ride, The Moon and More

Jim di Bartolo - In the Shadows

Susan Ee - Penryn & the End of Days series

Daniel Ehrenhaft - The Last Dog on Earth

Sarah Fine - Guards of the Shadowlands series

Becca Fitzpatrick - Hush, Hush series, Black Ice

Gayle Forman – If I Stay, Just One Day

Kami Garcia – The Beautiful Creatures Series, The Legion series

Adam Gidwitz – A Tale Dark and Grim Series

Ryan Graudin - The Walled City

Adele Griffin - The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone

Nikki Grimes - Bronx Masquerade, Words with Wings

Aaron Hartzler – Rapture Practice

Michelle Hodkin - Mara Dyer series

Varian Johnson - The Great Greene Heist

Mike Johnston – Frozen series

Christina Lauren - Sublime

David Levithan – Two Boys Kissing

E Lockhart - The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, We Were Liars

Alexander London - Proxy

Marie Lu - Legend Series, The Young Elites

Sarah J Maas - Throne of Glass series

DJ MacHale - Sylo

Barnabas Miller - 7 Souls

Lauren Myracle - Twelve, Yolo, The Internet Girls series

Lauren Oliver – Delirium Series, Panic, Rooms

Danielle Paige – Dorothy Must Die series

Stephanie Perkins – Anna and the French Kiss, Isla and the Happily Ever After

Brendan Reichs -The Virals Series

Kathy Reichs - The Virals Series, The Temperance Brennan series

Morgan Rhodes - Falling Kingdoms, Rebel Spring

Veronica Roth – Divergent Series

Rainbow Rowell - Eleanor & Park, Fangirl

Carrie Ryan – The Forest of Hands and Teeth series, The Road to Everywhere

Kieran Scott - Private & Privilege, Only Everything, Complete Nothing

Jen E Smith - The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, The Geography of You and Me

Natalie Standiford - How to Say Goodbye in Robot, Switched at Birthday,

Margaret Stohl – The Beautiful Creatures Series, Icons series

Laini Taylor - Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy

JE Thompson – The Girl From Felony Bay

Maya Van Wagenen - Popular: Vintage Wisdom for the Modern Geek

Scott Westerfeld - Uglies, Leviathan series

Rita Williams-Garcia - One Crazy Summer

Sara Zarr - Story of a Girl, Roomies, The Lucy Variations

——-

Editorial Track

Daniel Ehrenhaft – The Last Dog on Earth

Emily Meehan

Jocelyn Davies - A Beautiful Dark

Sarah Burnes

Still I Rise

Maya Angelou, 1928 - 2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

"We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life." -Marina Keegan

Just be honest with me or stay away from me. It’s not that difficult. -Unknown

John Nieto

We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational, and so disciplined they can be free.
-Kavita Ramdas

"But most of all, you want to get drunk off the taste of them. Lips on lips. Drunk off the night, and the whiskey. The secrets, the laughter. Drunk off the idea that you didn’t have to be anything other than yourself." -TKoW

"Please know there are much better things in life than being lonely or liked or bitter or mean or self-conscious. We are all full of shit. Go love someone just because; I know your heart may be badly bruised, or even the victim of numerous knifings, but it will always heal, even if you don't want it to; it keeps going. There are the most fantastic, beautiful things and people out there, I promise. It is up to you to find them." -Chuck Palahniuk

"So called ‘late-bloomers’ get a bad rap. Sometimes the people with the greatest potential often take the longest to find their path because their sensitivity is a double edged sword- it lives at the heart of their brilliance, but it also makes them more susceptible to life’s pains. Good thing we aren’t being penalized for handing in our purpose late. The soul doesn’t know a thing about deadlines." -Jeff Brown

"Derek...have you ever thought that even if I am Satan, and an adulterous bitch, that I still might be the love of your life?" -Addison Shepherd, Grey's Anatomy

Letter Composed During a 

Lull in the Fighting

I tell her I love her like not killing

or ten minutes of sleep

beneath the low rooftop wall

on which my rifle rests.

I tell her in a letter that will stink,

when she opens it,

of bolt oil and burned powder

and the things it says.

I tell her how Private Bartle says, offhand,

that war is just us

making little pieces of metal

pass through each other.

-Kevin Powers

"One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told."
-If I lie, Corrine Jackson

But it wasn’t some catastrophic moment that taught me one of the most powerful lessons of my life. I learned that unbelievably awful things can and do happen. In truth, they are not such rare, isolated events. Each of us has a story that would break someone’s heart. Despite the grief and the unfairness of it all, we keep going. There are chores to be done. There are people who still need our care. There is a life to be led. -Aldra Robinson 

Amanda Seyfried, W

Rooney and Kate Mara

Tim Riggins Speaks of Waterfalls

You want to know what it was like?
It was like my whole life had a fever.
Whole acres of me were on fire.
The sun talked dirty in my ear all night.
I couldn’t drive past a wheatfield without doing it violence.
I couldn’t even look at a bridge.
I used to go out in the brush sometimes,
So far out there no one could hear me,
And just burn.
I felt all right then.
I couldn’t hurt anyone else.
I was just a pillar of fire.
It wasn’t the burning so much as the loneliness.
It wasn’t the loneliness so much as the fear of being alone. 
Christ look at you pouring from the rocks.
You’re so cold you’re boiling over.
You’ve got stars in your hair.
I don’t want to be around you.
I don’t want to drink you in.
I want to walk into the heart of you
And never walk back out.

-Nico Alvarado

"In the meanwhile, cultivate an understanding of a bunch of the other things that the best, sanest people on the planet know: that life is long, that people both change and remain the same, that every last one of us will need to fuck up and be forgiven, that we're all just walking and walking and walking and trying to find our way, that all roads lead eventually to the mountaintop." 

-Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things

When people walk away from you, let them go. You shouldn’t have to talk them into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, and coming to see you … because if they really cared about you in the first place, they would not be going anywhere. 

-Unknown

Sari Silks

Roadside Pottery

Seattle to Dubai

"Scare the world: Be exactly who you say you are and tell the truth." 
-The Shock of Honesty

Stop minimizing and discounting your feelings. You have every right to feel the way you do. Your feelings may not always be logical, but they are always valid. Because if you feel something, then you feel it and it’s real to you. It’s not something you can ignore or wish away. It’s there, gnawing at you, tugging at your core, and in order to find peace, you have to give yourself permission to feel whatever it is you feel. You have to let go of what you’ve been told you “should” or “shouldn’t” feel. You have to drown out the voices of people who try to shame you into silence. You have to listen to the sound of your own breathing and honor the truth inside you. Because despite what you may believe, you don’t need anyone’s validation or approval to feel what you feel. Your feelings are inherently right and true. They’re important and they matter — you matter — and it is more than okay to feel what you feel. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, convince you otherwise.
-Daniell Koepke 

"Sometimes you meet someone, and it’s so clear that the two of you, on some level belong together. As lovers, or as friends, or as family, or as something entirely different. You just work, whether you understand one another or you’re in love or you’re partners in crime. You meet these people throughout your life, out of nowhere, under the strangest circumstances, and they help you feel alive. I don’t know if that makes me believe in coincidence, or fate, or sheer blind luck, but it definitely makes me believe in something."

"Take chances, take a lot of them. Because honestly, no matter where you end up and with whom, it always ends up just the way it should be. Your mistakes make you who you are. You learn and grow with each choice you make. Everything is worth it. Say how you feel, always. Be you, and be ok with it."