26 Cole Schafer Quotes from One Minute, Please? on Love in a World of Conditions, Screens, and Pain

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Excerpt: Love isn’t complicated, it’s the modern world that’s complicated. These quotes from One Minute, Please? will help you simplify love again.

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Introduction: Excavating Our Love

Love isn’t complicated—it’s the essence of who we are when everything else is stripped away. It’s one of the most natural states of being there is; a state we once knew so well as babies. What’s complicated isn’t love—no… what’s complicated is the modern world we live in.

It’s being told who we’re supposed to love, how we’re supposed to love, when we’re supposed to love, what love is supposed to look like, and why love is supposed to happen in specific ways. It’s complicated because of how deep it gets buried beneath the superficially driven mixed media messaging. It’s complicated because we’re allowing ourselves to get buried deeper and deeper beneath those layers without spending enough time thinking about love for ourselves.

Below, you’ll find one man’s attempt at digging himself back out. In his book, One Minute, Please?, Cole Schafer takes a closer look at what love is, how we might simplify love, and how we might recover from love moved on (amongst many other topics that’ll get you in your feels). Give the following quotes from One Minute, Please? a read and see where Cole’s excavations land with you. Maybe they’ll even inspire you to start doing some digging of your own… good luck.

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The List: 27 Cole Schafer Quotes from One Minute, Please? on Love in a World of Conditions, Screens, and Pain

“I couldn’t tell you what I fear
more. Spending the rest of my life
with just one person. Or, never
finding one person I want to spend
the rest of my life with.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 43)

“There will be moments in your life
when you stumble into someone and your whole
damn world will be flipped on its head, a complete stranger
will become the only person that matters and if I can
give you any piece of advice, it’s that in
these moments don’t let go.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 130)

“There’s little room for rationality in love. There’s room for compassion, honesty and forgiveness. But, if you’re approaching love with a sense of rationality, like it’s some black and white problem to be solved, you’re not truly loving. You might think you’re loving. But you’re not truly loving.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 86)

“I’ve known great troubles, both mentally and emotionally, and many of them have been cured sitting alone in a room with a therapist. And, I’d argue just as many, if not more, have been cured spending fifteen to twenty minutes with my head on a women’s chest. Fucking is good. But it’s not medicine.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 132)

“We often confuse love with possession.
Unlike our pets, humans weren’t meant to be kept on leashes.
They weren’t meant to be neutered and spayed.
Their wings weren’t meant to be clipped for the sake of your possession.
When you love someone, you love them unconditionally.
You love them not under the condition they’ll be here forever.
But, rather, that they chose to be here, for a moment or a lifetime.
Even though they could have flown anywhere.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 106)

“Love, as I see it today, is very conditional. It’s this idea that as long as our partners fit within a specific set of conditions, constructs and expectations, we will continue to love them. That’s a bit fucked up in my opinion. I think we need to give our partners room to explore, to make mistakes, to grow and to experience this life to the fullest. I think we need to remember that we are lovers, not keepers.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 124)

“Most vulnerability we see today
isn’t true vulnerability.
It’s convenient vulnerability.
It’s being vulnerable to better one’s
position in the public eye.
It’s conditional vulnerability.
It’s this idea that one will only be
vulnerable in situations where it’s
advantageous to one’s self.
Being vulnerable should be a selfless act.
It’s making the difficult choice of sharing
raw painful truths in hopes to build
something beautiful from that suffering.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 93)

“Most of what we see today in this virtual world we play in is not self-love but self-obsession. Men and women throw a mask on it and call it self-love, but it’s not. When you love yourself, that light shines through, it beams out of you penetrating into the hearts and minds of others, inspiring them to love themselves too. When you’re obsessed with yourself, you produce no light, only darkness. Self-obsessed people want the world darker so they can burn brighter. To put it in less abstract terms, when someone stumbles into you (be it in the physical or virtual world) will they leave feeling fuller, stronger, lovelier? Or, will they leave feeling less? That is the fundamental difference between self-love and self-obsession. Those who love themselves show others how to love themselves too.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 5)

“The moment we find ourselves feeling bored, sad, anxious or complacent we reach for our phones, a prescription or a self-help book. We’ve become terrified of feeling anything negative. I’m not going to point a finger, but if someone held a gun to my head and told me to point a finger, I’d point to Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. I’d say we were due. I’d say that when you have an entire society overly focused on sharing the upper 1% of their days in a virtual world 24/7, we were bound to create some deep-rooted fears and insecurities around negative emotions. Now, we are forced to reap what we have sown.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 64)

“Would you still love her if you couldn’t post pictures of her? Would that love still exist if you and she were the only two people in the entire world that got to experience what the two of you share? I don’t think so. No, I don’t think you would love her like you say you do. I think the two of you are in love with the show, not the real people playing the actors in it.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 181)

“Falling for people through screens is dangerous. It’s fiction. It’s stranger than fiction. We’re not falling for people, but rather the idea of them we’ve fabricated in our own heads. It’s like falling in love with Lady Brett Ashley in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. After I read Hemingway, I fell in love with that women. But, I can’t take her to dinner because she doesn’t exist. And, that is our generation’s curse, falling for the pretty fiction behind glowing screens that we create in our own heads. At times, I wonder if our imaginations will be the death of any chance we have at love.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 108)

“I was jealous of other men where it concerned the women I was dating because I was scared of losing her to him. I was at war. Love should be many things but it should never be war. Jealousy was my body and mind’s way of doing everything I could to not be abandoned, to not feel that pain of someone leaving. As a result, I led an exhausting life. I couldn’t enjoy love or intimacy because I was so fucking terrified of losing it. Numerous people, both men and women alike, struggle with jealousy. We attempt to mask it in our relationships as being healthy or flattering, branding it as some sort of fucked up proof our partners care about us. But jealousy is not love. It’s selfishness. If we’re not careful, it’s an emotion that can quickly transform into possession. Let her keep her wings.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 112)

“Today, I no longer worry about being the best looking guy in the room. I want to be the smartest. I want to be the most creative. I want to be the most thoughtful. I want to be the most interesting. But, I couldn’t give a shit less about being the best looking. I want to be everything I wasn’t born to be. I want to be everything I’ve worked like hell to build.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 131)

“The love you’ll one day show your person isn’t just your love. It’s a collection or a cultivation, rather, of the love you were shown (be it good or bad) by those who came before him or her.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 138)

“She and I didn’t end in a horrible derailing crushing wreck that left both of us bloody and grabbing for our throats to check if we were still breathing—it was more like a slow dance. We were holding each other closely, swaying to Cigarettes After Sex and I decided to gently let go of her hand and she didn’t make the slightest attempt to grab it back. And, in a cynical yet poetic way, this is what loving in a broken generation haunted by dreams feels like—a slow dance that gets slower and slower until the music stops and someone lets go.“

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 134)

“Sometimes, I wonder if we hurt others because we feel lonely in our own pain.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 45)

“Be thankful for the hurt.
Find meaning in the hurt.
And,
understand every moment that it hurts
represents another moment
you’re alive
and breathing
and living
and loving
and experiencing
all the beauty
this world has to offer.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 48)

“Most of the hateful humans we run into on a daily basis are just growing up children, hurting. That’s heartbreaking. But it’s freeing. It gives us permission to be better to ourselves and our fellow humans.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 110)

“When we remember that the people we stumble
into on a day-to-day basis are all
just works-in-progress, it gives us permission to have
greater patience, compassion and love towards
them. Not unlike ourselves, they’re trying to pilot
the plane while they build it. They’re learning as they
go. Failing more often than succeeding.
And, at times, finding themselves desperately
close to giving up. If we have one single
responsibility as humans, it’s to love (or at the
very least respect) one another through this
work-in-progress. It’s being empathetic
to the fact that nobody is exactly who they want to be,
nor where they want to be, but they’re working
like hell to get there.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 21)

“When you hate someone,
be certain you’re hating them,
not the fabricated version of them
you’ve created in your head.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 29)

“When you find yourself judging someone, take a step back. Ask yourself, what deep underlying insecurity or fear is this person triggering in me? During the most judgmental phases of my life, I was also extremely insecure and unhappy. I couldn’t face my own insecurities and unhappiness so instead, I chose to reflect these feelings onto others in the form of judgment. Today, when I feel myself becoming judgmental towards anyone, it serves as a nice reminder that I have some internal work to do and I do it.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 136)

“If you’re privileged, all that I ask is this. One, don’t take it for granted and certainly don’t waste it. Two, when you can, always, help someone who is less privileged. Three, remind underprivileged kids in your community that they don’t have to become a professional athlete or a rap artist or Instagram influencer to make it big, remind them they can become writers, scientists, teachers, hair-stylists, designers, doctors and lawyers. You don’t have to go out and start a non-profit, you don’t have to go on marches, you don’t have to change the world, you just have to change one person in it. Just once in your lifetime, look for some small way you can help someone who is less fortunate than you are. Because, to be completely candid, if you’re reading this right now you’re privileged too.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 154)

“When you realize that you have mere moments to make the world a better place before you leave it, everything changes.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 191)

“When you live with the understanding that each moment might be your last, everything changes. You begin loving the people in your life harder. You begin sacrificing your body and soul to make good work. You begin living with an insatiable appetite to devour the moment you’re living in now. It will feel foreign but it will ignite your being. Death will no longer scare you as you come to the profound realization that the only death you truly face is not living fully now. So, please. I beg you. Devour this moment whole, my friend.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 122)

“At times, I wish I were better at moderation. But, to be honest, it’s just not the way I’m wired. I came into this world hungry and I’m going to die hungry and my hunger is going to make me wildly successful and ultimately lead to my demise and I’m okay with that. I don’t want to be full.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 168)

“I’m not here to create a legacy. I’m here to set the sky on fire like a shooting star, just for a moment. I’m here to light this world ablaze and then I want to be gone. Any extra time the reaper lets me stick around after that, well that’s just cherries, love. That’s just cherries on top.”

Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 160)

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If you enjoyed these quotes from One Minute, Please, you should check out Cole Schafer’s book in full. It comes highly recommended:

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...Want to advertise your book, product, or service? Send inquiries to matt@movemequotes.com.