Ryan La Sala > Quotes

“If you look at most female archetypes—the mother, the virgin, the whore—their power comes from their relation to men. But not the Witch. The Witch derives her power from nature. She calls forth her dreams with spells and incantations. With poetry. And I think that’s why we are frightened of them. What’s scarier to the world of men than a woman limited only by her imagination?”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“It is up to you to demand people see you as you, or they will almost always decide you are someone else.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“I realize this fits into the way I've always seen myself, which is: art, attempted, though often spoiled by the demands of another's taste.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“Dreams can be parasites we sacrifice ourselves to. Dreams can be monstrous, beautiful things incubated in misery and hatched by spite. Or dreams can be the artifacts we excavate to discover who we really are.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“Death isn’t the end of a life, but the division of it. When someone dies, their soul scatters into all the things they’ve ever given away. Love. Bruises. Gifts. You struggle to piece together what’s left—even the things that hurt—just to feel haunted.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“What’s scarier to the world of man than a woman limited only by her imagination?”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“That’s the thing about a big imagination. It’s hard to belong anywhere when you can always imagine something better.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“Just because something is imagined doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. Sometimes the things we believe in are the most dangerous things about us. That's why people build entire worlds in their minds. Because they think they're safe. But they're wrong. Dreams are like parasites. They grow up in the dark within us, and they grow deadly.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“I will be a ruin to consume.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“I leave the lip gloss on. Bright things in nature are often poisonous. Let that be my defense, then. Let Aspen watch, and predators prowl, and all the waiting jaws yawn wider. I will be a ruin to consume.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“But if my conviction is a knife, the blade is a mirror I
must face myself in as I raise it. Who could I be, if I were one of them? How beautiful? How bad? And how secure? Maybe I, too, could be safe, veiled within layers of
frivolity and boredom and beauty.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“The monsters worth fearing are the ones that are dangerous enough to hide in daylight.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“The way they talk about themselves—with such frankness—it feels like all people are wet clay, all the shapes that define us self-imposed. I realize this fits into the way I’ve always seen myself, which is: art, attempted, though often spoiled by the demands of another’s taste. It makes me wonder what shape I’d be if I’d never met another human being.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“We must tell our stories ourselves, you know, or else they will destroy us in their own violent making.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“I have never prayed until Caroline died, and now that she’s gone, I only have one prayer. Just one. Wherever you are, let it be bright. I hope it’s light that greets us, in the end, after everything.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“Contentedness is a party I leave early ever time. It's not often that I feel invited to begin with, and even rarer that I feel welcomed enough to stay. I've learned to never test any group's hospitality. Patience like that is finite for someone like me, and it's dangerous to indulge in it.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“What beauty in our reality is simply an unfathomable refraction across space, light, and time?”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“People look into mirrors with such unguarded curiosity, never thinking that someone else is looking back.”
― Ryan La Sala, Beholder

“Only now am I seeing a new truth: that sometimes the broken bits are just the pieces you need to create something new, something better, something remarkable" -Raffy”
― Ryan La Sala, Be Dazzled

“I want to imagine them out there, together in some unknowable brightness. Maybe they’re watching, maybe they’re not. But I hope they’re not alone.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“she relaxes like I’ve just spared her life. I suppress an eye roll. I’m gender fluid, not a grenade.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“In this unmoving instant Kane knew the reverie for what it was: a living tapestry of memories and thoughts and dreams, sewn together with the desperation to be real, to be realized.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“That’s why we’re going.” “You’re going. I’m stopping you.” “You’re doing a very bad job.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“But you can't design a future and expect it to just happen. Like art, you can only start with intent. Your hands build the rest." -Raffy”
― Ryan La Sala, Be Dazzled

“The unreality of something is no reason to dismiss it. Sometimes reveries—and dreams for that matter—are more real to a person than the reality they serve to distract from.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“Kane wasn't scared to talk about his pain; he was scared of making other people listen.”
― Ryan La Sala, Reverie

“Contentedness is a party I leave early every time.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“We cannot run from what reflects us. The farther you run from a mirror, the deeper your reflection vanishes into it.”
― Ryan La Sala, Beholder

“Is everything an act to you?"
"Everything is an act to everybody.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys

“Caroline wore detachment fashionably, like the slick skin of a seal, the grip of reality sliding off so that she always appeared cool and unbothered in the hot, frantic world. I’m not like her – I catch on everything. Every small want grows out of me, like thorns, making me impossible to embrace.”
― Ryan La Sala, The Honeys