Olivia Benoit

“I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night. I think about laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. I think about having such control. Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore

“One day at a time. For the first time in years, she was sometimes able to imagine a future that didn’t include pain or pretense. She didn’t believe in “soldiering on” anymore and knew that trying to forget trauma only gave grim memories a fecund soil in which to grow.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Women

“Other people might experience these feelings all the time, whatever they are. Strong, powerful feelings of happiness, satisfaction, protectiveness. It could all be very ordinary, in the aftermath of mutually pleasant episodes like just now. Or even if it's rare, to have a few times in life and no more, still worth living for, he thinks. To have met her like this: beautiful, perfect. A life worth living, yes.”
― Sally Rooney, Intermezzo