Sometimes I stay up late at night and watch as my clock ticks past 12, then I take a deep breath and pretend like it's a brand new day. I pretend like new seconds don't add on to old seconds, new mistakes don't add on to old ones. Life doesn't have to be cumulative, does it? I pretend that sometimes people do wake up and decide to change, decide to be better, and that selfess acts exist. Those are the nights with the next mornings when I would trade anything for another hour of sleep because I'm so tired, brick-boned, hit-in-the-face tired, of re-realizing that where we live optimism is a revolutionary act and I don't have the energy to be a rebel because I stayed up all night, remember?

"Laid out below me is a town called next. I've got a noggin full of songs, I've got a story on my tongue, but I've got absolutely no other prospects." -Rives

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer." -Albert Camus

"The trouble with my generation is that we all think we're fucking geniuses. Making something isn't good enough for us, and neither is selling something, or teaching something, or even just doing something. We all have to be something." -Nick Hornby

"The pearly gates have some eloquent graffiti, like 'we'll meet again,' and, 'fuck the man,' and, 'tell my mother not to worry.'" -Iron and Wine

"Just so you know: my weird mind wanders and my brave heart breaks. I've nailed some milestones but I have made mistakes, 'cause I've got more faults than a map of California earthquakes." -Rives

"Everybody gets hurt, everybody cries. Everybody falls down but not everybody rise. Not everybody talks but everybody lies. Not everybody lives but everybody dies." -Blue Scholars