Patricia Williams

“I learned a lot about systems of oppression and how they can be blind to one another by talking to black men. I was once talking about gender and a man said to me, "Why does it have to be you as a woman? Why not you as a human being?" This type of question is a way of silencing a person's specific experiences. Of course I am a human being, but there are particular things that happen to me in the world because I am a woman. This same man, by the way, would often talk about his experience as a black man. (To which I should probably have responded, "Why not your experiences as a man or as a human being? Why a black man?")”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“Courage, dear heart.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

“Age is a clever thief. It takes a little from you each day, so you're not aware of your loss until it's irreversible.”
― James Lee Burke, Light of the World

“the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life