Hannah Brencher QUOTES

41 " Agape" is loving a person for exactly who they are - not who we hope they'll become with enough fixing. It's this idea that every person has their layers, so you can never confine a person to only what you know about them from the first glance. It's stacked on the premise that to love anyone is to hope in them always. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

42 " I think we worship these stories of leaving it all behind and going somewhere new, but I’m beginning to see that every one of those stories has the same truth holding up this romantic idea of leaving: The stuff you’re not facing will follow you. It will get in the car too. It will pack a bag too. Leaving isn’t the key; changing is. I’m learning that life isn’t about the destinations we can boast about getting to; it’s about all the walking in between that feels pointless when you try to take a picture of it because no one will understand it like you do. It’s the in between stuff that fleshes out a story—gives it guts and transformation.
It’s not about the scenery changing or the person you say good night to. The traveler must be the one to change. That’s what makes the story good. "

― Hannah Brencher , Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World

43 " I pocketed strangers in my memory, one by one, and tied them closer for...all the ways they looked like me. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

44 " Grace is letting something else—something so much bigger than you—carry you home. It’s having and wanting nowhere else to be but in a moment that wants you and takes you just as you are. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

45 " I could have told you that the reason a lot of people never do anything, or go anywhere, or move to the place they've always wanted to move to or go after the things they always talked about, rarely boils down to other people's not believing in them. I believe now that we're the enemy to the things we really want for our lives. We get really good at telling ourselves ugly lies on repeat every day. "You're unworthy." "You're ugly." "You're inadequate. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

46 " That is the trickiness of depression though. He doesn’t easily let you draw maps of him. He won’t tell you where you’re headed. You might have forests and I might have bogs. The most important thing is you just keep going. With no map. And no compass. And sometimes not even real truth to guide you. You just have to keep going. And along the way, you find things to hold tight to. Hope. And good conversations. And people who stick with you until morning. You find things to clutch. For me, that was a yellow towel from my mother. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

47 " I could feel God. It was like he was setting fine fingerprints all over the moment. I could feel him in it, as if he were saying to me, “Girl, I’m gonna blow the hinges off anything you think a love letter is, was , or could be. If you would just release the grip, I could turn your whole like into a love letter. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

48 " We don’t know how much we are capable of loving until the people we love are being taken away, until a beautiful story is ending. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

49 " It’s easier to let fear win. Even though love covers all things, fear is what keeps us silent and keeps words unsaid. Fear keeps us standing in one place. Eventually, when it wins, it means we never got the courage to say what we needed to say. But the words are needed. They won’t always fix things or mend things or make things better. They won’t bring someone back. They won’t stop a good-bye. They won’t be perfect. But they’ll be true. And maybe that is all we have ever needed from one another: true words written with a love that feels too big to pin down to a page with measly little syllables. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

50 " If I could write an autobiography for fear, it would read like this:
__________

Hi, my name is Fear. F-E-A-R. But you are going to call me a lot of other things as you start to get closer to me. I’m terribly unoriginal. I’m like every has-been out there, but you give me way more credit than I deserve. You should keep doing that. I like it when you make me bigger than I actually am. I’m going to make you feel alone, and I like it when you believe you’re the only one who’s ever felt this way. You think I’m custom-catered to fit you, but I’m really no different than the brand of me your best friend wears. I’m a ballad lurking in the hearts of a billion people, and I will do anything to keep you from realizing that I am just the same song on repeat. You all know all my words.
I’m pretty jealous though. I want you alone with me at night. I’m not afraid to say I’m greedy or that I don’t want to share you. I’m a territorial lover, and I would rather you not have solid and deep conversations at dinner parties or find a community that doesn’t leave your side. I wrote you a story a long time ago, and I don’t want you to figure out that you’ve outgrown the plotline.
I wonder why you don’t get over me sometimes, but then the realization hits me: You come back because you know I want you. You come back because you know the sound of my voice. You come back because you know the way I move and how I shut you down. You’ve stood face-to-face with me so many times and I have told you who you are. The crazy thing is, you’ve believed me. "

― Hannah Brencher , Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World

51 " The professor taught with the confidence that books change you. They mess up your insides. They make you drool over the prospect of being a better human and a better lover and a better friend. They pull at your stomach and leave you raw and open and naked. Books can straight up mangle you and sometimes it’s just better if you let them do their work. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

52 " If joy could break windows and hallelujahs could break floorboards, this church would have been broken down by noon. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

53 " I believe now that we're the enemy to the things we really want for our lives. We get really good at telling ourselves ugly lies on repeat. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

54 " With love, there's always more left over. Fear shrinks and shrivels. Fear has an expiration date. But love keeps on growing keeps on giving with more than enough for everyone. "

― Hannah Brencher , Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World

55 " Hope can be a mighty powerful thing when you decide to tangle it into a journey. Hope can shake things up a bit. It’ll convince you that even if you don’t know what direction you’re headed in, something will meet you at the end. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

56 " More than anything, I hope you know that it matters that you're here. "

― Hannah Brencher , Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World

57 " I feel things too deeply. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

58 " I realize love—building it and making it last—is doing a lot of the things you don’t really feel like doing. "

― Hannah Brencher , Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World

59 " I want to seem put together in front of a person who earns a living trying to help me get all the pieces back together. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers

60 " I'm just the product of my grandmother telling me for years she would see my name on the spines of books. "

― Hannah Brencher , If You Find This Letter: My Journey to Find Purpose Through Hundreds of Letters to Strangers