ryve > ryve's Quotes

“In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.”
― Emily Ratajkowski, My Body

“if you’re raised with an angry man in your house,
there will always be an angry man in your house.
you will find him even when he is not there.
and if one day you find that there is
no angry man in your house—
well, you will go find one and invite him in!”
― Catherine Lacey, Cut

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own / Three Guineas

“He is half of my soul, as the poets say.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

“Suddenly it seems important. Important that they know. That somebody know; that after everything, Regulus Black finally made the right choice.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“He doesn’t though. He isn’t. Falling apart that is.
Falling implies some sort of speed and destination.
If anything, Regulus is rotting.”
― MesserMoon, Choices

“Einen Mann hält man sich zu Ausstellungszwecken, nicht als Nutzobjekt.”
― Dürrenmatt Friedrich, Der Besuch der alten Dame

“I never worked out how to be relied upon and also free.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations

“I feel no nostalgia for our childhood: it was full of violence. Every sort of thing happened, at home and outside, every day, but I don't recall having ever thought that the life we had there was particularly bad. Life was like that, that's all, we grew up with the duty to make it difficult for others before they made it difficult for us.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other. No one understood us, only we two—I thought—understood one another.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“You’re really doing well, it’s the satisfaction you get from school, it’s love,” Lila said to me, and I felt that she was a little sad.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“I felt a sensation that later in my life was often repeated: the joy of the new.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“I'm never going to fall in love with anyone and I will never ever ever write a poem.'
'I don't believe it.'
'It's true.'
'But people will fall in love with you.'
'Worse for them.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“There is a poverty that makes us all cruel.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“Two more years: then I'll get my diploma and I'm done.'
'No, don't ever stop: I'll give you the money, you should keep studying.'
I gave a nervous laugh, then said, 'Thanks, but at a certain point school is over.'
'Not for you: you're my brilliant friend, you have to be the best of all, boys and girls.'
She got up, took off her underpants and bra, said, 'Come on, help me, otherwise I'll be late.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“When she gave me back the notebook, she said, 'You're very clever, of course they always give you ten.'
I felt that there was no irony, it was a real compliment. Then she added with sudden harshness:
'I don't want to read anything else that you write.'
'Why?'
She thought about it.
'Because it hurts me,' and she struck her forehead with her hand and burst out laughing.”
― Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

“He had never known two people could be simultaneously so angry with each other and so much in love.  

And it was love. Without a doubt.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“after all that waiting they hadn't had very long at all in the end”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“It was James who had an ego the size of a lake but a heart to match it.”
― MsKingBean89, All the Young Dudes

“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel