Mary Johnson

“There's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“The great thing about refusing to feel feelings is that, once you’ve denied them, you don’t have to take responsibility for them. Your feelings will be someone else’s problem – your mother’s problem, your girlfriend’s problem, your wife’s problem. If it has to come out at all, let it come out as anger. You’re allowed to be angry. It’s boyish and man-like to be angry.”
― Robert Webb, How Not to Be a Boy

“There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.”
― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep—it can't be done abruptly.”
― Colm Tóibín