Iridium

“The default assumption tends to be that it is politically important to designate everyone as beautiful, that it is a meaningful project to make sure that everyone can become, and feel, increasingly beautiful. We have hardly tried to imagine what it might look like if our culture could do the opposite—de-escalate the situation, make beauty matter less.”
― Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion

“In white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it through ceremony. Pain is not framed like a problem with a solution. I don’t even know that white people see transcendence the way we do. I’m not sure that their dichotomies apply to me.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

“She had come to learn that the English had an indirect way of expressing their opinions. Unlike the Turks, they did not communicate resentment through resentment or anger through double anger. No, there were layers to their conversation; the deepest discomfort could be conveyed with a reticent smile. They complemented, when in truth they wished to denounce; they clothed their criticisms in cryptic praise.”
― Elif Shafak, Havva'nın Üç Kızı

“Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.”
― Joe Haldeman