Mikaela > Mikaela's Quotes

“Feminism is not a philosophy, or a theory, or even a point of view. It is a political movement to transform the world beyond recognition. It asks: what would it be to end the political, social, sexual, economic, psychological and physical subordination of women? It answers: we do not know; let us try and see.”
― Amia Srinivasan, The Right to Sex

“These “everybody wins” arguments ring false because they are. If ameliorating poverty and racial division would get rich kids into better colleges or bump up a company’s stock price, wouldn’t well-off Americans already be doing it? It cannot both be true that excluding poor people from high-opportunity communities enriches the lives of the people inside the wall while degrading the lives of people outside of it and that tearing down the wall and welcoming the poor into those communities will come at no cost to the current residents.”
― Matthew Desmond, Poverty, by America

“The unfed mind devours itself.”
― Gore Vidal

“Feminists have always optimistically figured that once they demonstrated the merits of their cause, male hostility to women's rights would evaporate. They have always been disappointed.”
― Susan Faludi, Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones that I did not.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“In short: I felt my existence was tainted, in some subtle but essential way.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

“People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“...for nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room