Ásdís

“All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men. But I never thought I'd have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“The Olinka girls do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this, she said: A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something.
What can she become? I asked.
Why, she said, the mother of his children.
But I am not the mother of anybody's children, I said, and I am something.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple

“To my unsuspecting love.
When I look into your eyes, I lose all sense of time and place. Reason robbed, clear thought erased, I am lost in the paradise I find within your gaze.
I long to touch your blushing cheek, to whisper in your ear how I adore you, how I have lost my heart to you, how I cannot bear the thought of living without you.
To be so near to you without touching you is agony. Your blindness to my feelings is a daily torment, and I feel driven to the edge of madness by my love for you.
Where is your compassion when I need it most? Open your eyes , Love, and see what is right before you: that I am not merely a friend, but a man deeply, desperately , in love with you.
Longing for you.”
― Julianne Donaldson, Edenbrooke

“Anna told me I would understand about boys one day.
She said that everything would change and I would look at them differently, assess their bodies and their words, the way their eyes moved when they talked to me. She said I’d not only want to answer them but that I’d learn how, knowing which words to use, how to give meaning to a pause.
Then a man took her.
A man took her before I learned any of these things. He took her and kept her for a while, put things inside of her. Of course the obvious thing, but also some others, like he was curious if they’d fit. Then he got bored. Then he got creative.
Then my sister was gone and I thought: I understand about boys now.
And she was right. Everything did change. I look at them differently and I assess their bodies and watch their eyes and weigh their words.
But not in the way she meant.”
― Mindy McGinnis, The Female of the Species