Aneri > Aneri's Quotes

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“To become a WRITER I had to learn to INTERRUPT, to speak up, to speak a little louder, and then LOUDER, and then to just speak in my own voice which is NOT LOUD AT ALL.”
― Deborah Levy, Things I Don't Want to Know

“Like everything that involves love, our children made us happy beyond measure – and unhappy too – but never as miserable as the twenty-first century Neo-Patriarchy made us feel. It required us to be passive but ambitious, maternal but erotically energetic, self-sacrificing but fulfilled – we were to be Strong Modern Women while being subjected to all kinds of humiliations, both economic and domestic. If we felt guilty about everything most of the time, we were not sure what it was we had actually done wrong." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy)”
― Deborah Levy, Things I Don't Want to Know

“Yes, there had been many times I called my daughters back to zip up their coats. All the same, I knew they would rather be cold and free.”
― Deborah Levy, Things I Don't Want to Know

“The fact that lipstick and mascara and eye shadow were called 'Make Up' thrilled me. Everywhere in the world there were made up people and most of them were women.”
― Deborah Levy, Things I Don't Want to Know

“As I bit into the sweet orange flesh of the apricot, I found myself thinking about some of the women, the mothers who had waited with me in the school playground while we collected our children. Now that we were mothers we were all shadows of our former selves, chased by the women we used to be before we had children. We didn’t really know what to do with her, this fierce, independent young woman who followed us about, shouting and pointing the finger while we wheeled our buggies in the English rain. We tried to answer her back but we did not have the language to explain that we were not women who had merely ‘acquired’ some children – we had metamorphosed (new heavy bodies, milk in our breasts, hormonally programmed to run to our babies when they cried) into someone we did not entirely understand." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy)”
― Deborah Levy

“For a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.”
― Virginia Wolf

“I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out

“How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?”
― Virginia Woolf

“Let us again pretend that life is a solid substance, shaped like a globe, which we turn about in our fingers. Let us pretend that we can make out a plain and logical story, so that when one matter is despatched—love for instance—we go on, in an orderly manner, to the next. ”
― Virginia Woolf , The Waves

“I really don't advise a woman who wants to have things her own way to get married”
― Virginia Woolf

“Pretty girls behave best when you ignore them. Of course, they have to know you are ignoring them, for otherwise they may not even know you exist.”
― Chetan Bhagat, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

“Why should any guy want to be only friends with a girl? It’s like agreeing to be near a chocolate cake and never eat it. It’s like sitting in a racing car but not driving it.”
― Chetan Bhagat, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage

“Love? I need a lot of love."
Of course you do. Everyone does. It's funny that we never say it. It's OK to scream, 'I'm starving' in public if you are hungry; it's OK to make a fuss and say, 'I'm so sleepy', if you are tired; but somehow we cannot say, 'I need some more love.' Why can't we say it? It's just as basic a need.”
― Chetan Bhagat, One Night at the Call Center

“Quantitatively speaking, 'conversation' is inversely proportional to economic standing. If you are traveling in a bus, your fellow passengers will get into a conversation with you very quickly and without any reservation. If you are traveling by first class on a train, people will be more reserved. If you are traveling by air, then the likely hood of getting into a conversation is quite small. If you are in first class on an international flight then you may travel 24 hours without exchanging a single word with the person sitting next to you.”
― Sudha Murty, Wise and Otherwise

“A society that does not respect women's anger is one that does not respect women; not as human beings, thinkers, knowers, active participants, or citizens.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Men learn to regard rape as a moment in time; a discreet episode with a beginning, middle, and end. But for women, rape is thousands of moments that we fold into ourselves over a lifetime.
Its' the day that you realize you can't walk to a friend's house anymore or the time when your aunt tells you to be nice because the boy was just 'stealing a kiss.' It's the evening you stop going to the corner store because, the night before, a stranger followed you home. It's the late hour that a father or stepfather or brother or uncle climbs into your bed. It's the time it takes you to write an email explaining that you're changing your major, even though you don't really want to, in order to avoid a particular professor. It's when you're racing to catch a bus, hear a person demand a blow job, and turn to see that it's a police officer. It's the second your teacher tells you to cover your shoulders because you'll 'distract the boys, and what will your male teachers do?' It's the minute you decide not to travel to a place you've always dreamed about visiting and are accused of being 'unadventurous.' It's the sting of knowing that exactly as the world starts expanding for most boys, it begins to shrink for you. All of this goes on all day, every day, without anyone really uttering the word rape in a way that grandfathers, fathers, brothers, uncles, teachers, and friends will hear it, let alone seriously reflect on what it means.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“If #MeToo has made men feel vulnerable, panicked, unsure, and fearful as a result of women finally, collectively, saying "Enough!" so be it. If they wonder how their every word and action will be judged and used against them, Welcome to our world. If they feel that everything they do will reflect on other men and be misrepresented and misunderstood, take a seat. You are now honorary women.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“One of the most powerful effects of learning to prioritize other people's perspectives above your own is that you lose the ability to see others as blameworthy, even when they are openly acting as aggressors.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“There is not a woman alive who does not understand that women's anger is openly reviled.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“The first women we know are our mothers, and yet we sometimes treat them, especially when they are angry, with the least compassion. That becomes a model for how we treat other women.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“When a woman shows anger in institutional, political, and professional settings, she automatically violates gender norms.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Why does anyone think that men who cannot say the word period and do not know that the vagina and the stomach are not connected are competent and trustworthy leaders?”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Ask a woman if she has been harassed, or if she thinks about rape regularly, and she will almost always say "no" initially. Who wants to think about rape? Ask her, however, if she makes eye contact when she walks down the street, where and when she loiters for pleasure on a warm day, if she runs by herself at night, or if she pays for cabs instead of peacefully strolling home. Then ask her why. We are taught to fear rape but not to question its pervasive threat or doubt how "natural" it is or isn't.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Every woman has a rape story, whether she has been sexually assaulted or not.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Women are just as motivated by the desire for power as men; it's just that our cultural ideas about power don't associate it with femininity.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Shame infuses women's most intimate experiences, from menstruation to sex. Women who internalize objectified ideas about their bodies often feel intense disgust with bodily functions – even pregnancy. Objectification and self-surveillance also put women at higher risk of sexual dysfunction. Rather than enjoying sex or engaging with their partners to ensure sexual satisfaction, women, distracted by what their bodies smell, feel, and look like, become unable to think about their own pleasure.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger

“Anger is a forward-looking emotion, rooted in the idea that there should be change. Resentment, on the other hand, is locked in the past and usually generates no meaningful difference in the situation.”
― Soraya Chemaly, Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women's Anger