aly✨

“I lied often. It was just simpler that way. As a little kid, I remember being told repeatedly that lying was bad, lying never fixed anything, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and never lied. But no one ever told me how wonderful and easy it was to lie, how many conversations it would save me from and the stares it would avert—“Yeah, I’m fine!” “What? No, I’m not mad!” “Don’t worry, it’s okay!”—and did Abraham Lincoln really never, ever lie? In bed at night during the Civil War, did he toss and turn and soak his sheets with sweat and eventually wake Mary Todd to tell her, “Hold me, I’m scared, I think I fucked up,” or did he lie awake and sweat quietly, working his hardest to remain still, to keep his mouth shut, to let Mary Todd sleep soundly and unaware?”
― Jean Kyoung Frazier, Pizza Girl

“Lily,” Sharkie said. “Yeah?” “Is this a swearing kind of situation?” “Yeah.” “Fuck.”
― Jaysea Lynn, For Whom the Belle Tolls

“Strength isn’t in the loud and obvious. Strength is often camouflaged in the quiet, reserved places where most people wouldn’t think to look. It’s grown in the moments when we give up things along the way.”
― Meagan Church, The Girls We Sent Away

“We live in a society that wants us to be ashamed of our bodies. It’s hard not to internalize that.”
― Rachel Harrison, Such Sharp Teeth