“We Are All In The Gutter, But Some Of Us Are Looking At The Stars.” - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s

“Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.”

— Coco Chanel

“May we raise children who love the unloved things”

by Nicolette Sowder

May we raise children who love the unloved things–the dandelion, the worms and spiderlings. Children who sense the rose needs the thorn

& run into rainswept days the same way they turn towards sun…

And when they’re grown & someone has to speak for those who have no voice

may they draw upon that wilder bond, those days of tending tender things

and be the ones.

“The thing you are most afraid to write. Write that.”

— Nayyirah Waheed

“Don’t just learn, experience. Don’t just read, absorb. Don’t just change, transform. Don’t just relate, advocate. Don’t just promise, prove. Don’t just criticize, encourage. Don’t just think, ponder. Don’t just take, give. Don’t just see, feel. Don’t just dream, do. Don’t just hear, listen. Don’t just talk, act. Don’t just tell, show. Don’t just exist, live.”

— Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“I would paint a portrait which would bring the tears, had I canvass for it, and the scene should be - solitude, and the figures - solitude - and the lights and shades, each a solitude. I could fill a chamber with landscapes so lone, men should pause and weep there; then haste grateful home, for a loved one left.”

— Emily Dickinson, from To Susan Gilbert, 27 November-3 December 1854 in “Letters Of Emily Dickinson”

“I find the best way to love someone is not to change them, but instead, to help them reveal the greatest version of himself.”

— Steve Maraboli