Books

"One of the things that’s perennially fascinating about the world is the way people sell things to themselves. If people feel the need to sell something to themselves, that tells its own tale."

-Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods 

Who gets to speak and why...is the only question

Chris Kraus, I Love Dick

I got a pedicure each time I promised myself I’d stop doing heroin—which is to say, I got pedicures that whole summer. Pedicures gave me the false notion I was about to get my shit together. I wasn’t functioning well—my brain cells were spent, and my serotonin was depleted. Sitting despondent in a vinyl chair was as good as it got.

Chloe Caldwell, I’ll Tell You In Person

"I’m a political person, a political radical. I believe that the struggle for freedom, pleasure, transcendence is not just an individual matter. The social system that organizes our lives, and as far as possible channels our desire, is antagonistic to that struggle; to change this requires collective effort. "

-Ellen Willis, “Coming Down Again” from No More Nice Girls

"The gangs of girls marched into where we lived like they were welcome. (And, to be fair, they had been once…) They knew from how they’d known us then where we kept what was dear to us. They knew where we hid our special secrets. "

-Rebecca Brown, “The Ruined City” from The Terrible Girls