Syd :) > Syd :)'s Quotes

“Like after a prairie fire. I saw one, years ago, when we were in Nebraska. It seems like the end of the world. The earth is all scorched and black and everything green is gone. But after the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow.” She held Izzy at arm’s length, wiped her cheek with a fingertip, smoothed her hair one last time. “People are like that, too, you know. They start over. They find a way.”
― Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere

“I’m afraid to ask for what I need. I’m afraid of my survival seeming selfish. I’m afraid of my mental illnesses. I’m afraid of my sadness. I’m afraid of my anger. I’m afraid of the things that I want. I’m afraid of what people will think of the things that I want. I’m afraid of what people think. I’m afraid of my voice. I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing. I’m afraid of saying the right thing. I’m afraid of not knowing what the right thing is. I’m afraid of taking up space. I’m afraid of public transit. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of what men have done to me in the dark. I’m afraid of cisgender white men. I’m afraid of saying not all men and then having my face held down in the dirt by another man. I’m afraid of sex. I’m afraid of never getting over my trauma. I’m afraid of putting things down. I’m afraid of letting things go.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“Some people treat lost loves like stars, like guiding lights in the dark. You can spend your whole life following the past around if you really want to. My sister never did let a single thing go. It’s true, she put Orion’s body in the sky when he died. Now she sleeps under its light forever. It sounds romantic but her heart is so sore.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“When people say you cannot love others until you love yourself, they fundamentally misunderstand love. Nothing thrives in isolation.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“Aphrodite tells me that love is like wine. If your cup is already full and you try to add more, it will just spill onto the carpet. Some people try and try and just stain everything. Their fingers are purple with want. She says you shouldn’t open a new bottle if you’re still holding onto an old one. I tell her I don’t drink anymore and she says to me, “You have to let something go. You carry too much in your heart. There’s no room for anything else.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“but Achilles mourned Patroclus the way a soul mourns a body.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“Men said she was the perfect vessel for evil to enter the world, but men are the ones who wrote the stories. Men wrote the myths down and called them history, and time has dragged them further from the truth. Pandora’s jar became a box. Eve’s pomegranate, an apple. All the details change but one: it is a woman with her hand on the door to Hell.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“Time is not linear. I see the beginning and the end of all things now. I know Pandora. I understand Eve. I have been them and I have made them, both. Their stories repeat, as does mine, in the hands of every person who scrambles to be both what they’re expected to be and what they are. Everyone who upends their own darkness and swallows it.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“I feel no shame for my body. I feel no shame for my voice. I feel no shame for what I have left behind. I feel no shame for the love that did not fit. I feel no shame for my grief. I feel no shame for what I have outgrown. I feel no shame for who I have loved. I feel no shame for what I have loved. I feel no shame for the bodies in my bed. I feel no shame for discarding my old name. I feel no shame for disagreeing. I feel no shame for being loud. I feel no shame for taking up space. I feel no shame for fighting back. I feel no shame for my anger. I feel no shame for my defense. I feel no shame for the things I have done to ensure my peace of mind, my freedom, my space, and my survival.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It

“Your abuser's past does not absolve them of their abuse. Their depression does not absolve them of their abuse. Your relationship with them does not absolve them of their abuse. How long you've known them does not absolve them of their abuse. Your love for them does not absolve them of their abuse.”
― Trista Mateer, Aphrodite Made Me Do It