Cassie Jade

“It is important to look into the shadows of our lives and to see who lives there, tattered, withered, hungry, and alone. Bringing these parts of soul back to the table is a central element of our work. Ending their exile means releasing the contempt we hold for these parts of who we are. It means welcoming the full range of our being and restoring our wholeness. Until then, we will continue to carry a feeling of worthlessness and brokenness.”
― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

“Living everyday in the presence of those who refuse to acknowledge your humanity takes great courage.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Three things no one has ever said about me:

You make it look so easy.

You are very mysterious.

You need to take yourself more seriously.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb, too. The imagination and spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.... Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956