The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Thomas Merton

A page, turning, is a wing lifted with no twin, and therefore no flight. And yet we are moved.

Ocean Vuong

There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don’t expect you to save the world, I do think it’s not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.

Nikki Giovanni

There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.

Sylvia Plath

I have just said

Something

Ridiculous to you

And in response,

Your glorious laughter.

 

These are the days

The sun

Is swimming back

To the east

And the light on the water

Gleams

As never, it seems, before.

 

I can’t remember

Every spring,

I can’t remember

Everything-

 

So many years!

Are the morning kisses

The sweetest

Or the evenings

Or the inbetweens?

All I know

Is that “thank you” should appear

Somewhere.

 

So, just in case

I can’t find

The perfect place-

“Thank you, thank you.”

Mary Oliver