Golem Girl Quotes

“Leakage is unconscious. We all measure the world against our own bodies.
That said, leakage is a problematic idea, at a time when historically erased identities are trying to represent themselves through their own truths. My attempt to see you will always risk blurring you with me.”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir

“And so now, I say: Sometimes the monster is the one who saves us. It takes a monster to face down the dark.”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir

“A freak has a real human body. A monster's body is imaginary. The monster is a space in which we consider the boundaries of the acceptable.”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir

“Dr Lieska reviewed the sequence of dissection over the year: front of the torso (chest, abdomen, internal organs); rear torso (spine, ribs); the limbs; saving the hands and head for last. Heads and hands are wrapped separately, since they are perceived as the most intimate parts of our bodies (not in the genital sense, but as symbols of personhood). Faces are obviously difficult, but so is unwrapping a woman's hands and finding the remnants of her fingernail polish.”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir

“with children. Carole’s aesthetic was born out of a love for the fleeting and breakable”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir

“Nature is wayward and perverse: there is wild inside what we call abnormal.”
― Riva Lehrer, Golem Girl: A Memoir