India C

“There is a defiance in being a dreamer”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“...it’s always the friends in the end, isn’t it, who remain to pick up the pieces when the men have gone, leaving destruction in their wake? Still, only the romantic partner is taken seriously. Friends and family will not gather, ever, to celebrate my partnership with Naima—there will be no anniversaries or acknowledgments, no congratulatory cards, no celebratory ceremonies. And yet, it is this slow burning love of female friendship that actually keeps the world turning.”
― Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre

“But so often, joy and beauty were stuck in the same places as grief and shame, and one could not be accessed without the other.”
― Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi, The Centre

“It isn’t a sadness, but a joy, that we don’t do the same things for the length of our lives.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow