She doesn’t say ‘I love you’ like a normal person. Instead, she’ll laugh, shake her head, give you a little smile, and say… ‘You’re an idiot’. If she tells you you’re an idiot, you are a lucky man.

We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

I’m going to tell you what a demon once told me: It is okay to want your own happiness. It’s okay to care about yourself the most. It’s okay to do what’s healthy for you. When someone hits you, it’s okay to hit back and then ask them what the hell they expected. It’s okay. You are not obligated to sit there and smile and swallow every bit of shit everyone heaps on you. You are more than furniture, you’re more than window dressing, you’re not their shiny toy. You’re human, and you have the right to say ‘That was shitty of you’. You have a right to say ‘Let me feed that back to you; tell me, how does it taste?’ You have a right to protest your own mistreatment and set boundaries for respectful interactions. The rest of the world doesn’t realize you have this right, and they will act offended and appalled when you exercise it, but it is yours.

I’ve come to realize that life is too short to hold grudges. It’s too short to argue about stupid things with the ones you love, to over-analyze every little detail of every little thing. Whenever I leave a loved one, whether we’re mad at each other or not, I always tell them I love them, because I never know when I’ll see them last.

Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.