Wake up every morning and tell yourself that you’re a badass bitch from hell and that no one can fuck with you and then don’t let anybody fuck with you."

Your past is just a story. And once you realize this, it has no power over you."

I’m like that. Either I forget right away or I never forget."

You have my permission not to love me;
I am a cathedral of deadbolts
and I’d rather burn myself down
than change the locks."

You don’t have to be pretty. You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”."

I’m going to tell you what a demon once told me: It is okay to want your own happiness. It’s okay to care about yourself the most. It’s okay to do what’s healthy for YOU. When someone hits you, it’s okay to hit back and then ask them what the hell they expected. It’s okay. You are not obligated to sit there and smile and swallow every bit of shit everyone heaps on you. You are more than furniture, you’re more than window dressing, you’re not their shiny toy. You’re human, and you have the right to say “That was shitty of you”. You have a right to say “Let me feed that back to you; tell me, how does it taste?” You have a right to protest your own mistreatment and set boundaries for respectful interactions. The rest of the world doesn’t realize you have this right, and they will act offended and appalled when you exercise it, but it is yours."

Men still have trouble recognizing that a woman can be complex, can have ambition, good looks, sexuality, erudition, and common sense. a woman can have all those facets, and yet men, in literature and in drama, seem to need to simplify women, to polarize us as either the whore or the angel. that sensibility is prevalent, even to this day."

Don’t confuse my personality with my attitude. My personality is who I am. My attitude depends on who you are."

Don’t lose yourself just because you found somebody."