Glass Eyes

"You can't have love without sacrifice. Every lover there has ever been has had to lose something they hold dear, to give up a part of what they are to the one they're with, and we're no different from anyone else; we're just an ordinary couple after all. Being with someone will always involve killing little pieces of yourself, having a clear-out, moving on. I know. I've killed so many little pieces of myself that there's hardly any of me left." - from "Glass Eyes" in Don't Tell Me the Truth About Love by Dan Rhodes

Babbitt

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

"Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares - toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters - were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom."

"Babbitt knew that in this place of death Paul was already dead. And as he pondered on the train home something in his own self seemed to have died: a loyal and vigorous faith in the goodness of the world, a fear of public disfavor, a pride in success. He was glad that his wife was away. He admitted it without justifying it. He did not care."

"He was conscious that his line of progress seemed confused. He wondered what he would do with his future. He was still young; was he through with all adventuring? He felt that he had been trapped in the the very net from which he had with just fury escaped and, supremest jest of all, been made to rejoice in the trapping."

Listen Up!

Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation

"These girls now are facing similar issues, and I wonder how any girl is supposed to deal with her sexuality in a positive way when she is alternately sexualized and then told that sexuality is something that she is not allowed to possess or explore." -Ellen Friedrichs "Some Things You Keep With You"

"The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us." -Audre Lourde quoted by Tiya Miles "On the Rag"

"And I don't want to be told, 'Yes you're fat, but you're beautiful on the inside.' That's just another way of telling me that I'm ugly, that there's no way that I'm beautiful on the outside. Fat does not equal ugly, don't give me that. My body is me. I want you to see my body, acknowledge my body. True revolution comes not when we learn to ignore out fat and pretend we're no different, but when we learn to use it to our advantage, when we learn to deconstruct all the myths that propagate fat-hate." -Nomy Lamm "It's a Big Fat Revolution"

"Where's the revolution? My body is fucking beautiful, and every time I look in the mirror and acknowledge that, I am contributing to the revolution." -Nomy Lamm "It's a Big Fat Revolution"

"Today I was standing outside of work and I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and though, 'Hey, I don't look that fat!' And I immediately realized how fucked up that was, but that didn't stop me from feeling more attractive because of it." -Nomy Lamm "It's a Big Fat Revolution"

"A perversion of nature by society has resulted in a phenomenon whereby women feel safer when starving than when eating. Losing our weight boosts self-esteem, while nourishing our bodies evokes feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing." -Abra Fortune Chernik "The Body Politic"

"I finally understood that my eating disorder symbolized more than 'personal psychodynamic trauma.' Gazing in the mirror at my emaciated body, I observed a woman held up by her culture as the physical ideal because she was starving, self-obsessed and powerless, a woman called beautiful because she threatened no one except herself." -Abra Fortune Chernik "The Body Politic"

"Rather than shrinking from words like 'masculine' and 'butch,' we should point out why we are called these names and how male supremacy is served if we keep silent in fear of being called these names. We are called masculine when we act as we please, when we take control of our bodies and lives, when we speak out loud and refuse to be silenced, when we assert the dignity of our persons and our right to self-determination, when we are ambitions, courageous, sexy and proud. We are called butch when we decide that an hour in front of the mirror or closet is better spent helping women, making money, learning, having sex, laughing with friends or raising children. We are called butch when we decide that those eight hours on high heels hobble us and prevent us from fighting back. We are called butch we we become indifferent to the male gaze. We are called masculine and butch in order to keep us in our place, to scar us, to gag and silence us." -Jennifer Reid Maxcy Myhre "One Bad Hair Day Too Many, or The Hairstory of an Androgynous Young Feminist"

"Be careful, beautiful girl, be strong - just because he holds your hand and looks you in the eye when you talk to him doesn't mean he respects your body or your mind." -Christine Doza "Bloodlove"

The Idiot

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

"But all this had flown from his mind, everything except the one fact that she was sitting there beside him and that he was looking at her, and it made no difference to him then what she was talking about."

"For the prince, too, that morning began under the influence of painful forebodings; they could be explained by his state of illness, but his sadness was quite undefined and that was what made it most tormenting to him. It is true he was faced with facts that were clear, painful, and incisive, but his sadness went beyond everything he remembered and could reflect upon; he understood that he could not set his mind at rest again by himself."