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“How easily people can read each other!…And there I was, trying so hard to penetrate someone else’s mind, to find out if the soul hiding inside it was ordered or in turmoil. For even the most wretched and simpleminded man could be a surprise, even a fool could have a soul whose torments were a constant source of amazement. Why are we so slow to see this, and why do we assume that it is the easiest thing in the world to know and judge another? Why, when we are reluctant even to describe a wedge of cheese we are seeing for the first time, do we draw our final conclusions from our first encounters with people, and happily dismiss them?”
― Sabahattin Ali, Madonna in a Fur Coat

“He saw me watching and rubbed self-consciously at his calloused hands. “I know I am ugly to you.” No, I thought. My grandfather’s halls are filled with shining nymphs and muscled river-gods, but I would rather gaze on you than any of them.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“If feminism means freedom, it means the right to self-determination and the right to be multi-dimensional, disorganised and even incoherent.”
― Lola Olufemi, Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

“Milena, if a million loved you, I am one of them, and if one loved you, it was me, if no one loved you then know that I am dead.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena