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21 " People are craving not just physical space but the space to be mentally free. A space from unwanted distracted thoughts that clutter our heads like pop-up advertising of the mind in an already frantic world. And that space is still there to be found. It's just that we can't rely on it. We have to consciously seek it out. "
― , Notes on a Nervous Planet
22 " And besides, libraries aren't just about books. They are one of the few public spaces we have left which don't like our wallets more than us. "
23 " Quando a loucura se converte em normalidade, a única forma de encontrarmos a sanidade passa pela audácia de sermos diferentes. Ou pela audácia de sermos o eu que existe à margem de todo o entulho com que a vida moderna entope corpo e mente. "
24 " Reading isn’t important because it helps to get you a job. It’s important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Reading is love in action. "
25 " Remember no one really cares what you look like. They care what they look like. You are the only person in the world to have worried about your face. "
26 " Never be cool. Never try to be cool. Never worry what the cool people think. Head for the warm people. Life is warmth. You’ll be cool when you’re dead. "
27 " find a good book. And sit down and read it. There will be times in your life when you'll feel lost and confused. The way back to yourself is through reading. I want you to remember that. The more you read, the more you will know how to find your way through those difficult times. "
28 " We often find ourselves wishing for more hours in the day, but that wouldn't help anything. The problem, clearly, isn't that we have a shortage of time. It's more that we have an overload of everything else. "
29 " The sky, like the sea, can anchor us. It says: hey, it’s okay, there is something bigger than your life that you are part of, and it’s – literally – cosmic. "
30 " Living with anxiety, turning up, and doing stuff with anxiety takes a strength most people will never know. "
31 " I feel we need to stop seeing mental and physical health as either/or and more as a both/and situation. There is no difference. We are mental. We are physical. We are not split up into unrelated sections. We are not an existential department store. We are everything at once. "
32 " And all this talk, over and over, of bravery: it would be nice one day if a public figure could talk about having depression without the media using words like 'incredible courage' and 'coming out'. Sure, it is well intentioned. But you shouldn't need to confess to having, say, anxiety. You should just be able to tell people. It's an illness. Like asthma or measles or meningitis. It's not a guilty secret. The shame people feel exacerbates symptoms. Yes, absolutely, people are often brave. But the bravery is in living with it, it shouldn't be in talking about it. "
33 " Don't compare your actual self to a hypothetical self. Don't drown in a sea of 'what ifs'. Don't clutter your mind by imagining other versions of you, in parallel universes where you made different decisions. "
34 " To see the act of learning as something not for its own sake but because of what it will get you reduces the wonder of humanity. We are thinking, feeling, art-making, knowledge-hungry, marvellous animals, who understand ourselves and our world through the act of learning. It is an end in itself. It has far more to offer than the things it lets us write on application forms. It is a way to love living right now. "
35 " When anger trawls the internet, Looking for a hook; It’s time to disconnect, And go and read a book. "
36 " The world exists in you. Your experience of the world isn’t this objective unchangeable thing called ‘The World’. No. Your experience of the world is your interaction with it, your interpretation of it. To a certain degree we all make our own worlds. We read it in our own way. But also: we can, to a degree, choose what to read. We have to work out what about the world makes us feel sad or scared or confused or ill or calm or happy. "
37 " The problem is not that the world is a mess, but that we expect it to be otherwise. "
38 " It sometimes feels as if we have temporarily solved the problem of scarcity and replaced it with the problem of excess. "
39 " Maybe the point of life is to give up certainty and to embrace life’s beautiful uncertainty. "
40 " Accept feelings and accept that they are just that: feelings. "