Alice > Alice's Quotes

“I’ve watched it time and time again—a woman always slots into a man’s life better than he slots into hers. She will be the one who spends the most time at his flat, she will be the one who makes friends with all his friends and their girlfriends. She will be the one who sends his mother a bunch of flowers on her birthday. Women don’t like this rigmarole any more than men do, but they’re better at it—they just get on with it. This means that when a woman my age falls in love with a man, the list of priorities goes from this: Family Friends To this: Family Boyfriend Boyfriend’s family Boyfriend’s friends Girlfriends of the boyfriend’s friends Friends Which means, on average, you go from seeing your friend every weekend to once every six weekends. She becomes a baton and you’re the one at the very end of the track. You get your go for, say, your birthday or a brunch, then you have to pass her back round to the boyfriend to start the long, boring rotation again. These gaps in each other’s lives slowly but surely form a gap in the middle of your friendship. The love is still there, but the familiarity is not. Before you know it, you’re not living life together anymore. You’re living life separately with respective boyfriends then meeting up for dinner every six weekends to tell each other what living is like. I now understand why our mums cleaned the house before their best friend came round and asked them “What’s the news, then?” in a jolly, stilted way. I get how that happens. So don’t tell me when you move in with your boyfriend that nothing will change. There will be no road trip. The cycle works when it comes to holidays as well—I’ll get my buddy back for every sixth summer, unless she has a baby in which case I’ll get my road trip in eighteen years’ time. It never stops happening. Everything will change.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“When you’re looking for love and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and restore you. It will hold you when you cry, celebrate when you’re happy, and sing All Saints with you when you’re drunk. You have so much to gain and learn from this kind of love. You can carry it with you forever. Keep it as close to you as you can.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“Nearly everything I know about love, I've learnt from my long-term friendships with women.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“運用一個妳其實並不懂的詞，這根本是犯罪，就像一個人心中沒有愛卻說我愛妳一樣。”
― 林奕含, 房思琪的初戀樂園

“He discovered that social taboos about sex were all too convenient for him. After he raped a girl, the whole world would point at her and tell her that it was her own fault. And then this girl would actually think it was her fault.”
― Lin Yi-Han, Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise

“There can be no world without history, he concludes; the question is who writes it, and whoever writes it shapes the world, which cannot exist without a shape.”
― Aleksandar Hemon, The World and All That It Holds

“Still, humans were humans. They wanted you to know their opinions about your body, even if you hadn’t asked.”
― Annalee Newitz, Automatic Noodle

“Being beautiful, was that for men?'
'Yes. Some women say that it is for ourselves. What on earth can we do with it? I could have loved myself whether I was hunchbacked or lame, but to be loved by others, you had to be beautiful.”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others".”
― Jacqueline Harpman, I Who Have Never Known Men

“Home is where your absence is felt, the echo of your voice kept alive, no matter how long you have been away or how far you may have strayed, a place that still beats with the pulse of your heart.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“The world would have been a much more interesting place if everyone was given a chance to meet their ancestors at least for an hour in their lifetime.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“For every displaced person understands that uncertainty is not tangential to human existence but the very essence of it.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Go like water, come back like water—freely and easily.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“Cousins, friends, books, songs, poems, trees…anything that brings meaning into our lives counts.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky

“If you only knew how difficult it is to be calm and composed. If you only knew, it takes a fierce fight inside to remain peaceful on the outside.”
― Elif Shafak, There Are Rivers in the Sky