Grace

“I said that I too sometimes did not understand what I saw in galleries, or read in books. Though I understood the pressure of feeling like you had to have a view or opinion, especially one that you could articulate clearly, which usually only came with a certain education. This, I said, allowed you to speak of history and context, and was in many ways like a foreign language. For a long time, I had believed in this language, and I had done my best to become fluent in it. But I said that sometimes, increasingly often in fact, I was beginning to feel like this kind of response too was false, a performance, and not the one I had been looking for. Sometimes, I looked at a painting, and felt completely nothing. Or if I had a feeling, it was only intuitive, a reaction, nothing that could be expressed in words. It was all right, I said, to simply say if that was so. The main thing was to be open, to listen, to know when and when not to speak.”
― Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow

“Beauty has always been one of the only ways women have been able to access power, and I can’t fault any of them for wanting more of it.”
― Ling Ling Huang, Natural Beauty

“Everything you want right now, everything you want so passionately and think you’ll never get—you will get it someday.” I accidentally met her eyes, and it felt like she was talking to me. “Yes, you will get it,” she said, looking right at me, “but by that time, you won’t want it anymore. That’s how it happens.”
― Elif Batuman, Either/Or

“Here’s a theory: Maybe I had not really been broken this whole time. Maybe I had been a human—flawed and still growing but full of light nonetheless”
― Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma