Dora

“At thirteen desperately watching TV, curling my long legs under me, desperately reading books, callow adolescent that I was, trying (desperately!) to find someone in books, in movies, in life, in history, to tell me it was O.K. to be ambitious, O.K. to be loud, O.K. to be Humphrey Bogart (smart and rudeness), O.K. to be James Bond (arrogance), O.K. to be Superman (power), O.K. to be Douglas Fairbanks (swashbuckling), to tell me self-love was all right, to tell me I could love God and Art and Myself better than anything on earth and still have orgasms.”
― Joanna Russ, The Female Man

“Those who did not know the ocean well forgot its solidity, its brutality.”
― Robert Galbraith, Career of Evil

“You should’ve seen the way he was looking at you while you were out.”
I smiled a little. “How?”
“Like you're the ocean and he's desperate to drown.”
― Michelle Hodkin, The Retribution of Mara Dyer

“I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor.”
― Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women