Sharon Olds, from "Something Is Happening", One Secret Thing: Poems
“I feel very small. I don't understand. I have so much courage, fire, energy, for many things, yet I get so hurt, so wounded by small things.”
Anaïs Nin, from nearer the moon: the previously unpublished unexpurgated diary,1937-1939
You deserve to be surrounded by the souls who bring out your soft side — not your survival side.
— Louise Glück, from “Timor Mortis.”
If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.
— Jane Austen
Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra
The deeper you heal, the higher you raise the bar on who has access to you. And, it's not out of arrogance, it's about protecting the peaceful, calm, drama-free life you've worked so hard to elevate. This new chapter requires you to be less accessible to any type of toxicity.
i want to be soft again but i have so much anger in me
I don't think I've ever been soft.