Sara Jane

“Books were safe. They had plots that followed predictable patterns, beginnings, middles, and endings. Usually happy, though not always. But if something tragic happened in a book, you could just close it and choose a new one, unlike real life, where events often played out without the protagonist’s consent.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Totalitarianism’s essence, she asserts, is the total domination of human beings by terror. It is not only the scale of the crimes that is novel; it is their very character. At their heart is the attempted extirpation of all human “spontaneity,” which is to say human freedom. Nothing less than radical surgery upon “human nature” has been attempted. To this end, the essential means is the concentration camp system, perfected in different forms by Stalin and Hitler. It acts by tearing down the dignity of human beings, layer by layer, first nullifying the “judicial person,” then destroying the “moral person” (by forcing the inmates to make choices between criminal alternatives), and finally tearing down “individuality,” the seat of spontaneity, leaving, in place of recognizable human beings, “ghastly marionettes with human face.”1”
― Hannah Arendt, On Revolution

“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able—to dress and entertain, and order things.”
― Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

“What a waste,” Hecate said, and Hades wondered if she was more upset that there was no particular drama to this case. Then she yawned. “But you know I do not go out in the daylight.” “Are you saying you would forgo the chance to punish a false oracle who sacrifices cats for divine favor?” Hecate cringed noticeably. “How criminal. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
― Scarlett St. Clair, A Game of Retribution