Some people accept that they will never be free of their anxiety, they just learn to carry it.

It just hurts so much at times, being human. Not understanding yourself, not liking the body you‘re stuck in. Seeing your eyes in the mirror and wondering whose they are, always with the same question: “What‘s wrong with me? Why do I feel like this?”

And I have a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things.” Tyrion Lannister placed a hand over his heart and grinned.

I longed for it in that excruciating way one has of romanticizing the life she didn‘t choose. But sitting here now, I knew if I‘d accepted Israel‘s proposal, I would‘ve regretted that, too. I‘d chosen the regret I could live with best, that‘s all. I‘d chosen the life I belonged to.

Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn‘t suit the moment.

Worries find you easily enough without inviting them. With Diane, worries were almost physical beings, leechy creatures with latchhooks for fingers, meant to be vanquished immediately. Diane didn‘t worry, that was for less hearty women.

“I worked it out sitting here. Maybe that‘s the thing we need to understand, Alice. That some things are a gift, even if you don‘t get to keep them.” There was a silence before he spoke again. “Maybe just to know that something this beautiful exists is all we can really ask for.”

A soulmate connection isn‘t just an awareness. It‘s a deep sense of knowing a wave of intuition that permeates your every pore. All the cells in your body rise up on their tip toes. You don‘t see this feeling coming, you can‘t prepare for it. You might even try to push it away, as I did. Yet it always surges back each time with greater force sweeping you up in its mighty current, thrusting you toward a beautiful shore unknown.

It‘s a lifelong battle for a woman to stay whole and free in a world hell-bent on caging her.

If you are uncomfortable—in deep pain, angry, yearning, confused—you don‘t have a problem, you have a life. Being human is not hard because you‘re doing it wrong, it‘s hard because you‘re doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever suppose to be easy.

Rebellion is as much of a cage as obedience is. They both mean living in reaction to someone else‘s way instead of forging your own. Freedom is not being for or against an ideal, but creating your own existence from scratch.

The truest, most beautiful life never promises to be an easy one. We need to let go of the lie that it‘s supposed to be.

Ihave learned to live by faith, which does not mean that I live by a set of unwavering beliefs or dogma that men laid down ages ago to keep their power by controlling others. My faith has nothing to do with religion anymore. To me, living by faith is allowing the swelling and pressing inside me to direct my outward words and decisions... In fact, my favorite idea of faith is a belief in the unseen order of things.

The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It‘s not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that‘s no badge of honor.

Good girls aren‘t hungry, furious, or wild. All of the things that make a woman human are a good girl‘s dirty secret.

I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I‘d like to be known.

“I told your papa I love you, and I‘m telling you now, and I‘ll damn sure nail that surety to every Kentucky crag, post it on every town door. I love you, Cussy Mary.” Forever I‘d let the darkness and brokenness live inside—let others keep it there. His words were as fine as any prayer, and I wanted so bad to fall into his arms and get the salvation, but after accepting for so long what other folks thought of me, it was easier, safer not to.

Let‘s face it, a lot of times love doesn‘t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.

Amanda Hamilton poem: “I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “All along You thought The fiery current Of your lover‘s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”

As long as she ranted, sobs couldn‘t surface. But nothing could stop the burning shame and sharp sadness. A simple hope of being with someone, of actually being wanted, of being touched, had drawn her in. But these hurried groping hands were only a taking, not a sharing or giving.

Slowly, she unraveled each word of the sentence: “‘There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.‘” “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” “You can read, Kya. There will never be a time again when you can‘t read.” “It ain‘t just that.” She spoke almost in a whisper. “I wadn‘t aware that words could hold so much. I didn‘t know a sentence could be so full.” He smiled. “That‘s a very good sentence. Not all words hold that much.”