✩ jo

“What brought you here isn't your fault. We human beings have to live each day to its fullest and do our best in whatever environment we find ourselves in. There's no need to feel any shame just because your "fullest" and "best" look different from those of others.”
― Naoki Higashida, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism

“I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“I understand that I had engaged seriously with someone who only engaged theoretically, and I was so humiliated by this that we never spoke again.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“Time is not duration but intensity; time is the beat and the interval [...]”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea