Shirma

“In order for us to live comfortably with ourselves while living on unjust terms with others, we have to tell ourselves a story that makes us innocent.”
― Tobias Wolff

“The very act of writing assumes, to begin with, that someone cares to hear what you have to say. It assumes that people share, that people can be reached, that people can be touched and even in some cases changed. So many of the things in our world lead us to despair. It seems to me that the final symptom of despair is silence, and that storytelling is one of the sustaining arts; it’s one of the affirming arts. A writer may have a certain pessimism in his outlook, but the very act of being a writer seems to me to be an optimistic act.”
― Tobias Wolff

“A monster is a person who has stopped pretending.”
― Colson Whitehead

“We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?”
― Sarah Addison Allen, The Peach Keeper