Rebecca M.

“And then she says something I’ve never heard a gun owner say: “I would give up every one of our guns if the mass shootings would stop. I would never touch another gun again if it meant that that would end.” “Really?” I ask. “Fuck yeah,” she says. “In a heartbeat. I don’t have to have these. Just because it’s my right doesn’t mean it is right.”
― Melissa Faliveno, Tomboyland: Essays

“You can come to your friends with a problem and they will most usually blurt out a set of orders based entirely upon their own lives, which they believe you should follow. There is no thought process that goes into it, no internalization, no ingestion of your own pain into their own stomachs. I believe this is why, about a million people come to me with their problems rather than turning to their closest friends and family members; because I'm like that ancient tree with protruding roots, you can sit under my branches and as you cry I will soak your tears into me. We don't actually need humans with their many thoughtless advices. We need to be sitting under trees, asking roots to share in our pains.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Life has so many tuneless days... what better posture to take than to become a whimsical motherfucker?”
― Kathleen Collins, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?

“Empathy speaks to us in those silent moments, away from our wounded ego and our wondering heart, in those empty spaces where questions run riot like lost and rejected soldiers… it tells us that each soul is worthy, valued, loved and honoured and we only ever need to face our own shadows, our own pain… and to be our own mirror.”
― Christine Evangelou, Rocks Into Roses: Life Lessons and Inspiration for Personal Growth