Louise Erdrich

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could."

Louise Erdrich (The Painted Drum)

William S. Burroughs

"There is no intensity of love or feeling that does not involve the risk of crippling hurt. It is a duty to take this risk, to love and feel without defense or reserve. "

William S. Burroughs

Louise Erdrich

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up."

Louise Erdrich

Leo Buscaglia

"The person who risks nothing does nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live. Chained by his certitude, he is a slave. He has forfeited freedom. Only a person who risks is free."

Leo Buscaglia