Richard Derus

“There's nothing easier than learning to hate women. There is no shortage of teachers. Fathers teach it, the state teaches it, the legal system teaches it, the market teaches it, and culture, and propaganda.”
― Patrícia Melo, The Simple Art of Killing a Woman

“To follow politics these days is to court bewilderment, denial, complete despair. Too often I feel I am living in a country I no longer recognize, a country determined to imperil every principle I hold dear and many of the people I love, too. Immersing myself in the natural world of my own backyard—or the nearby parks and greenways, or the woods surrounding our friends’ cabin on the Cumberland Plateau—is the way I cope with whatever I think I cannot bear. I’m not trying to hide from the truth but to balance it, to remind myself that there are other truths, too. I need to remember that the earth, fragile as it is, remains heartbreakingly beautiful. I need to give my attention to a realm that is indifferent to fretful human mutterings and naked human anger, a world unaware of the hatred and distrust taking over the news.”
― Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

“Statistically, you've got a better chance of going to Hollywood and becoming a superstar in the movies than you do of becoming a successful writer.”
― Samuel R. Delany

“You never imagine that a guy like this, a Wittgenstein reader and yoga fan, will hit you in the face at a lawyers’ New Year’s Eve party. But the statistics show that it happens a lot. And that lots of men don’t stop at a slap. They’d actually rather kill you.”
― Patrícia Melo, The Simple Art of Killing a Woman