Ailsa

“Rather I think that a man who ... is willing ... to value learning as long as he lives, not supposing that old age brings him wisdom of itself, will necessarily pay more attention to the rest of his life.”
― Plato, Laches

“The general advice is always be yourself, be yourself, which only makes sense if you haven't got an attitude problem.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

“She thought it was probably a good idea to like being looked at if you were a girl—it was probably key to survival. If you were a gorilla it was the other way around. Somewhere the girl had read that if you looked a gorilla in the eye it would strangle you.”
― Kathryn Davis, Duplex

“A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was okay to be murky to yourself, to know you weren’t an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad.”
― Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers