Jenna DiMaggio

“But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“أولادكم ليسوا لكم
أولادكم أبناء الحياة المشتاقة إلى نفسها, بكم يأتون إلى العالم, ولكن ليس منكم.
ومع أنهم يعيشون معكم, فهم ليسوا ملكاً لكم.
أنتم تستطيعون أن تمنحوهم محبتكم, ولكنكم لا تقدرون أن تغرسوا فيهم بذور أفكاركم, لأن لهم أفكارأً خاصةً بهم.
وفي طاقتكم أن تصنعوا المساكم لأجسادكم.
ولكن نفوسهم لا تقطن في مساكنكم.
فهي تقطن في مسكن الغد, الذي لا تستطيعون أن تزوروه حتى ولا في أحلامكم.
وإن لكم أن تجاهدوا لكي تصيروا مثلهم.
ولكنكم عبثاً تحاولون أن تجعلوهم مثلكم.
لأن الحياة لا ترجع إلى الوراء, ولا تلذ لها الإقامة في منزل الأمس.
أنتم الأقواس وأولادكم سهام حية قد رمت بها الحياة عن أقواسكم.
فإن رامي السهام ينظر العلامة المنصوبة على طريق اللانهاية, فيلويكم بقدرته لكي تكون سهامه سريعة بعيدة المدى.
لذلك, فليكن التواؤكم بين يدي رامي السهام الحكيم لأجل المسرة والغبطة.
لأنه, كما يحب السهم الذي يطير من قوسه, هكذا يحب القوس الذي يثبت بين يديه.”
― جبران خليل جبران, The Prophet

“You ought to know, you were my best friend. You were. I know you loved me. I loved you.
No one should have gone through what we went through, but we did. And it kills me to think of it.
But I didn't love you like you loved me. I don't hate you for that. It just makes me sorry, that there isn't someone else who could love you better.
I know when you think about how I went, you'll get it. I was always uneasy about being alive. The idea of being dead makes me feel clear. When I think of it. It makes me think peace, peace, peace. It makes me happy. I am looking forward to it, to the absence of everything. And so I want you to be happy for me, that this is better for me. That I found what I needed. I know you won't be. But it's the last thing I want. You happy.”
― Alexander Chee, Edinburgh

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride