Freya West

“A book is a door, you know. Always and forever. A book is a door into another place and another heart and another world.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”
― Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

“Love was something I would not have to worry about - the whole mystery of love, heartbreak songs, and family legends. Women who pined, men who went mad, people who forgot who they were and shamed themselves with need, wanting only to be loved by the one they loved. Love was a mystery. Love was a calamity. Love was a curse that had somehow skipped me, which was no doubt why I was so good at multiple-choice tests and memorizing poetry. Sex was a country I been dragged into as an unwilling girl - sex, and the madness of the body. For all that it could terrify and confuse me, sex was something I had assimilated. Sex was a game or a weapon or an addiction. Sex was familiar. But love - love was another country.”
― Dorothy Allison, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

“A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience.”
― Naomi Wolf