1. When your ego dissolves, the pain might not go away, but the suffering does.
2. Empathy means: We don’t have to understand; we just have to believe.
3. I thought fiction was about understanding, now I realise it’s about believing.
4. You don’t have to ‘find your passion’, but if passion finds you then it is the most wonderful thing on earth.
5. To be a better photographer, be like an animal – be driven by something primal, raw, pure, or even unhinged.
6. Only in silence can we discern what is important and what is not.
7. When we liberate someone, sometimes we end up oppressing someone else.
8. Holding two opposite thoughts at the same time is essential to the development of our soul.
9. Your biggest flaw cannot be the thing that most defines you.
10. You can be judged, but you cannot really be defined.
11. True freedom is always one hair’s breadth away, so close as to be invisible to the eye. It’s annoying and exhilarating at the same time.
12. My favorite writing is made up of the simplest language.
13. I want to move through the world collecting, digesting and reforming ideas and feelings and stories and then presenting them back to you (and myself) in the form of a gift.
14. I am always happier right before my first bite of the McSpicy burger than after I finish it. The McSpicy burger is just such a delicious IDEA.
15. If you fail at loving, you are allowed to try again as many times as you want.
16. The more I move my body, the better my brain functions.
17. Lesson #546 from skateboarding: If you practice enough at the edge of your competence, you are not gonna fall much.
18. You don’t have to learn how to waste time. You knew how to do that as a kid. Be a kid again.
19. Does it really matter what I’m doing, as long as I’m enjoying myself?
20. Writing is easy if I don’t think too highly about myself.
21. The kids in my life add a substantial amount of love, laughter, wonder, and meaning to my life. My ambition is to successfully grow old so I can endure their antics for as long as I can.
22. The moment I fell in love with photography again was when I realised how little I knew.
23. I am slowly turning into an ENFP (?!!) because every day I want to spend more and more time with the people I love.
Bonus quote (my favorite of the year): “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop