nam

“I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm. Hold up your head when the tears come, when you are mocked, insulted, questioned, threatened, when they tell you you are nothing, when your body is reduced to openings. The journey will be longer than you imagined, trauma will find you again and again. Do not become the ones who hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift. Fight because you know that in this life, you deserve safety, joy, and freedom. Fight because it is your life. Not anyone else’s. I did it, I am here. Looking back, all the ones who doubted or hurt or nearly conquered me faded away, and I am the only one standing. So now, the time has come. I dust myself off, and go on.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Macdonald had already said, back in 1986, “The message young women get from the youth culture is that it’s wonderful to be young and terrible to grow old. If you think about it, it’s an impossible dilemma—how can you make a good start in life if you are being told at the same time how terrible the finish is?”
― Mona Chollet, In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial

“And mostly, I’m furious that I live in a world that has the power to make me feel ugly and unlovable because of my body.”
― Sierra Simone, Misadventures of a Curvy Girl