Skye Leroux

“Beliefs are assumptions or conclusions; values are the parts of life that bring a person meaning. Beliefs reflect what you think of the world; values reveal more about yourself. Confusing these two can be dangerous business. When someone attaches their self-worth to a belief—political, personal, or otherwise—they desperately need to be right. Challenges to what they think feel like threats to how they think—evidence they aren’t smart or good enough. The person screaming loudest is often most fearful of being wrong.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“A mind can be turned by a single cruel word. Care should be taken in the presence of a soul.’ – Einar Benediktsson, from ‘Starkaður’s Soliloquies”
― Ragnar Jónasson, The Island

“If I’m the light, what are you guys?” Nessa said with a sniffle. “I’m the punishment that fits the crime.” Harriett returned to her work. “Jo is the rage that burns everything down. Nessa will have to talk to the dead girls’ mothers. But we’ll all have our parts to play.”
― Kirsten Miller, The Change

“This role of the elder woman as visionary isn’t always an active, “out there” role; sometimes it’s associated with a quieter, more inward-looking aspect of elderhood — perhaps a later life stage, in which she has withdrawn to the solitude and darkness of her symbolic cave, in preparation for her impending death. I think of such elders — the ones we generally don’t know, or have forgotten, precisely because they no longer choose to be seen by the wider culture (though they are often very visible to their family and their community) — as sages. These old women have left their strivings behind, and in the clarity of all that not-doing, they’ve made room for the space in which to cultivate deep vision, insight, and wisdom.”
― Sharon Blackie, Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life