Bookphile

“Obstinate, headstrong girl!”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You guys know about vampires? … You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves. And growing up, I felt like a monster in some ways. I didn’t see myself reflected at all. I was like, “Yo, is something wrong with me? That the whole society seems to think that people like me don’t exist?" And part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”
― Junot Díaz

“When I look in the mirror, I don't see a body slimmed through strict dieting and weight loss. I see a body that's weary, that's battered, that has been through absolute hell. I see a body that's resilient and has gone through the wringer to keep me alive. None of what I've endured matters in this unwinnable scheme: I am thinner, and therefore everything I've experienced to get here is secondary.”
― Evette Dionne, Weightless: Making Space for My Resilient Body and Soul – Poignant Essays on Fat, Black Women and Cultural Expectations

“I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”
― Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist