Home > Author > Val Emmich
1 " We're weaving in between trees, careful not to disturb, on a mission. We mean no trouble. There are so many of us, the lonely souls. All of us who helped build this. Those who will watch it grow. Those we've lost. We march on together. Climbing, falling, soaring. Trying to get closer to the center of everything. Closer to ourselves. Closer to each other. Closer to something true. "
― Val Emmich , Dear Evan Hansen
2 " The me I am is not the me I was. "
3 " You're born and you keep getting older and grayer and sicker, and no matter what efforts you make to reverse the process, you die, every single time. To repeat: worse, worse, worse, and then death. I have a long way to go before the worst. This is only the beginning. "
4 " After all these years, I'm a wizard at detecting even the slightest hint of disappointment in others, and any amount at all is unbearable. "
5 " That's just what I do. I ruin things. Always. Whether I want it or not. The thing I'm ruining can be the best thing in my life. And I'll know it, too. And I'll still be powerless to stop it. Or too scared. "
6 " The choices always seem to be fight or flight, but I typically end up somewhere in between, doing exactly neither. I stay and I take the beating. "
7 " Burning is the right way to paint it. You feel yourself getting so hot, day after day. Hotter and hotter. It gets to be too much. Even for stars. At some point they fizzle out or explode. Cease to be. But if you're looking up at the sky, you don't see it that way. You think those stars are still there. Some aren't. Some are already gone. Long gone. I guess, now, so am I. "
8 " Fantasies always sound good, but they're no help when reality comes and shoves you to the ground. When it trips up your tongue and traps the right words in your head. When it leaves you to eat lunch by yourself. "
9 " To the ground I fall. I can never stay aloft too long. Not when there's an ugly and heavy truth always dragging me back down. "
10 " If the pain is in you, it’s in you. It follows you everywhere. Can’t outrun it. Can’t erase it. Can’t push it away; it only comes back. The way I’ve been thinking, after all that’s happened, maybe there’s only one way to survive it. You have to let it in. Let it hurt you. And don’t wait. It’ll reach you eventually. Might as well be now. "
11 " Meh is basically a shoulder shrug, and that pretty much sums up the reaction I get from society at large. "
12 " The feeling of almost drowning is even worse than actually drowning. Actually drowning is peace. Almost drowning is pure pain. "
13 " I do stupid things when I'm nervous, which means I'm constantly doing stupid things. "
14 " I wish that everything was different. I wish that I was a part of something. I wish that anything I said mattered, to anyone. I mean, let's face it: would anybody even notice if I disappeared tomorrow? "
15 " I'm much better at interpreting books and stories than I am at understanding the decisions made by living, breathing people. "
16 " Also, i realized that avoiding people didn't actually ease any of my anxieties. Out there in the woods, i still had to live with myself. "
17 " Maybe, someday, some other kid is going to be standing here, staring out at the trees, feeling alone, wondering if maybe the world might look different from all the way up there. Better. Maybe he’ll start climbing, one branch at a time, and he’ll keep going, even when it seems like he can’t find another foothold. Even when it feels hopeless. Like everything is telling him to let go. Maybe this time he won’t let go. This time he’ll hold on. He’ll keep going. "
18 " Really, though, what do i know about what another person is capable of? I still don't have a clue what i'm capable of. I keep surprising even myself. "
19 " I'm left with a loneliness so overpowering it threatens to seep from my eyes. I have no one. Unfortunately, that's not fantasy. That's all-natural, 100 percent organic, unprocessed, reality. "
20 " I laugh plenty. I mean, i laughed plenty. I laughed at how absurdly fucked everything is. I laughed because there's not much else you can do. You can laugh or you can cry. I'd do plenty of both. "
