Evalangui

“calling things by their right names is more than giving them an identity bracelet or a label, or a serial number. We summon a vision. Naming is power.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein: A Love Story

“But, in the end, there was the only thing that meant I could live with myself after what had happened with Devlin: you had to trust the other person to tell you what they wanted. You had to give them the right to fuck up. Without that, they might be happier with the situation, but you weren’t treating them like a person. People asked for things when they weren’t sure, or even when they didn’t want them, they made sacrifices and they compromised. It was a choice, and they had to have the freedom to make it. Even if the only way they could have it was because you gave them that freedom. Because you were willing to believe they were capable of deciding.”
― N.J. Lysk, Alphas Alone

“I love you,” I said, and if people say it gets easier the more you say, they’re bullshitting you. It’s the opposite, it gets harder. Because every time you say, you’ve loved them for a longer time, they’ve become more integral to who you are. At some point, “I love you” also means “I need you” and there is nothing more terrifying than admitting that to another person who can walk out any time they like. But I owed it to him, not the love, that he’d earned himself. No, I owed him the truth and the trust because he’d offered them to me. You can love someone on your own, even if they can’t feel the same for you, but truth needs to be heard, and trust needs to be returned.”
― N.J. Lysk, The Parenting Habits of Werewolves

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.

That is why we invent stories, I said.

And what if we are the story we invent? said Shelley.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein: A Love Story