Farhiya

“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
― Toni Morrison

“They want you thinking you're bad at being a girl instead of good at being yourself. They want you to buy your blush from a store instead of letting it bloom from your butterflies. They're telling you to blend in, like you've never seen how a blender works. Like they think you've never seen the mess from the blade.”
― Andrea Gibson, Take Me With You

“It doesn't matter if she was prettier than you when he decided to cheat. She was treated like trash just like you. He didn't commit to her. He didn't love her soul or cherished any of her accomplishments. He just liked her face and what is that? It is nothing. That is not who she is. He didn't give his heart or time to her. She was the one that was cheated because he stayed with you. You never lost him because he never made a commitment to her. So don't be so hard on the other woman. She was treated poorly also. She was nothing to him. She was only something superficial that he coveted. But loving her? Knowing her? Sharing his deepest feelings with her?... No! She could have been any pretty face. It was never her but a fantasy. He didn't even know her, but for her beauty. And what is beauty? Isn't that something you can buy at a plastic surgeon's office?”
― Shannon L. Alder, The Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Bible

“And I seem to have such strength in me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, " I exist". In thousands of agonies - I exist. I'm tormented on the rack - but I exist! Though I sit alone on a pillar - I exist!! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov