“I have been envious of male characteristics, if not the men themselves. I'm jealous of the ease with which they seem to inhabit their professional pursuits: the lack of apologizing, of bending over backward to make sure the people around them are comfortable with what they're trying to do. The fact that they are so often free of the people-pleasing instincts I have considered to be a curse of my female existence.”
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
“D. J. Tanner called and she wants her wardrobe back so it can be included in a museum retrospective about the prime years of Full House.”
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”
“It's an unfortunate word, 'depression', because the illness has nothing to do with feeling sad, sadness is on the human palette. Depression is a whole other beast. It's when your old personality has left town and been replaced by a block of cement with black tar oozing through your veins and mind. This is when you can't decide whether to get a manicure or jump off a cliff. It's all the same. When I was institutionalised I sat on a chair unable to move for three months, frozen in fear. To take a shower was inconceivable. What made it tolerable was while I was inside, I found my tribe - my people. They understood and unlike those who don't suffer, never get bored of you asking if it will ever go away? They can talk medication all hours, day and night; heaven to my ears.”
―
―
“When she writes, which isn't often, I get insanely jealous of the way her mind works, the fact that she seems to create for her own pleasure and not to make herself known.”
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
― Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
“hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity, veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a teakettle has been spouting steam on a winter’s day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I shape words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawing, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside. But the view itself can bring its own hüzün. It is time to come to a better understanding of this feeling that the city of Istanbul carries as its fate.”
― Istanbul
― Istanbul
Ellen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ellen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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