C.S. Lewis

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”
― C.S. Lewis

“What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.”
― C.S. Lewis

I’ve been thinking about friends and friendship quite a bit lately, what it means to be a good friend, how I can be a better friend, what I look for. I really like these two quotes because they capture what it means to first find a friend, many other factors come into play and you don’t have to see all the same truths. Just one shared trust can be the catalyst that prompts you to engage with someone that will become a lifelong friend, regardless of your differences.

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“You can make anything by writing.”
― C.S. Lewis

I have been writing a lot lately, really a lot, one of the two stories I’m working on right now just passed 10,000 words, the largest one I’ve done by far. This quote really highlights what I enjoy about writing, and reading actually. Both let you into your own mind in a way that’s hard to achieve without creativity, with a certain willingness to turn off your logic and just write down what pops up. You have no limits.

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I generally steer away from religious or spiritual topics partly because they are a minefield that seems to have no good outcome and partly because I think it’s such a personal thing, how can you hope to explain it to someone else? It seems like trying to explain how or why you love someone. In the end what matters is your actions, what you put into the world, what you take from it.

That said, this quote I like because it made me chuckle.

“Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning…”
― C.S.Lewis

Neil Gaiman

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.”
― Neil Gaiman

“You get what anybody gets – you get a lifetime.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

“Because,’ she said, ‘when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“You don’t get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.”
― Neil Gaiman

“Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”
― Neil Gaiman

J.K. Rowling

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”
― J.K. Rowling

“The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should be treated with caution.”
― J.K. Rowling

Various

“To seek wisdom and knowledge and to tame the mind, as to avoid suffering caused by ignorance and find happiness.”
– Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama – on the meaning of life.