#ravel

We don’t have to do anything at all to die. We can hide in a cupboard under the stairs our whole life and it’ll still find us. Death will show up wearing an invisible cloak and it will wave a magic wand and whisk us away when we least expect it. It will erase every trace of our existence on this earth and it will do all this work for free. It will ask for nothing in return. It will take a bow at our funeral and accept the accolades for a job well done and then it will disappear. Living is a little more complex. There’s one thing we always have to do. Breathe. In and out, every single day in every hour minute and moment we must inhale whether we like it or not. Even as we plan to asphyxiate our hopes and dreams still we breathe. Even as we wither away and sell our dignity to the man on the corner we breathe. We breathe when we’re wrong, we breathe when we’re right, we breathe even as we slip off the ledge toward an early grave. It cannot be undone. So I breathe. I count all the steps I’ve climbed toward the noose hanging from the ceiling of my existence and I count out the number of times I’ve been stupid and I run out of numbers. ↗

— Tahereh Mafi

#unravel-me #death

With the need for the self in the time of another / I left my seaport grim and dear / knowing good work could be made / in the state governed by both Hope and Despair. ↗

— Roman Payne

#choices #decisions #despair #hope #hope-and-despair

I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it. ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#life #sky #travel #wishes #life

Joel sat back in his chair and laughed at what seemed to be an inside joke, one in which I wanted very much to be let in on. An amiable smile stretched across his lips quoted by perfect dimples. I stared at him wanting nothing more than to indulge myself in that smile. ↗

— Shawn Kirsten Maravel

#severance #shawn-kirsten-maravel #volition #young-adult-novels #love

I had long ago learned that when you are the giant, alien visitor to a remote and foreign culture it is sort of your job to become an object of ridicule. It’s the least you can do, really, as a polite guest. ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#marriage

Traveling in a third-world country is the closest thing there is to being married and raising kids. You have glorious hikes and perfect days on the beach. You go on adventures you would never try, or enjoy, alone. But you also can't get away from each other. Everything is unfamiliar. Money is tight or you get robbed. Someone gets sick or sunburned. You get bored. It is harder than you expected, but you are glad you didn't just sit home. ↗

— Meg Jay

#relationships #travel #marriage

THERE IT IS,’ my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we’ve been nearing for weeks, the one that’s been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond. ↗

— Patrick Ness

#monsters-of-men #planet #space #space-travel #the-ask-and-the-answer

For me, boviscopophobia (=the morbid fear of being seen as bovine) is an even stronger motive than semi-agoraphobia for staying on the ship when we're in port. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#phobias #travel #motivational

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again. ↗

— John Masefield

#travel #nature

There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures. Each part assumes its proper dimensions: continents are not looked at in the light of islands, or islands considered as mere specks, which are, in truth, larger than many kingdoms of Europe. Africa, or North and South America, are well-sounding names, and easily pronounced; but it is not until having sailed for weeks along small portions of their shores, that one is thoroughly convinced what vast spaces on our immense world these names imply. ↗

— Charles Darwin

#travel #worldview #nature