Shena Grodecki

“It takes a long time to dissolve the bars of a mental cage.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

“The name given me by my mother was, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey." I, however, had dispensed with the two middle names long before I left Maryland so that I was generally known by the name of "Frederick Bailey.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass: By Frederick Douglass & Illustrated

“The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she was a child, and kissed her head. "I will not change, dear Amelia," he said. "I ask for no more than your love. I think I would not have it otherwise. Only let me stay near you, and see you often."
"Yes, often," Amelia said. And so William was at liberty to look and long: as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after the contents of the tart-woman's tray.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

“I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory