Gemma

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We'll do the best we know.
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow.
And make our garden grow!”
― Leonard Bernstein, Candide - Vocal Selections: Revised Edition Vocal Selections

“What’s the likelihood? That the one girl who makes my heart race is the one girl who wants me in return? That the accident of my attraction coincides with the accident of hers?”
― Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal

“I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch