18 Quotes by Julia Whelan

maybe my dream of Oxford, the planning, the career building, the Rhodes, everything that went into getting me there was really about: just getting there. Maybe the City of Dreaming Spires -- the foundational lifeblood of education in the Western world -- wasn't itself the dream, but the entry point to something I could have never imagined, never seen until now. Love. Family. Connection. A life. And the freedom to decide, on my own terms, what I want to do, what I'm going to do with my calling.

I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one's life. One sees shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon's head, and one suffers, because it does not return one to stone. -- Oscar Wilde, letter to Louis Wilkinson (December 28, 1898) in the beginning of the book

Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness, Yours still, you mine; remember all the best Of our past moments, and forget the rest; And so, to where I wait, come gently on.

Maybe, once you come to realize that there are no answers, you learn to live with the questions.

Losing someone is hard enough. But death without the process of dying is an abomination. It takes nine months to create life; it feels unnatural, a sin against nature, that the reverse shouldn’t also have its time. Time to let go of the known as we take hold of the unknown.

But the hardest thing is staying. The hardest thing is living with dying. Loving with dying. The hardest thing is love, with no expiration date, no qualifiers, no safety net. Love that demands acceptance of all things I cannot change. Love that doesn’t follow a plan.

She thinks she’s better than everyone else. Honestly, I don’t. But I do think I’m better than what everyone, besides my dad, told me I was.

When you feel more than you can say, when words fail you, when syntax and grammar and well-constructed expressions are choked from your mind and all that’s left is raw feeling, a few broken words come forth. I’d like to believe those words, when everything’s stripped away, might be the key to it all.

We were never forever, Jamie and I. Nothing is in this life. But if you love someone, and are loved by someone, you might find forever after. Whatever and wherever that is.