Chris

“I hate the idea that I have repeated an action, that he has looked at me, discerned a pattern, and silently decided whether it is something he can bear to see again.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“In my few years of dating, I have received a number of gifts from men. Gifts that were bought in haste at duty-free, that were fattening or detrimental to vaginal pH, that overestimated my interest in Lyndon B. Johnson and the New York Mets.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“What I know is that the young women I met across northeastern Syria, from all its communities—Arab, Kurd, Christian—want the same things from their lives as thousands of girls I have met every other place in the world, including the United States: a chance to go to school and an opportunity to forge their own future. The world has a way of telling girls and young women what they should want from their lives, and of telling them not to ask for too much.”
― Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice

“It gets us loose enough to talk about politics, but as he talks, I hold my breath. I know we are in agreement on the most general, least controversial ideological points—women are people, racism is bad, Florida will be underwater in fifty years—but there is still ample time for him to bring up how much he enjoyed Atlas Shrugged. Even with good men, you are always waiting for the surprise.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster