Inspirational Quotes by Emma Pattee — Words of Wisdom for Daily Success

“Why, how, did my mother start making her birds? I don't know; I never asked. I suppose it was like growing up with a mother who goes to church on Sundays or gets her hair done every two weeks. Why? How? But the child whose mother goes to church on Sundays does not ask those questions, because to that child, it is a perfectly normal thing to do, to go sit on hard benches in a roomful of people discussing the specifics of a fairy tale (yes, I've shown my hand here, I suppose, but sooner or later you and I will have to have this discussion) and then having cookies and coffee afterward and chatting about the weather.”

“The short version is that nobody told us...that it is words to try and fail than to not try at all. Because when you don't try, you can always imagine the life you could have lived.”

“The problem with so many years spent sitting so close to somebody is that you can tell yourself you're being seen, but really you've disappeared, closed the blinds, nobody's home.”

“...there's nothing a woman hates more than walking by herself, and hearing a strange noise, or feeling the presence of an "other," that horrible sickness all over my body, ground shifting, women are so unsafe, all of us always pretending to be safe, always avoiding any reminder that our safety is upheld only as long as the person closest to us keeps deciding not to kill us.”

“....I rip open a candy bar and chew it twice before swallowing it, drool dripping out of my mouth. Flashlights bouncing off the floors and shelves like strobe lights. I pick up a can of something off a shelf. Blueberry lavender sauce. What the fuck. Throw it back down...”

“And the glow, the glow of hearing the words that came from inside of you being spoken out loud, of having the things you wrote be listened to and therefore made important.”