Noelle

“Thus I remained to myself an unhappy lodging where I could neither stay nor leave.
For where could my heart fly from my heart? Where could I fly from my own self?”
― Saint Augustine, Confessions

“In a paradoxical sense, once I accepted my position as different from the larger society as well as from any single-sub-society--black or gay--I felt I didn't have to try so hard. To be accepted. To look femme. To be straight. To look straight. To be proper. To look "nice". To be liked. To be loved. To be approved. What I didn't realize was how much harder I had to try merely to stay alive, or rather, to stay human. How much stronger a person I became in that trying.”
― Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

“When you have been a possession,
then you really understand what freedom means
in all its magnificent terror.”
― Terry Pratchett, Making Money

“Being known. This, of course, is the goal, the agenda so carefully hidden it may be unknown even to the self. The cutter cuts to make the pain at her center visible. The anorexic starves to make manifest her hunger and vulnerability. The extremes announce, This is who I am, this is what I feel, this is what happens when I don't get what I need. In quadraphonic sound, they give voice to the most central human hunger, which is the desire to be recognized, to be known and loved because of, and in spite of, who you are; they give voice to the sorrow that takes root when that hunger is unsatisfied.”
― Caroline Knapp, Appetites: Why Women Want