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78,425 books
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292,339 voters
Alena
https://www.goodreads.com/alena-pearl
“And it may seem now like it’s someone else’s children, but there’s no such thing as someone else’s children.”
― One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
― One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
“If to exploit is human nature, than this, to resist exploitation, is also human nature. No exploiter has ever lived in peace without their weapons, their soldiers, and their propaganda and lies. And I have enough faith in human self-interest to believe that those who do the true labor of society will rise for their own sake until there are no more exploiters to combat, however many eons it will take. Every oppresser, through their denial of humanity, sows the seeds of their own destruction.”
― Heavenly Tyrant
― Heavenly Tyrant
“XII No one wants to be the person who drives slow past a flower shop on valentine’s day while their lover sleeps even if I know the flower petals will fold in on themselves and turn to rust before they expand into the sun beautiful things die every day and we still stare while they are living or set them in the middle of a wooden table passed down from a wilting grandmother who only remembers your face on tuesdays it makes sense to declare love with something that makes no promises about how long it will stay living something that we know will be dead in a week I tell myself that while gently pressing my fingers into the dark leather of another pair of sneakers while all of the other men scramble for chocolate I try on another beautiful thing that may live to see me forgiven for walking through the door holding it close to my chest nothing else in my hands I understand that I should always come bearing flowers it is good to hold a slow funeral in your palms it is good to know when something will leave”
― The Crown Ain't Worth Much
― The Crown Ain't Worth Much
“I think I am starting to vanish slowly from head to toe. There are ten different ways to say sunset. The bartender says my face is wearing all of them.”
― The Crown Ain't Worth Much
― The Crown Ain't Worth Much
“There is an impulse in moments like this to appeal to self-interest. To say: These horrors you are allowing to happen, they will come to your doorstep one day; to repeat the famous phrase about who they came for first and who they'll come for next. But this appeal cannot, in matter of fact, work. If the people well served by a system that condones such butchery ever truly believed the same butchery could one day be inflicted on them, they'd tear the system down tomorrow. And anyway, by the time such a thing happens, the rest of us will already be dead.
No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.”
― One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
No, there is no terrible thing coming for you in some distant future, but know that a terrible thing is happening to you now. You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children? Who cares if great distance from the bloodstained middle allows obliviousness? Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.”
― One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
Alena’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Alena’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
459 books
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80 friends
87 books
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48 friends
314 books
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37 friends
9 books
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17 friends
0 books
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18 friends
38 books
|
8 friends
0 books
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1 friend
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