Kenna

“I said to Lucien, low and quiet and as vicious as the talons that formed at the tips of my fingers, as vicious as the wondrous weight between my shoulder blades, "When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness starts to stare back.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Mist and Fury

“One of the signature mistakes with empathy is that we believe we can take our lenses off and look through the lenses of someone else. We can’t. Our lenses are soldered to who we are. What we can do, however, is honor people’s perspectives as truth even when they’re different from ours. That’s a challenge if you were raised in majority culture—white, straight, male, middle-class, Christian—and you were likely taught that your perspective is the correct perspective and everyone else needs to adjust their lens. Or, more accurately, you weren’t taught anything about perspective taking, and the default—My truth is the truth—is reinforced by every system and situation you encounter.”
― Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

“You know what, Abigail? You’re right—it is selfish. But there’s nothing inherently immature about making a selfish choice. It is hard to put what you know is right for you first, when you know people you love don’t respect your choices. It is hard to say ‘what I want is worthy.’ It is hard to say ‘I know myself and what I need, even if everyone else thinks otherwise.’ Don’t tell me this is immature when it took me months of thinking about it every damn day to make this choice.”
― Dahlia Adler, Right of First Refusal

“Jane, who would you ship yourself with?” “Happiness,” Jane answers. “Is that the name of a bodyguard?!” someone shouts. “It’s a noun,” Beckett says with a what-the-fuck face.”
― Krista Ritchie, Lovers Like Us