The Book Maven

“Things often go wrong and cooking can be messy, but the act of creating something from disparate ingredients still remains satisfying. Cooking reminds me that I am capable of taking care of myself and worthy of taking care of and nourishing myself.”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

“With age comes self-awareness, or something that looks like self-awareness, and so I try to be on the lookout for patterns of behavior, choices I’m making where I’m trying too hard, giving too much, reaching too intently for being right when right is what someone else wants me to be. It’s scary, though, trying to be yourself and hoping yourself is enough. It’s scary believing that you, as you are, could never be enough.”
― Roxane Gay, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

“It is not difficult to stand above the conventions when we leave no hostages among them; men can always be more unconventional than women, and a bachelor of independent means need encounter no difficulties at all.”
― E.M. Forster, Howards End

“Not that I bother much with dress myself. Women just dress to please the men, and I'd never stoop to that. I have had a real placid, comfortable life, dearie, and it's just because I never cared a cent what the men thought.”
― L.M. Montgomery