Bec

“Do you know what this is?" the girl bellowed slowly.
"No," I said. She seemed genuinely pleased.
"These are the deeds of our Savior. The word of our Lord."
"Oh, Lenin's collected works," I said. "Which volume?”
― Miroslav Penkov, East of the West: A Country in Stories

“We believe that the most terrifying and destructive feeling that a person can experience is psychological isolation. This is not the same as being alone. It is a feeling that one is locked out of the possibility of human connection and of being powerless to change the situation. In the extreme, psychological isolation can lead to a sense of hopelessness and desperation. People will do almost anything to escape this combination of condemned isolation and powerlessness.

The part of this definition that is critical to understanding shame is the sentence 'People will do almost anything to escape this combination of condemned isolation and powerlessness.' Shame often leads to desperation. And reactions to this desperate need to escape from isolation and fear can run the gamut from numbing to addiction, depression, self-injury, eating disorders, bullying, violence, and suicide.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Our mothers teach us to speak, and the world teaches us to shut up.”
― Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

“I don’t know how to be in my own body, my own mind. I want to care about a story, any story.”
― Madeleine Gray, Green Dot: A Novel