Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars Quotes

“I wanted to protect you, but I'm starting to think that the best thing you can do for people is teach them how to protect themselves. Every girl needs to be at least a little dangerous.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“You will be able to stop hurting people when you stop hurting yourself.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Sometimes to be somebody else, you have to be nobody first”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“That's the difference between love and hunger," she says. "Hunger is a story you gt stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Little cocoon apartment, I love how you rattle and shake in the wind. You are mine like nothing has ever been before. Someday you'll tear open, and I'll fly out with the wings I have grown inside you. Still shimmering. Still wet.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“It's actually a very old archetype that trans girl stories get put into: this sort of tragic, plucky-little-orphan character who is just supposed to suffer through everything and wait, and if you're good and brave and patient (and white and rich) enough, then you get the big reward...which is that you get to be just like everybody else who is white and rich and boring. And then you marry the prince or the football player and live boringly ever after.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“We sit together and wait. For the time to pass. For the memories to fade. For the waiting to be over”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“The world spins and spins. Sometimes, there is nothing you can do but surrender. There is nothing you can do but stand in your best friend's dingy kitchen and bake cakes and cry and hope hope hope for something better to come. Nothing you do will ever stop the world turning, will ever tilt the planet off its axis. All revolutions are futile in the end.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“It's good for you to cry sometimes. Even if there isn't a reason.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Some people will cling on to anything that makes them feel even a little bit free.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“My parents had been hungry for so long that it filtered
into all of their emotions and all of their dreams. They
saw the world through hunger-tinted glasses, so that every plate looked a little less full of food than it really was
and every paycheque (never large enough to begin with)
seemed even smaller. When they looked at me and my
sister, even their love was hungry.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Kimaya is also looking in the mirror, and I meet her gaze there. There is a look I do not like in her expression, a hint of something that doesn’t match her sweet tone and seems totally alien for my warm, generous femme sister. It is a look like I might wear—eyes narrow and lips pursed. She’s peering at herself, not liking what she sees.

And I think about how fish means jealousy among femmes. About how we are all so hungry for what each other has, when the truth is none of us has enough to begin with. I think about how strange and funny it is that there are many femmes who would kill, who would sell their souls to Dr. Crocodile, for the chance to leave the Street of Miracles, when all my life I have been running toward it.

And I think about how Kimaya is right, how fish means opportunity and privilege. Someday, I may swim away from here into another place. I remember my little sister back in Gloom, and how escaping always seems to mean leaving someone behind.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Honey, you hurt yourself,” she says, “because every- body around you hurts people and is hurting and that’s just the story you were given. You can’t get stuck in that. Don’t get stuck in any one story, not even your own.

“That’s the difference between love and hunger,” she says. “Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love’s the story that takes you somewhere new.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“That's the difference between love and hunger," she says. "Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“That's the difference between hunger and love," she says. "Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love's the story that takes you somewhere new.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Kimaya's smile is a key: it opens doors to places that I desperately want and am afraid to go. It is a map, guiding the way. It is warm butter, melting on toast. It feels like sisterhood. It feels like open arms. It feels like home.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“My father taught me how to kill a man with my bare hands. He was a martial arts expert back in the day, having grown up in an honest-to-god Shaolin temple and all, and he thought that punching and kicking stuff would make me a man. It didn't work out for him, but the skills have proven quite useful.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“...I feel tired. I don't want to be myself anymore.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“A sanctuary is a place where the door only locks from the inside.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“My parents had been hungry for so long that it filtered into all of their emotions and all of their dreams. They saw the world through hunger-tinted glasses, so that every plate looked a little less full of food than it really was and every paycheque seemed even smaller. When they looked at me and my sister, even their love was hungry.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“When you fight back, when you hurt people, it makes them stop loving you, Charity. I don't want that for you.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Honey, you hurt yourself,” she says, “because everybody around you hurts people and is hurting and that’s just the story you were given. You can’t get stuck in that. Don’t get stuck in any one story, not even your own.

“That’s the difference between love and hunger,” she says. “Hunger is a story you get stuck in. Love’s the story that takes you somewhere new.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Sometimes, the world just won't stop spinning and spinning, unwinding itself like a spool of thread. Trailing strings of broken bodies and forgotten things through grey, empty space.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“so silly to think
that i could ever leave you
behind...”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Once you start hurting, people you can't stop.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Forget, if you can, all the promises you've ever made and the lies that you've told.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“Sometimes, to become somebody else, you have to become nobody first.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“I would feel my whole body clenching up with hungry hope was I planned my Great Escape.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars