Marina > Marina's Quotes

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”
― Douglas Adams

“If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
― Groucho marx

“My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.”
― Warsan Shire

“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
― Warsan Shire

“you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highway
to a burning house
says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name
you fill his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours
but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
― Warsan Shire

“two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.”
― Warsan Shire

“Don't assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don't say anything you can't stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.”
― Warsan Shire

“We can judge our progress by the courage of our questions and the depth of our answers, our willingness to embrace what is true rather than what feels good.”
― Carl Sagan

“The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true.”
― Carl Sagan

“I think self-esteem is a white invention to further separate one person from another. It asks people to assess their values and implies people have worth. It seems like identity capitalism.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries: A Memoir

“In white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it through ceremony. Pain is not framed like a problem with a solution. I don’t even know that white people see transcendence the way we do. I’m not sure that their dichotomies apply to me.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

“You think weakness is a problem. I want to be torn apart by everything.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries: A Memoir

“I think it’s dangerous to let go of a transgression when the transgressor is not contrite.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries: A Memoir

“Somehow, having a staring skeleton standing in a dark corner staring at her was even worse than having it right next to her.”
― Pirateaba, The Wandering Inn

“Let me remind all of us--disabled and nondisabled--that every time we defend our intelligence, we come close to disowning intellectually disabled people. We imply that it might be okay to exclude, devalue, and institutionalize people who actually live with body-mind conditions that impact the ways they think, understand, and process information.

The only way out of this trap is to move toward, not away from, intellectually disabled people, to practice active solidarity.”
― Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”
― James Baldwin

“We argue that human hierarchies based on racism, sexism and other forms of oppression are all grounded in the ontological divide between humans and animals and the environment. If it is acceptable to perpetrate violence against animals because they are not human, you can also justify violence against other humans because they are perceived as a lower form of life. Violence against indigenous peoples, slavery and imperialism have all been justified on that basis.”
― Vivienne Bozalek (Editor) , Bob Pease (Editor)

“What is our political and ethical relationship to other-than-human beings and matter? As I have argued (Ranta-Tyrkkö, 2017), currently social work professional codes of ethics focus largely on worker–client relationships in the present tense. In so doing, they limit, rather than empower, attempts to think about and practice social work with a broader spatial (for example, more than national) and temporal (for example, intergenerational) awareness, and in more collective (and not individualist and human-only centred) ways.”
― Vivienne Bozalek (Editor) , Bob Pease (Editor)