Jessica Cramer

“I wanted to hold her hand, to quiet the impulses that made it impossible for her to sit still, but I didn't want to disrespect whatever music she heard.”
― Katrina Leno, Summer of Salt

“This was a fight they'd had a hundred times, but now they smiled at each other about it, all the resentment gone. Miriam realized suddenly how many of their fights had really been about them trying to say that they fit wrong.”
― Helena Greer, Season of Love

“With familiar archness he waggled his finger at me and said 'tsk tsk'; all that writhing and fussing began again, what fun it was for him to have someone automatically not above reproach, and I knew beyond the shadow of a hope that to be female is to be mirror and honeypot, servant and judge, the terrible Rhadamanthus for whom he must perform but whose judgment is not human and whose services are at anyone's command, the vagina dentata and the stuffed teddy-bear he gets if he passes the test. This is until you're forty-five, ladies, after which you vanish into thin air like the smile of the Cheshire cat, leaving behind only a disgusting grossness and a subtle poison that automatically infects every man under twenty-one. Nothing can put you above this or below this or beyond it or outside of it, nothing, nothing, nothing at all, not your muscles or your brains, not being one of the boys or being one of the girls or writing books or writing letters or screaming or wringing your hands or cooking lettuce or being too tall or being too short or traveling or staying at home or ugliness or acne or diffidence or cowardice or perpetual shrinking and old age. In the latter cases you're only doubly damned.”
― Joanna Russ, The Female Man

“What hurts, Mallt?"

"Everything! I thought humans only felt things with their chests! That's what all the songs say. Your heart is where you're supposed to feel things, but I feel all over!"

"What do you feel?"

I stuttered, trying to find the words. "You! I feel you in my legs – they're weak as kittens. I feel you in my arms – they ache to hold you, I mean physically hurt to not have you. My stomach is a whirlpool, my throat is a wildfire. I can feel you in my fingertips, I can feel my mouth aching to kiss you, to say your name. It's not just my chest, or my head, it's all of me. I can feel you in my elbows, Bel – what does that mean?"

"What do you think?" Belis asked, her gaze dark and very serious.

"This is your stupid human love, isn't it?"

She smiled at me and I felt my traitorous mortal heart beat so hard that I thought my ribcage might crack.

"For what it's worth, Mallt, I love you with my elbows, too.”
― Molly O'Neill, Nightshade and Oak