Elizabeth

“No one knows what goes on in a marriage except the people in it, the truism goes. I have often thought that the sentence could stand to be shortened to: No one knows what goes on in a marriage.”
― Haley Mlotek, No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce

“Denial fully experienced also enables us to understand the full measure of our reluctance to be here, thus becoming a pathway to self-knowledge, a way of both paying attention to and appreciating what is asking to be seen.”
― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

“The translator for my interviews, Augustin, was distraught after several days of trying to find the words in English that captured the grief being described in Swahili. He would at times drop his head and sob before attempting to translate what was said. As we parted ways, Augustin had this to say, “Please tell the people in your country, a child in the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.”
― Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

“the wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions