Michelle

“Careful," she called out to me, her voice sharp; part admonishment, part warning. But I'd been that way all this time, and it hadn't changed a thing. Maybe it was better to barrel through life, breaking fragile things and catching on every jagged edge. Neat or messy, calm or crazy, I still ended up in this same place.”
― Sarah Dessen, Once and for All

“I'm frustrated with him, but I'm also frustrated with myself. That I can't find the words to explain it to him. I'm totally sure he's not doing it on purpose, but Seth is a guy, and he can't ever know what it feels like to walk down a hallway and know that you're getting judged for the size of your ass or how big your boobs are. He'll never understand what it's like to second guess everything you wear and how you sit and walk and stand in case it doesn't attract the right kind of attention, or worse, attracts the wrong kind. He'll never get how scary and crazy-making it is to feel like you belong to some big Boy Monster that decides it can grab you and touch you and rank you whenever and however it wants.”
― Jennifer Mathieu, Moxie

“Never listen to fools who dis Jane Eyre as being a story about a girl who gets her mean man. This is a character who gets what she wants and lives on her own terms by having moral fortitude, intelligence, courage, imagination and a will of iron. And that is one hell of a checklist. Imagine Charlotte Brontë writing this book in 1847. What a powerful story for women living at that time!”
― Fiona Wood, Cloudwish

“She stood behind her mother's chair and brushed her hair gently for about five minutes, drawing the brush smoothly from forehead to nape, over and over, in the way her mother liked. It was the only sustained physical contact she seemed to enjoy. Her usual mode of a kiss good-bye, for instance, was the kiss-and-push-you-on-your-way. She wasn't a snuggler. No surprise, really, that this acceptable affection came via a prickly implement.”
― Fiona Wood, Cloudwish