Julia

“When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?”
― Ann Leckie, Ancillary Sword

“We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 1

“And the first child asked: Dost thou oppose me, and thou half-dead?

And the second child said, I am as one half-dead, but you would be two-halves dead, bitch.

To which the first child said, My sweet, I only die of longing for thee.

And the other child said, Then perish.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn’t even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free and, therefore, completely subversive.”
― Percival Everett, James