Suzan Lemont

“The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society

“When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.”
― Arundhati Roy

“Every week had been a struggle; every month simply hours stacked up in the attic, for a future that might never arrive.”
― Laura Imai Messina, The Phone Box at the Edge of the World

“Love is like therapy, it only works when you believe in it.”
― Laura Imai Messina, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World