Beth

“Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.”
― Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer: A Memoir

“This was laughable, of course, but that’s always the way with totalitarian regimes. Language gets turned on its head. Serfdom is freedom. Repression is liberation. A police state is a democratic republic. And we were “the masters of our destiny.” And if we begged to differ, we were dead.”
― Masaji Ishikawa, A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

“When you’re starving to death, you lose all the fat from your lips and nose. Once your lips disappear, your teeth are bared all the time, like a snarling dog. Your nose is reduced to a pair of nostrils. I wish desperately that I didn’t know these things, but I do.”
― Masaji Ishikawa, A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

“But please, tell me more about Fjerdan girls. "
"They speak quietly. They don't engage in flirtations with every single man they meet. "
"I flirt with the woman too. "
"I think you'd flirt with a date palm if it would pay you any attention. "
"If I flirted with a plant, you can bet it would stand up and take notice.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom