Manal

“They think I am concealing my ugliness from them, when in truth it is their ugliness I am hiding.”
― Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River

“Today, it is becoming possible for [the girl] to take her future in her hands, instead of putting it in those of the man. If she is absorbed by studies, sports, a professional training, or a social and political activity, she frees herself from the male obsession; she is less preoccupied by love and sexual conflicts. However, she has a harder time than the young man in accomplishing herself as an autonomous individual. . . . [N]either her family nor customs assist her attempts. Besides, even if she chooses independence, she still makes a place in her life for the man, for love. She will often be afraid of missing her destiny as a woman if she gives herself over entirely to any undertaking. She does not admit this feeling to herself: but it is there, it distorts all her best efforts, it sets up limits.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

“That evil was the inability to recognize the humanity in experiences that were not your own, in experiences that seemed alien.”
― Syed M. Masood, More Than Just a Pretty Face

“Someone in a mosque once told me about the water behind people’s faces. This water, he said, changed depending on what you did and what you believed, and as you got older it began to freeze. The kind of life you led, whether your heart was full of love or joy or shrewdness or bile, all of this changed the nature of the water and, therefore, the look of your face. In this way, your face told the story of your life.”
― Syed M. Masood, More Than Just a Pretty Face