E M I L Y A N N M A R I E

"How cool is it that the same God that created mountains and oceans and galaxies looked at you and thought the world needed one of you too?"

"Every poem is about you. Even the ones
about other people, they’re for your eyes
only. Everyone else who reads this is just a stranger
looking through the window at us.
It always comes back to you.
It will always come back to you."

"We do not suffer by accident."

"….There is a fundamental reason why we look at the sky with wonder and longing — for the same reason that we stand, hour after hour, gazing at the distant swell of the open ocean. There is something like an ancient wisdom, encoded and tucked away in our DNA, that knows its point of origin as surely as a salmon knows its creek. Intellectually, we may not want to return there, but the genes know, and long for their origins—their home in the salty depths. But if the seas are our immediate source, the penultimate source is certainly the heavens… The spectacular truth is—and this is something that your DNA has known all along—the very atoms of your body—the iron, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and on and on—were initially forged in long-dead stars. This is why, when you stand outside under a moonless, country sky, you feel some ineffable tugging at your innards. We are star stuff. Keep looking up."

"I’ve learned a lot this year.. I learned that things don’t always turn our the way you planned, or the way you think they should. And I’ve learned that there are things that go wrong that don’t always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I’ve learned that some broken things stay broken, and I’ve learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you."

"I think a person needs to learn from childhood to find himself alone. It means to not be bored when you’re by yourself, because a person who finds himself bored when alone – as it seems to me – is in danger."

"In a room full of art, I would still stare at you."

"Remember when you were a kid, and you were going on vacation the next day and you can hardly sleep because of how excited you were?
That’s how I want to feel every day when I wake up. I want to be excited about life."