arielle

“When students leave my classroom, any classroom, they have to and should face the real world, the best and worst of it. I can only hope they are adequately prepared to navigate the world as it is rather than how we wish it could be. But I also hope they are both realistic and idealistic. I hope that, like me, they search for safety, or work to create a world where some measure of safety, not to be confused with anything as infantile as coddling, is an inalienable right.”
― Roxane Gay, Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People’s Business

“I think there's something so heartbreakingly beautiful about boys -- their softness, their vulnerability, before the world tells them that they must be something else. What could the men who hurt us have been, had they been loved enough?”
― Thao Thai, Banyan Moon

“Is there a greater flex than love?”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted shortcuts to love.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden