Yen

“Silence is an incomplete metaphor. It can't capture frustration and complicity, its function as a retreat and a burrow. It holds a place for concealment, secrecy and deception. It holds a place for reverence. Living with a profound layer of silence wedged between yourself and your family can be such a source of sorrow, even when it is necessary.”
― Elias Jahshan, This Arab Is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers

“Always question the world around you and never accept the easiest way out. This includes acting on pure emotion. That’s too easy, and you’re smarter than that.”
― Yumna Al-Arashi, "I Will Not Be Erased": Our stories about growing up as people of colour

“But only by asking for help will you discover there is no such thing as “normal”. There is more than one way to exist.”
― Candace Lee Camacho, "I Will Not Be Erased": Our stories about growing up as people of colour

“That's what scares me. My life is . . . it. There's nothing else, on either end of it. I don't have remnants in the same way that you do, or a plate inside my chest. I don't know what my pieces were before they were me, and I don't know what they'll become after. All I have is right now, and at some point, I'll just end, and I can't predict when that will be, and - and if I don't use this time for something, if I don't make the absolute most of it, then I'll have wasted something precious.”
― Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built