Mallory

“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘
‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Finding yourself" is not really how it works. You aren't a ten-dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. "Finding yourself" is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.”
― Emily McDowell

“And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better - cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“A woman is praying beside me. I would really like to be able to believe like that, I would like to be able to feel something when I pray but I don't. Maybe looking for God is just looking for something to be in awe of, something to tremble before, a standard to uphold. Perhaps religion is a way of punishing oneself, a manifestation of the shame built into the human experience.”
― Celine Saintclare, Sugar, Baby