“I know what love is and it is friendship, set afire.Love is easy. Love is chemistry—a science lab. Love is as simple as connecting this together with that. Her brilliant eyes and my heated heart.But this is not love.Not yet.Genuine love is friendship. Genuine love resides only in the present moment. Genuine love is everyday. Genuine love feels no need to entertain the space away. Genuine love is up, genuine love is down and yet genuine love never wavers.Love is something else entire: it is caring. It is arguing, but with curiosity—it is giving an inch when the other is certainly wrong—it is teasing, it is empathy, it is respect, it is admiration each morning.”

“I know what love is and it is friendship, set afire.Love is easy. Love is chemistry—a science lab. Love is as simple as connecting this together with that. Her brilliant eyes and my heated heart.But this is not love.Not yet.Genuine love is friendship. Genuine love resides only in the present moment. Genuine love is everyday. Genuine love feels no need to entertain the space away. Genuine love is up, genuine love is down and yet genuine love never wavers.Love is something else entire: it is caring. It is arguing, but with curiosity—it is giving an inch when the other is certainly wrong—it is teasing, it is empathy, it is respect, it is admiration each morning.”

“The best way to get through any challenge is to step back, look up at the sky, breathe deeply in and out, smile if you have to…then dive in.”

“Next time someone tells you to smile for the camera, & you don’t feel like it—say no, thanks. Don’t fake your way into a happy-seeming life. Open vulnerable honesty is true positivity.”

“True efficiency is taking some time to be fully first thing in the morning. Rushing isn’t always efficient.”

“Want to enjoy an restful day? Wake up, turn your phone on, meditate, look at the sky—then toss your phone into the bushes.”

“Meditate five minutes each morning and see it wake up your entire life.”

“Defeated? Learn from it. Move forward. You're stronger now. Reach out for help. No shame, only learning. Seek out those you can learn from.”

“Love is only available to those willing to be continually brave in weakness.”

“I am a lover of love and I am a lover of words, and the two together spin visions of airy castles, but also may pierce the heart of hope. And so I remind you that I am a fool, a poet, and what matters is reality, not lovely words. Words are full of promise, yet empty of matter.”

“And so I would like to thank you. You taught me, again and again again and again and again, not to dream of you. And I listened. I am silent. These words are not words of love, but of the silence that will remain when I walk away when this letter is done. I have listened and I do not continue to imagine our love, for it was not love. You were too busy walking a flowered path, and it was my misstep that I thought we had something more than an hour’s fun for you.Thank you, for clarifying for me what love is not.Love is no thing, and nothing is a gift, space is a playground, and time and distance are merely peaks and valleys in the topography of real love.And I would remind you: I am not one of your fans. For I know what I deserve, and it is one who is not afraid of fear. Love does not require this map: it makes its way across the miles. Love does not heed the time; it is not rooted in the months of one or two moons. Love is not bothered by obstacles—they form the high sides to the left and right of this rocky path. This path does not depend upon external signs: love will find its own way.”

“I would like to care more about you than about my feelings for you.”