Catling

“To be whole is to be part; true voyage is return.”
― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”
― Maya Angelou

“All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass