I'm broken, but I have to learn how to live. I feel stuck together with scotch tape, like after any breath everything could come apart. If it does, if it all comes undone, I think I'll fall down and never rise again.

— Anna White

I name you today, heart fears. I am small, but you are smaller. You will not stop me. You have a voice, fears, and I must listen, but then I will open my heart. I will love you right to death.

— Anna White

In this week I see such a picture of life, hard and joyful pressed up together and sleeping in the same bed. They come knit together. The lines of pain run through the joy and remind us to go all in, because life is short. The joy edges the pain and gives us a reason to rise.

— Anna White

I realized that I was okay with myself. I was quirky and withdrawn and loud, but I liked that. Furthermore, I smiled at strangers without thinking they were going to attack me and drag me into their cars. Furthermore, I went to doctors’ offices and touched magazines that had been touched by sick people.

— Anna White

I think this is the essence of life: to be willing circle back, to fall in deeper, to relearn what I thought I already knew.

— Anna White

I think this is what we all want to hear: that we are not alone in hitting the bottom, and that it is possible to come out of that place courageous, beautiful, and strong.

— Anna White

It is a beautiful and scary thing to sit open-handed and let all your plans float away like dust.

— Anna White

It is the capacity to feel consuming grief and pain and despair that also allows me to embrace love and joy and beauty with my whole heart. I must let it all in.

— Anna White

I've always let my imagination run free, but now I try to rein it in. Things never turn out the way I imagine, so I am letting them rest. Instead, I am holding just what is in my hand.

— Anna White

I've had a lot of therapists, so I've had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I've faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

— Anna White