Relenanite

“I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.
Why not?"
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. (...) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“One challenge of our adventure on earth is to rise above dead systems...wars, nations, destructions...to refuse to be a part of them, and express the highest selves we know how to be.”
― Richard Bach, One

“Love is an action you must repeat ceaselessly.”
― Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle

“The people who denied who they were or where they had been were in the greatest danger. They were blind sleepwalkers on tightropes, fingers scoring thin air.”
― Janet Finch