Camille

“A good deal of modern American culture is an extended experiment in the effects of depriving people of what they crave most. The consequences that flow from limbic ignorance are as grim as love’s victories are miraculous. The tragedy lies, as all tragedy does, in the knowledge that these sad outcomes once held the potential for greatness. What Charles Dickens wrote of the pair beneath the robe of Christmas Present is true of our society: “Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.” Our culture might trade”
― Thomas Lewis, A General Theory of Love

“For all his inner suffering, the narcissist has many traits that make for success in bureaucratic institutions, which put premium on the manipulation of interpersonal relations, discourage the formation of deep personal attachments, and at the same time provide the narcissist with the approval he needs in order to validate his self-esteem.”
― Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations

“I think of how keenly I've been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men.”
― Raven Leilani, Luster

“settlers cannot be considered immigrants because immigrants are expected to obey the laws of the land when they arrive, while settlers make their own new laws of the land.”
― Edgar Villanueva, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance