“You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it.”
— Audre Lorde
quotes
Source: bell hooks in an interview with Maya Angelou for Shambhala Sun
Image description: A still image from the 90’s TV sitcom Saved By The Bell. Kelly and Jessie sit next to each other. Jessie looks off in the distance in contemplation. Kelly faces the camera with a look of determination (interpretation of scene my own). The caption reads, “I will not have my life narrowed.”
I go through phases. Some days I feel like the person I’m supposed to be, and then some days I turn into no one at all. There is both me and my silhouette. I hope that on the days you find me and all I am are darkened lines, you still are willing to be near me.
Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as an escape.
Bell Hooks (via lazypacific)
CLAP BACK, Jane.
I may be basically good, human, loving, but I am also more than that, imaginatively dual, complex, and illusionist
Anaïs Nin (via bruisedplumkiss)
“She goes to him for amnesia, for oblivion. She renders herself up, is blotted out; enters the darkness of her own body, forgets her name. Immolation is what she wants, however briefly. To exist without boundaries.”
~ Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.
Some friends don’t understand this. They don’t understand how desperate I am to have someone say, I love you and I support you just the way you are because you’re wonderful just the way you are. They don’t understand that I can’t remember anyone ever saying that to me.
Elizabeth Wurtzel (via onlinecounsellingcollege)