Bryanna

“The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter less.”
― Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

“A second chance doesn't mean you're in the clear. In many ways, it is the more difficult thing. Because a second chance means that you have to try harder. You must rise to the challenge without the blind optimism of ignorance.”
― Ling Ma, Severance

“Why does a mother's advice to a daughter sound like nagging, no matter how protective or affectionate?”
― Ha Seong-nan, Bluebeard's First Wife

“You stop by a bookstore and buy a full-color insect picture book. Within its pages is a photo of a water-strider, darting over the water with long slender legs as taut as guitar strings. If a raindrop should hit it or the current turn rough all of a sudden, it looks as if it would get swallowed up. But as vulnerable as it appears, it also has a kind of charm. Why must it walk on water? There's more than enough land in the world for its legs to stand safely on.
(Waxen Wings)”
― Ha Seong-nan