Katie Dennis

“Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I haste to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.”
― Marilynne Robinson

“Listen to your fears: they have a lot to teach you about yourself. Not knowing what’s what can feel scary—but think of it as a chance to scrap all your preconceptions and start from scratch. It’s only by recognizing all the possibilities out there that you can choose the ones that work for you. Then you can be free to figure out where you want the boundaries in your life, what your personal limits are, and whether you ever want to expand those limits. Accomplishing this amazing task will set you free to explore beyond your wildest dreams. “Listen to your fears: they have a lot to teach you about yourself.”
― Dossie Easton, The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love

“ I think of the chimp, the one with the talking hands.
In the course of the experiment, that chimp had a baby. Imagine how her trainers must have thrilled when the mother, without prompting, began to sign her newborn.
Baby, drink milk.
Baby, play ball.
And when the baby died, the mother stood over the body, her wrinkled hands moving with animal grace, forming again and again the words: Baby, come hug, Baby come hug, fluent now in the language of grief.”
― Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories

“I exaggerated even before I began to exaggerate, because it's true — nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be.”
― Amy Hempel, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom