“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (via how-novelistic)
“Once she ceased expecting, she ceased being angry; for anger is really disappointed hope.”
— Erica Jong, Parachutes and Kisses (via nerd4music)
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it’s all a male fantasy: that you’re strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren’t catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you’re unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
—
Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (via monkeyknifefight)
Those last two lines
(via maritsa-met)
“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
— E. B. White (via infinitives)
“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (via satans-advocate)
shiny happy people
“Ask most people what they want out of life and the answer is simple - to be happy. Maybe it’s this expectation though of wanting to be happy that just keeps us from ever getting there. Maybe the more we try to will ourselves to state’s of bliss, the more confused we get - to the point where we don’t recognize ourselves. Instead we just keep smiling, trying like hell to be the happy people we wish we were. Until it eventually hits us, it’s been there all along. Not in our dreams or our hopes but in the known, the comfortable, the familiar.”
If you’re young, black, talented, and confident, there are gonna be so many people gunning for you straight from the beginning. You won’t even have a chance to directly offend them, so that they’d have a justified reason to hate you, the fact that you don’t “know your place” and have the audacity to succeed is offensive enough. If you’re young, black, talented, and confident, people are going to hate you for not doubting yourself. They’re gonna hate you for stepping ouside of their idea of how your life should be. They’re gonna hate you for simply being, for existing, for living.
If you’re intelligent they’re gonna hate you for your wit. If you’re eloquent they’re gonna hate you for your speech. If you’re compassionate they’re gonna hate you for your kindness. And if you’re beautiful, they’re gonna hate you because of their own ugliness. It’s not your fault, so don’t dwell on the ignorance. If you’re young, black, talented, and confident, people will hate you for you; and nothing that you can do will suffice them so don’t even attempt to do so.
If you respond to their attacks they’re gonna hate you for speaking up. And if you ignore their jeers and insults, they’ll hate you for your “righteous silence.” If you love them, they’ll hate you even more. They’re gonna hate you for not hating them back. There’s nothing you can do for these people so don’t even exhaust yourself thinking about them, worrying about them, or paying them undeserved attention. If you’re young, black, talented, and confident, you will be hated for your greatness for the rest of your life. And there’s no response better than continuing to be great.
I really, really needed this right now.
