"Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness,” “joy,” or “regret.” Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I’d like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster.” Or: “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy.” I’d like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age.” I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.” I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever."

"And I remember when I met him, it was so clear that
he was the only one for me.
We both knew it, right away.
And as the years went on, things got more difficult —
we were faced with more challenges.
I begged him to stay. Try to remember what
we had at the beginning.
He was charismatic, magnetic,
electric and everybody knew it.
When he walked in every woman’s head turned,
everyone stood up to talk to him.
He was like this hybrid,
this mix of a man who couldn’t contain himself.
I always got the sense that he became torn
between being a good person and
missing out on all of the opportunities that life could
offer a man as magnificent as him.
And in that way I understood him
and I loved him.
I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.
And I still love him.
I love him."

"The best way to dehumanize someone while claiming you’re not is to believe you are just the same. You erase their experiences and perspective, their struggles and obstacles, their unique way of having to deal with those things in a world that also erases them. With the words, ‘but humans are humans’ or the bullshit dramatics of ‘we all bleed red’ normal people can simply pretend that if we all did things the way they did, then everything would work out okay. But, yes, we all bleed red but you don’t treat a papercut the same way you treat a gash, you don’t treat an infected wound the same way you treat one that isn’t, you don’t treat a wound to the leg the same way you treat a wound to the gut. You are not acknowledging someone’s personhood when you ignore the very things that make their lives different than yours, and when you refuse to understand that their circumstances have given them their own perspective that is just as valid as yours. More valid in fact – their perspective about their experiences that you haven’t been through is far more valid than anything you could ever think about it."