The Women Could Fly Quotes

“Anything can make sense to a person as long as it helps them feel powerful.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Sometimes, I thought my ability to joke about anything, anytime, anywhere was proof something was fundamentally wrong with me. Sometimes, I wondered if it was the only thing keeping me alive.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I know this is weird, but sometimes when you’re older, the worst place in the world might be your own brain.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“What was it like to be loved in a way that felt immutable? To not be told I was loved, but to feel it, to see it most of the time?”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“It’s a truth all people should know but they spend most of their lives working actively to forget: there is no power without the potential for harm.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“But I also kept thinking of every man I had ever known. The ones from high school who were now in jail or had DUIs or posted pictures on social media of their assault rifles. The men I would see at campus parties where at least two women would discreetly point to them and say, “Watch your drink when he’s around.” The men who would walk too close behind me when I was going home alone at night, who made me grip my keys in my hand, made me reach in my purse and pretend I had a canister of pepper spray in my palm. None of them had to sacrifice their privacy like this. I”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I reminded myself that throughout history women had endured far worse things. I had the internet, a job, access to pizza, money, no kids; no one had tried to burn me at the stake yet;”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Why was it so much easier to think about people than be with them?”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I wanted to be someone who didn’t flinch when the subject of me came up. There were so many things I could’ve told her about myself, about why I was the way I am, but I wanted Linden to like me. I chose silence.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“We brainstormed more as we walked. At one point, Linden paused and wrote into her notebook. She kept saying, “This is so ambitious,” in a way I knew meant her brain was whirring. Few things made me feel happier to be alive than having an idea, telling it to a friend I respected, and having them instantly take it seriously. The more things we said to each other, the bigger and more tangible the path became in my imagination. It would also be beautiful.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I still get angry thinking about the desecration of those bodies, but there's also something hilarious to me about being so rich that you can arrange to have a body stolen and cremated, to be so completely stupid-desperate that you think this corpse powder can fix all your problems.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“All those people deserved rashes. I felt sure in those moments if I had the ability to point at them and make them itch for an hour, I would be a much happier person.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Thinking about him taking the time to put lotion on his hands, considering how they would feel to me, made me smile. Then, I paused, and wondered if my standards were too low.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Once, there were men who loved to see punishment. They were elected officials, businessmen, community pillars, and every kind of man in between. They loved anything that would balkanize everyone they considered beneath them. If everyone was busy fighting for their rights, fighting each other, and the men stayed together, they would always get to be in charge of everything.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I told her how we had thought social media were going to be these great places where everyone could connect, where we could learn things and share all our little comments about TV shows without annoying the people watching with us, where there were no limits to the possibilities of language. Then, it became mostly like almost everything else that people touched. White, thin, conventionally attractive people amassed power, white men continued to assert their dominance because they were afraid of change, and sometimes between white people talking over them and being racist, Black people got to be funny.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“There have always been greedy people. It’s not unnatural to be greedy. If you spend enough time being afraid, thinking of only survival, it leads to hoarding. Cruel isolation can set in. The poison that makes people want to be kings, to do things and not consider the harm their actions bring, to value things and power over life, can saturate a person’s brain. Even in the past, people were always making a crucial choice: Is life the most valuable thing of all, or is the most valuable thing of all your personal pleasure?”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Women start receiving pamphlets from the state at age eighteen. We are told starting at fourteen to monitor ourselves for signs of magical expression. Floating while sleeping, lights consistently flickering as we walk beneath them, unconsciously repeating ourselves three times, having a desire to eat raw meat, hearing voices others can’t hear, wanting to teach other people cruel lessons. At school, we are separated from the boys for classes about menstruation, our changing bodies, and what we should do if we ever feel like we are being swayed toward the dark one’s path. Our parents could opt us out of health classes, but no one could miss any of the classes about checking ourselves and our peers for witchcraft.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“Pizza is not emotional penicillin.”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“I had the internet, a job, access to pizza, money, no kids; no one had tried to burn me at the stake yet;”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly

“you just scared? A creak in the night wasn’t a monster—I was too old to be”
― Megan Giddings, The Women Could Fly