sqwook | From Jeanette Winterson in 'Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal'

(A)s I try and understand how life works -- and why some people cope better than others with adversity -- I come back to something to do with saying yes to life, which is love of life, however inadequate, and love for the self, however found.

There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realize that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.

I have noticed that doing the sensible thing is only a good idea when the decision is quite small. For the life-changing things, you must risk it.

I know now that we heal up through being loved, and through loving others.

But what is really your own never does leave you. (...) I could be my own flare to see by. Then the light went out again.

I love the natural world and I never ceased to see it.

Later that night, lying on the gravel and looking up at teh stars -- the miraculous stars adn the wood that deepens teh dark -- I could hear a voice.