Zainah

“It is painful for women to talk about beauty because under the myth, one woman's body is used to hurt another. Our faces and bodies become instruments for punishing other women, often used out of our control and against our will.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

“لطالما شعرت بأن الناس هذه الأيام يعيشون كما لو كانوا موظفين لدى الله لا عبادا له كما لو كان في إمكانهم أن يسيئوا له خلف ظهره ثم يواصلوا التظاهر بالعمل.”
― عزيز محمد, .الحالة الحرجة للمدعو ك

“When a woman looks at a man, she can physically dislike the idea of his height, his coloring, his shape. But after she has liked him and loved him, she would not want him to look any other way: For many women, the body appears to grow beautiful and erotic as they grow to like the person in it. The actual body, the smell, the feel, the voice and movement, becomes charged with heat through the desirable person who animates it.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

“You need not, and in fact cannot, teach an acorn to grow into an oak tree, but when given a chance, its intrinsic potentialities will develop. Similarly, the human individual, given a chance, tends to develop…the unique alive forces of his real self; the clarity and depth of his own feelings, thoughts, wishes, interests; the ability to tap his own resources, the strength of his will power…All this will in time enable him to find his set of values and aims in life. In short, he will grow, substantially undiverted, toward self-realization.”
― Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Towards Self-Realization