Renee

“He never lets anyone else shave his beard, and he says: Behzad, take note. No one is obliged to do something like that for you, even if you pay him for it, and you should never trust a person so much that you put a blade in his hand and let him lean over you with it.”
― Shida Bazyar, The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran: shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026

“when you’re a kid, a decade is like the space between galaxies.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

“beauty can have a corrosive effect on character. It is possible to coast for some years on no more than a few polished lines and a dazzling smile, and those years are formative.)”
― Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel

“didn’t want to be with people for whom liberation was a vitamin, a nice thing that might enhance their lives and make things better and would be super cool and awesome if it came about. I wanted to be with people for whom liberation was a medicine, something without which they would simply die. That is why I went to the queer, trans, Black, Indigenous, POC sex party.”
― Carvell Wallace, Another Word for Love: A Memoir