Grace Siahaan

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! — I have as much soul as you — and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal — as we are!”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“The sun doesn't rise because you people gave it a permit. The rain doesn't fall because you people gave it a permit, either. Long, long before you created your corporations and became obsessed with profit, nature existed. We are simply living by it.”
― Bora Chung, Your Utopia

“It is not for me to judge another man's life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“...it doesn’t mean the world will change. There will still be those who will continue to be beaten in silence, and those who will continue to die in silence.
But maybe there will also be those who will survive. And I want to be able to have as little shame as possible when I stand before those who do.”
― Bora Chung, Your Utopia