Cari Borchert

“We bought into the lie that we need to focus on building up self-esteem in girls, which causes them to focus inward, as opposed to self-respect, which shows them that the way to find joy and contentment is to believe in something bigger than themselves.”
― Melanie Shankle, Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma

“I was drowning in this man. From the moment I met him, I had been kicking against the current and holding my breath, struggling to get back to the safe, familiar surface—but every look, every touch, dragged me deeper still. I felt the burning of it in my lungs, as real and visceral as if I were plunging into the Sacred Sea itself. And maybe it made me weak, or a traitor, or a fool, but gods did I want to close my eyes and sink forever.”
― Penn Cole, Glow of the Everflame

“The men will fight for their thrones and their power and their legacies, but to them we are nothing more than crickets and ants, insignificant, expendable. We will continue to worry over the rice and soy sauce and oil, three meals a day, how to escape the cold in the winter and the heat in the high summer, the holes in the roof and the bedding and the taxes. What does it matter who wears the crown, if they will not change any of this for us?”
― Ann Liang, A Song to Drown Rivers

“Yet the most remarkable thing about losing a parent is that you don't even need to miss them for their loss to be felt. The basic function of a parent is just to exist. You have to be there, like ballast in a boat, because otherwise your child capsizes.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends