Ning

“I sometimes think of people’s personalities as the negative space around their insecurities. Afraid of intimacy? Cultivate aloofness. Feel invisible? Laugh loud and often. Drink too much? Play the gregarious basket case. Hate your body? Slash and burn others so you can climb up the pile. We construct elaborate palaces to hide our vulnerabilities, often growing into caricatures of what we fear. The goal is to move through the world without anyone knowing quite where to dig a thumb. It’s a survival instinct. When people know how to hurt you, they know how to control you. But”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“Trust but check. Check on those we trust.”
― Tom Rob Smith, Child 44

“Mike made me feel lonely, and being alone with another person is much worse than being alone all by yourself.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“For me, the process of embodying confidence was less about convincing myself of my own worth and more about rejecting and unlearning what society had hammered into me.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman