Abhay Verma

“Beauty is not good capital. I compounds the oppression of gender. It constrains those who identify as women against their will. It costs money and demands money. It colonizes. It hurts. It is painful. It can never be fully satisfied. It is not useful for human flourishing. Beauty is, like all capital, merely valuable.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

“But if I believe that I can become beautiful, I become an economic subject. My desire becomes a marker.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

“I could never step lightly enough or run fast enough to get away from the cracking, so I made everything around me so loud that it drowned out the sound.”
― Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

“I hate small talk. It is small. Small is for teacups and occasionally for tiny houses. Too much small talk is how a country is given to sociopaths who thrive on shallow chatter to distract their emotional sleight of hand. Talk should be meaningful or kept to a minimum.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays