Iona Clarkson > Iona's Quotes

“If you do not know what you feel, then it is difficult to choose love; it is better to fall. Then you do not have to be responsible for your actions.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm's way.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Giving generously in romantic relationships, and in all other bonds, means recognizing when the other person needs our attention. Attention is an important resource.”
― Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“A day or two after my love pronouncement, now feral with vulnerability, I sent you the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase “I love you” is like “the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name.” Just as the Argo’s parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase “I love you,” its meaning must be renewed by each use, as “the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“Life is too short to be lived badly.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“One can forgive but one should never forget.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“You are putting yourself in serious danger...'

I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“Culture and education are the lethal weapons against all kinds of fundamentalism.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“Once again, I arrived at my usual conclusion: one must educate oneself.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

“I finally understood what my grandmother meant. If I wasn't comfortable with myself, I would never be comfortable.”
― Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“Empirically speaking, we are made of star stuff. Why aren’t we talking more about that?”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“I told you I wanted to live in a world in which the antidote to shame is not honor, but honesty.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“There’s something truly strange about living in a historical moment in which the conservative anxiety and despair about queers bringing down civilization and its institutions (marriage, most notably) is met by the anxiety and despair so many queers feel about the failure or incapacity of queerness to bring down civilization and its institutions.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or their sexuality—or anything else, really—is to listen to what they tell you, and to try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours?”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“You, reader, are alive today, reading this, because someone once adequately policed your mouth exploring.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts