The Book Maven

“You are a single woman; you intend to remain one. You’ve acquired enough sexual experience to feel you belong to your times. You do not have children; you never intended to. Sustained romantic intensities have not been for you. Your explanation (not an untrue one,though not quite sufficient) is that you have let yourself be shaped by so many conventions, expectations, and requirements (institution’s, people’s), by so much dread of disapproval, that the discipline of solitude—severe solitude—has been required to give you the sense of an independent selfhood. The intensities of friendship suit you better. Friendship’s choreography is for multiple partners: for varied groups and surprisingly sustained duets.”
― Margo Jefferson, Negroland

“And it’s a shame that the measure is what is not so bad [in relationships and partners] instead of what is thriving and good […] I have had good relationships, but it’s hard to trust that because what I consider good doesn’t always feel very good at all.”
― 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

“Difficult moments that started with defeat and frustrations can become our most cherished souvenirs because, looking back, they were the seeds for success and have transformed into our most amusing and meaningful anecdotes.”
― Diane Von Furstenberg