“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”
― Baruch Spinoza, Ethics

“I never meant for you to see that.”
“Of course, you wouldn't want me to see that. It's much more difficult to pull off an affair when the wife knows about it.”
― Cricket Rohman, Wanted: An Honest Man

“She found the perfect black dress: a little too short and a little too tight. No one would suspect she was an elementary school teacher.”
― Cricket Rohman, Wanted: An Honest Man

“I'm not a robot. I'm a freak of the universe ... a thinking animal ... and I'm trying to see my way clear through this morass.”
― Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

“There is a strange, slow moment. The final page in my inconclusive and fraying thesaurus. And I am floating upwards, I am driftwood between them. The bright, bright blue that is the sky. And the glitter in the tarmac, like a promise of stars.”
― Katie Hall-May, Memories of a Lost Thesaurus

“To create - a role, a poem, picture, music, a rapture in stone: great. But not for her.
What she wanted was to donate to the world a good Maud Martha. That was the offering, the bit of art, that could not come from any other.
She would polish and hone that.”
― Gwendolyn Brooks, Maud Martha

“The hardest thing in the world is to let go of who you once thought you were and to manifest your true self, at the risk of being unloved. This is self-actualization.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“I am shedding.
I am not a new me.
I am my old me in my new me.
I remain, carved with the soul of my knife.
My mess scattered all over my countenance.
I am me.
Take me as I am.”
― Malebo Sephodi

“You’re your loyal, set yourself free!”
― Sijdah Hussain, Red Sugar, No More

“Man is whoever he thinks he is, within his own boundaries.”
― Dudley Davidson-Jarrett, Undue Rewards

“Most people do not want much. All they want is to be envied by most people.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“It is the man who loves reading books who gets to know himself”
― Ndiritu Wahome, The Sad Artist and Other Fairytales

“God' is whatever is the next obvious step towards wholeness in yourself and your life; 'Ego' is whatever within you stops you taking it.”
― Oli Anderson, Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness

“And despite hitting rock bottom, you got back up. When you thought you wouldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, you created it. Your story is one of overcoming. Please acknowledge how powerful you are.”
― Ash Alves, A Warriors Reminder: A Collection of Reminders for Healing and Self-Empowerment

“Sometimes the love that it takes to look at your partner and realise that they should remain the way that they are, and not evolve alongside you, because they're happier as who they are just like that; whilst knowing that you must evolve, you must go on without them, because you have this one life and you know there's so much more on your path for you; is a far greater love than staying. Sometimes, leaving someone takes more courage and more love than wanting a life for them beside you, one that they aren't supposed to live.”
― C. JoyBell C.Bell C.

“I spend more time in front of this mirror than watching television … oh well, I suppose it’s better to watch myself than an electronic box full of lies”
― Scarlet Risque, Red Hourglass

“What I wasn’t expecting was the euphoria once my body began releasing endorphins. The mixture of pain and pleasure was ecstasy. Getting my tattoo introduced me to secret, dark pleasures. I would always be a marked prisoner, but I was a liberated soul.”
― Scarlet Risque, Red Hourglass

“There is a big problem that arises from keeping the company of those with limited perceptions. At first you'll think you're being kind, or doing people a favour, but the problem you'll eventually face, comes with the realization that we exist to other people not always as we are; but very often, we exist to people as THEY are. So, imagine taking photos with a primitive lens: the primitive lens will capture your view only within its own capacity to do so, and you end up having an image that does not display a true understanding of what it shot. The same thing happens when you allow yourself to be surrounded by primitive mindsets. And you must not do that to yourself; you must not allow all these images of you floating around, none of which do you any justice at all.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“Spirit does not - as we have been told -
keep trying to peel away from atoms of your body but is embedded in nature

and you - yourself - are the crucible
in which base metal can be turned to gold.”
― Ruth Padel, Emerald

“He told her the story of it, his words coming faster than with the others, without artifice or caution. Told her how he'd known there was something wonderful under the old paint from the moment he saw it lying on Falmouth's dirt. How the boat had spoken to him, guided him. How when he sailed it, he felt like a fuller version of himself. How he and Callie had used it to take the quoll to the forest on the eastern shore. (p.176)”
― Robbie Arnott, Limberlost