Brooke Cagle

33 Simple Steps To A Life Less Shitty

The best quotes by Adam Gnade
Sade Andria Zabala
February 2, 2017
“I’m in a fog and even though I feel like I’m living a good, authentic life, I spend a lot of my life numb. There’s this sleepwalk I do where it’s like I’m under a layer of ice and I slump through the day without any real inner dialogue. It’s like being dead on your feet. Or stuffed with cotton. And then it’s not. The other half of the time the world is clear and I remember everything and my mind is alive. That’s when I can socialize and type letters and make plans and deal with the changing terrain. The rest of the time, I’m pretty worthless.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Seasonal Depression, Depression
“Next time the Big Motherfuckin’ Sad comes calling, don’t pick up the phone.

See your sadness as a caller who wants to give you grief for not paying a parking ticket or some other asinine thing. Stand by the phone and say, ‘Who cares about parking tickets. I didn’t put the parking meter there.’
Then walk away.

Let that phone ring in an empty house and go outside and find all the good things you can and fill yourself up with them until you’re bursting with goodness and substance. Maybe summer’s ending. Maybe today’s your last chance to swim in the lake before the gloom of fall. Do it all now”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Seasonal Depression
“Watching the news will always make you feel like the world is ending. The world isn’t ending. The world is changing.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: News, Media, Change, Depression, War, Perspective
“No one wants to be lonely and no one wants to be with you when you’re lonely.”
— Adam Gnade, Caveworld
Tagged: Loneliness, Depression, Companionship, Single
“Next time the Big Motherfuckin’ Sad comes calling, don’t pick up the phone.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Depression, Seasonal Depression, Sadness, Motivational
“Fuck security. Give us the mess. Give us the big splash of life and color and failure. It’s beautiful.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Security, Risk, Failure, Life, danger
“The best things have always come from the loneliest people.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Depression, Loner, Introvert
“Basically what it comes down to is I suck at life like how some people are bad pool players or awful cooks but I’m trying to be better.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Life, Loser, Failure
“You’ve got to be a warlord against your demons and you’ve got to keep your sword sharp. I’m as confused as anybody in regards to the great What It All Means but this is what keeps me here. Life can be a nightmare, pure annihilation and bad days that crush you flat, but I’m sticking around. I plan to stay.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Mental Health, Resilience, Life
“Most people have this version of themselves they believe is the true version. Now, a lot of the time that version doesn’t line up with what everyone else sees. Maybe you know you’re braver than you’ve been all your life. Maybe you‘re labeled with a gender that doesn’t fit you. We’ve all got discrepancies with what we believe we are and what we really are. Some people might call those delusions but I think we are who we believe we are, we just need to work at it until our actions line up with our intentions.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Identity, Change, self awareness, Self Improvement
“Change your life until you are who you know you are.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Identity, Change, self awareness, Self Improvement
“Remember: Any decent person will love the weird parts of you best.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Love, Friendship, Relationships
“Shit-talkers are like black mold: They’ll infect you and you might not even know it. you don’t need that darkness in your life. Bitterness will jump from you to them.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Gossip, Negativity, Toxic People
“If you live with monsters, you’ll become monstrous. This can be good and it can be bad. You need to keep your perspective and know when it’s time to quit a bad scene.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Toxic People, Child Abuse, Abusive Parents
“Remember this: the path toward The Better is nothing but the summation of a million fights, of endless reworking, hard choices made, a list and litany of changes both small and gargantuan.”
— Adam Gnade, I Don’t Know How to Help You
Tagged: Fighting Back, perseverance, Change, Self Improvement
“You’ve got to hold some things close to your heart and love them no matter how your life changes (or how you change). Loving things keeps you grounded. It helps you retain innocence and it lets you hold onto some sense of wonder when the whole world is telling you that you need to get cynical in order to survive.”
— Adam Gnade, Simple Steps to a Life Less Shitty
Tagged: Soft, Optimism, Stay Positive
“When you’re young and you’re writing you shouldn’t try to philosophize and say what everything ‘is’. If you’re any kind of healthy thinker, your definites today will betray you tomorrow. Instead, write how you feel, write those things that you know without fighting to know. Tell your honest, immediate, personal story, and don’t fake wisdom. Wisdom will come later, or it won’t, but your own expanding, forward-pushing personal saga, if told clear and well and honest enough, will be the saga of everyone.”
— Adam Gnade, My Brain Was A Shark Eating Itself Part 2: Living in America and Other Nightmares
Tagged: Writing, writer, Writing Advice
“Life is water through wet cloth. It’s all trees and sky passing by a car window, and you can never own any of it, no matter how much you want it. The key is to make peace with that and have as much fun as you can without hurting anyone. There’s no meaning of life but there is meaning and life, and it’s there waiting for you.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Life, The Meaning Of Life, purpose, Acceptance
“Life is short and lonely and mean but there are good things that make it worth living. The idea is to grab those things when they show up and hold onto them as long as you can.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Life, alive
“One thing people overlook is that friends can be anywhere. They don’t have to have the same diet or music taste or politics as you. They don’t have to be your age or your color or your class... Making friends can be one of the scariest fucking things you’ll ever do, but once you have them they’ll help soothe that fear. We can make it alone but it’s better (and more fun) not to.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Friendship, Making Friends, Social Anxiety
“Learn the difference between honesty and being a dick.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Important, Freedom of Speech, Honesty, Making Friends
“I don’t know much for certain but I’m looking for answers and right now I believe this: you push forward today and you push forward tomorrow and every day is your chance to do the things you promised.”
— Adam Gnade, A Love Note to the Future at the End of a Shit-Year
Tagged: perseverance, Tired of life
“Don’t waste your life in front of a screen. If given the choice, avoid any kind of prison. Especially the ones we put ourselves in.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Technology, Social Media, Zen
“Adapt until you flourish; confront all obstacles presented until there’s something new. Push forward. Push until it breaks open and shows the golden yolk. Push until you’re walking in the clear, the wind in your face, a clean path before you.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: perseverance, Motivational
“I’m seeing the circular conversations of stress and fatalism and the bad cycles of self-doubt. It’s all a product of fear. I’m afraid of tomorrow, and I’m afraid of next week and I’m afraid that each choice I make will be the one I’ll look back on and regret forever… life’s a sh*t business sometimes, but you have to drag yourself out of bed and fight and when you learn how to fight a lot of this gets easier.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Anxiety, Depression, perseverance, Motivational
“We’re all braver and stronger than we give ourselves credit for.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Inspirational, Motivational, Brave, strength
“If you’re not grappling with self-doubt half the time, you’ve probably lost perspective. The confident ones give us the worst and most lifeless bullshit.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Depression, Social Anxiety, Anxiety, Perspective, Important, Spilled Ink
“Open your heart to the sky. Live.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Life, Inspirational, Open Heart
“Be sweet to a baby and let them know all big people aren’t a) dead inside, b) angry, or c) afraid of adventure.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Random Acts Of Kindness, Parenting
“Don't waste your time with friends you don't love... with anything that doesn’t make you better in its presence.”
— Adam Gnade, The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Fighting the Big Motherfuckin' Sad
Tagged: Toxic Relationships, Bad Friendship, Love Yourself