Daphne Gray > Daphne's Quotes

“Your no makes the way for your yes. Boundaries create the container within which your yes is authentic. Being able to say no makes yes a choice.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

“I touch my own skin, and it tells me that before there was any harm, there was miracle.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”
― Toni Morrison

“I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
― Leonard Cohen

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“I think it is healing behavior, to look at something so broken and see the possibility and wholeness in it.”
― Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds

“When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Fledgling

“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“There is no end
To what a living world
Will demand of you.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

“Don't speak negatively about yourself, even as a joke. Your body doesn't know the difference. Words are energy and they cast spells, that's why it's called spelling. Change the way you speak about yourself, and you can change your life.”
― Bruce Lee

“One remedy for the fear of not being loved is to remember how good it feels to love someone. If you're feeling unloved and you want to feel better, go love someone, and see what happens.”
― Dossie Easton, The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities

“The cultural ban on having sex with your friends is an inevitable offshoot of a societal belief that the only acceptable reason to have sex is to lead to a monogamous marriagelike relationship.”
― Dossie Easton, The Ethical Slut : A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures

“Shame is paralyzing and debilitating. It invites us not to be heard, at least not in an authentic way. Acting courageously when shame enters the picture requires extraordinary courage because people will do anything to escape from shame or from the possibility that shame will be evoked. It is just too difficult to go there. Even for people who will walk in to the fires of transformation to face fear.

Men and women tend to manage shame differently. Generally, men have less tolerance for shame, perhaps because they are shamed almost from birth for half their humanity. The so called feminine part of themselves including anything vulnerable or seen as weak. Men often sit with shame for only a nanosecond before flipping it into something more masculine or therefore tolerable like anger or rage or a need to dominate devalue or control.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Fear

“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
― John Lennon

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

“It is easy to love people in memory; the hard thing is to love them when they are there in front of you.”
― John Updike, My Father's Tears and Other Stories

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”
― Maya Angelou

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.”
― Russ Harris, ACT with Love: Stop Struggling, Reconcile Differences, and Strengthen Your Relationship with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

“Disadvantaged white people are not erased by discussions of disadvantages facing people of color, just as brain cancer is not erased by talking about breast cancer. They are two different issues with two different treatments, and they require two different conversations.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“The point of this language of “intention” and “personal responsibility” is broad exoneration. Mistakes were made. Bodies were broken. People were enslaved. We meant well. We tried our best. “Good intention” is a hall pass through history, a sleeping pill that ensures the Dream.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Imposter syndrome grew into self-doubt, and my thoughts snowballed from You aren’t good enough to write this essay to You aren’t good enough to write any essay. I was shame-spiraling, people-pleasing, and, most worrisome, when I wrote, I was performing for the white gaze and consumerism. Thinking of all the ways I would or could be applauded and praised for work I had yet to even complete. True to exactly what I research, fear, doubt, and cynicism were hindering my ability to be present. I had to tune out everything and every voice around me and remind myself that this work, like all my work, was a try. It was, and I am, allowed to be and become without expectation.”
― Tarana Burke, You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience