Danielle

“I dressed the way I did not because I was trying to be a nun, but because it felt good—and because it made me feel less vulnerable in general, like I wore a kind of armor every day. It was a personal preference.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“My feelings were still inarticulate, comprising little more than tears and expletives.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“Instead, I’d been counting the number of dipshit things people had said to me today. I’d been holding strong at fourteen until I made my way to my next class and some kid passing me in the hall asked if I wore that thing on my head because I was hiding bombs underneath and I ignored him, and then his friend said that maybe I was secretly bald and I ignored him, and then a third one said that I was probably, actually, a man, and just trying to hide it and finally I told them all to fuck off, even as they congratulated one another on having drummed up these excellent hypotheses. I had no idea what these asswipes looked like because I never glanced in their direction, but I was thinking seventeen, seventeen, as I got to my next class way too early and waited, in the dark, for everyone else to show up.
These, the regular injections of poison I was gifted from strangers, were definitely the worst things about wearing a headscarf. But the best thing about it was that my teachers couldn’t see me listening to music.
It gave me the perfect cover for my earbuds.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea